What Makes a Good Love Poem?

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Tom Wood 10A1                24/6/2002

What Makes a Good Love Poem?

Verbal Cleverness / Original Language

There are many different techniques that help us to make a good love poem. Throughout many of the poems that I have studied from the past five centuries, many of them use verbal cleverness mixed with original language to try and convey their own ideas of love. One such poem is William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 in which he uses over-elaborate language to talk about his love.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

This is a rhetorical question that is going to be answered throughout the rest of the poem. William Shakespeare is asking himself if his love is like a summer’s day with all of the beauty and splendour of a summer’s day. The summer’s day is expressing the idea that their love has no doubts, and everything is happy and optimistic like a summer’s day is.

Throughout the duration of Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare uses vibrant language that helps to describe the love that he is feeling.

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines”

Shakespeare feels as though he is in ‘heaven’ at this point in his relationship. The eye of heaven represents the sun, and his love is bright and is shining and nothing is getting in the way. Shakespeare repeats the phrase ‘eternal’ and he has a reoccurring theme of ‘summer’ in this sonnet. He is implying that love will last for eternity. Shakespeare uses a positive viewpoint to show his undivided love.

“But thy eternal summer shall not fade”

His love for her will not fade even throughout the years and will never cease.

“Birthday” by Christina Rossetti is a very good example for the use of bright and colourful language in love poems. This poem compares love to many positive images such as bright colours, flowers and fruit. This creates a view for the reader that Christina Rossetti is very happy and confident about their love.

“Peacocks with a hundred eyes; work it in gold and silver grapes, in leaves, and silver fleur-de-lys”

Christina Rossetti compares love to a range of colours and shows her feelings about her love in an optimistic manner. A peacock has many colours and shades on its tail. In “Birthday”, there are a variety if images that portray Christina Rossetti’s feelings in an upbeat way. Use of words such as “rainbow” show that she is going through a wide range of happy emotions with her life “because the birthday of my life is come, my love is come to me”. It feels to Christina Rossetti that all of her birthdays have come all at once. She is so happy that she compares her happiness to all her birthday’s coming at once.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare uses a lot of original language and many language techniques to convey the love that he has. He is saying that even though looks and beauty do not last, marriage and love are an “ever-fixed mark” and do not stop. During sonnet 116, William Shakespeare personifies love and says that no matter how long your marriage lasts; love is always there and continues to do so until death.

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“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom”

 Love lasts until death unlike the material things but in “How do I love thee…” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning she says: “I shall but love thee better after death”.

She is saying here that love continues after death but it will be a different type of love, while Shakespeare seems to imply that, after death, not only will the marriage stop but the love will stop as well. Shakespeare is admitting that human love is limited because there is so ...

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