First Love' and 'How Do I Love Thee?' are both very personal experiences as they are written in the first person narrative. I believe that the two poets

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Taiba Gultasib                    Pre-1914 Love Poetry                    English Coursework

“Love Is An Abstract Emotion And Can Produce Conflicting Feelings.”

Love is an abstract emotion, untouchable even though it dwells in our hearts. It can have many faces creating conflicting feelings; yet each time it is immeasurable and its reach limitless. Love can be radiant and a source of joy and happiness for the possessor, altering ones life to such an extent that it can never be the same again. However, love’s path is not always smooth for it can produce as much pain and sorrows as it does happiness.

Even though it may create mixed feelings, love itself is not always the same. It can vary from person to person and the emotions that it creates within people also differ. We can acknowledge this through the first two poems which I have studied. Although they both convey feelings of intense love, John Clare in ‘First Love’ attempts to show the doubtful stages of love at first sight, whereas Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet in ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ portrays the intensity of her long-term love in a very celebratory manner.

‘First Love’ and ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ are both very personal experiences as they are written in the first person narrative. I believe that the two poets, Clare and Browning, use this tense to create a greater impact on the reader. One example of first person narrative is as follows:

“I ne’er was struck before that hour” (Clare)

“I love thee to the depth, breadth and width…” (Browning)

They appeal more directly to the reader in a way that would not have been possible if the poems were written in second or third person narrative. We know this from words such as ‘I’ and ‘My’ which are used by both poets throughout their poems.

In ‘First Love’, Clare tries to use concrete ideas to express love, as love is a conceptual emotion. One of the examples used in the poem is:

“My life and all seemed turned to clay” 

By expressing the debilitation he feels using such imagery, Clare is successful in capturing a solid emotion caused by the allusive love. Similarly, Browning also compares her abstract love to something that she can visualise:

“I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight”

As we can see from the above, both poets have tried to portray love by not only describing it as a solid and transfixed object, but also in a manner that connects it with other visual articles. This has been done through the use of strong language techniques such as similes and metaphors. Clare uses metaphors to express the extreme emotions he feels in ‘First Love’. In the beginning of the poem, Clare states:

“And stole my heart away complete”  

He then goes on to continue this metaphor at the end of the poem:

“My heart has left its dwelling place

And can return no more.”

Here, Clare tries to exaggerate the position of his heart, which is further emphasised because of the fact that he describes it twice using metaphors. In this way, the reader feels that this is a strong change that Clare experiences due to love; especially because his heart is the last subject of the poem.

As well as using similes and metaphors, Clare also uses personification to show the intensity of his love.

“And then my blood rushed to my face”

By using personification, Clare is able to make his feelings seem real and intense to the reader, in order to describe the emotions.

Similarly, Browning also uses similes in a strong, figurative way in order to show the status of her love:

“I love thee freely, as men strive for Right”

In this phrase, Browning portrays the freedom she feels in loving this person, meaning that she loves willingly. Furthermore, in the same phrase, we come across a hint of altruism, through the word ‘Right’; this gives us evidence of the truthness of this mutual love, which she carries confidentially.

As well as the above, Clare and Browning also use rhetorical questions in their poems. Nevertheless, the effects of using such questions vary.

“Are flowers the winters choice?

Is love’s bed always snow?

These two rhetorical questions used by Clare bring about a sense of doubt in the poem, ‘First Love’. As we know, flowers never bloom in the winter; snow never stays transfixed and eventually melts. From this we can see how Clare is trying to compare such objects to symbolise the impossibility of his love.

“How do I love thee?”

This is a rhetorical question used by Browning. Unlike Clare, Browning uses the above phrase to convey the positive and definite strength of her love.

‘First Love’ and ‘How Do I Live Thee’ both use imagery in different ways to illustrate diverse ideas.

“Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower”

Here, Clare compares his lover’s face to nature. As we know nature symbolises peace and harmony. By using a flower to represent nature, Clare can successfully transmit the harmonious emotions he feels upon sighting her face through the use of such language.

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“They spoke like chords do from the string”

Clare also uses music to embody love, as we can see from the above phrase. Music represents joy and love and due to this, Clare uses chords to exemplify this expression.

“Trees and bushes round the place

Seemed midnight at noonday”

From the above, we can see that Clare has used gothic and supernatural elements to express the emotions he feels being in love. The phrase tells us that Clare feels like as if his entire world has turned upside down and we can understand how this love has affected him.

Nevertheless, ...

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