Destructive Emotions in Poems, Mixed Emotions, Porphyria's Lover, and This Be the Verse

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Each of the following poems, ‘Mixed Emotions’, ‘Porphyria's Lover’, and ‘This be the Verse’, convey the receptivity of destructive emotions and how these may cause people to act or behave. Although the poems have some similarities, each of the poets, Hauge, Browning and Larkin, have a different style of presenting these emotions. This can be seen through the enjambment in mixed emotions, and the contrast with Browning's caesura's and end stops. Browning uses caesura's towards the climax of the poem, when the male narrator murders his lover. The caesura's are used to create a pause in the middle of the line, suggesting Browning is giving the reader time to take in the idea of murder. The use of caesura's are important when looking at the context of the poem. Due to it being written in the Victorian period, it was seen to be an anomaly as very few poets wrote about the ugliness and brutality of murder. Therefore, at the time, the pauses within lines were used as a way of evoking the thoughts of murder within the middle class readers and ultimately caused them to see the horrors within their society. In addition to this, Browning sets out the poem in one long stanza. This shows that although later in the poem the narrator is presented to believe he is in control, in actual fact he is not. The long stanza shows a quick thought process that is occurring thought after thought, rather than being planned in advance. It also presents these destructive thoughts to be messy (think of a better word) within his mind, and it seems to be a spur of the moment attack. However the end stops used, slow the pace down. This contrasts to mixed emotions where there is enjambment. This shows a continuous, and fast paced line of destructive thoughts. H... ... middle of paper ... ...imilar techniques such as aggressive language to show the destructive emotions within people, and how this effects their behaviour. However, they also use very different techniques such as Browning's dramatic monologue, contrasting to Larkin's quatrains, formed in a nursery rhyme fashion. Each poet has a different context to their destructive emotions too, with Browning focusing on the destruction of someone else, Hauge on the destruction of oneself, and Larkin the destruction of society. Write about the direct address and how that evokes sympathy from the reader, and how it also makes the reader think about themselves. You can write about the destructive language against herself, and how it portrays her self hatred, or lack of self esteem, which each individual has experienced at some point in their life so it creates a connection between the poet and the reader

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