Different Aspects of Love in Poetry

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Recommended: Basics treatment of love as a theme in metaphysical poetry

Different Aspects of Love in Poetry

The metaphysical poems of pre 1914 explored the whole experience of

humans, which included love, politics, and how society was e.g. in

this era premarital relations were forbidden by the church, romance

and mans lust towards women. The poets used romance to represent other

deeper issues in a symbolic way, like in "To His Coy Mistress" or "The

Flea" where the poets use syllogistic arguments, which are usually

used in politics, and in these poems show what society then was like.

A lot of metaphysical poems usually contained accounts of how a woman

has lost her virginity before marriage which at that time was

considered a taboo subject as the women would have been ostracised

because the church believed that women should only ever have sex with

their husbands.

The poems I will talk about are "The Flea" by John Donne (1572-1631),

"To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell (1621-78), "The Sick Rose" by

William Blake (1757-1827), "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy

(1840-1928) and "Upon Julia's Clothes" by Robert Herrick (1591-1674).

The different aspects of love I will explore may include: Physical

aspects of love and sex; the spiritual dimension of love, a

distinction between love and courtly praise; lasting love; jealousy

and possessiveness in obsessive relationships; betrayal; the different

ways in which women write about love from men and the feelings

experienced after the loss of a loved one.

In all of the poems love is a theme. Sex in the Elizabethan times was

taboo. The church forbade premarital relations of any sort. These

poems illustrate this. "The Flea" is about a man who is trying to

pe...

... middle of paper ...

...o she, by doing this is telling him no.

She obviously doesn't fall for his lies. He then tries to exploit her

guilt of killing the flea as he sees it as the only way for sex. He

turns his argument about the flea around. At first he describes the

flea as the lowest of the low, then he tries to make her feel guilty

by saying it was a poor helpless creature:

"Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?"

This shows he is trying to make her feel guilty by saying the flea was

innocent. It is also ironic with the "blood of innocence" which I

would have thought in this poem would have been the opposite as blood

from sex which it refers to is far from innocent.

In "The Ruined Maid" we find a poem which is yet again about sex

before marriage. It suggests that having sex before marriage could be

very beneficial to a woman.

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