Happiness and Its Aftermath of Despair

The Victorian and Romantic poets frequently subjected their readers to the partnering theme of love and death in their literary works. It is often found that where the subject of love is written, the finality of death will closely follow. Each poet has their various ways of identifying the intensity of love; however, both pleasure and pain are commonly depicted. An accurate statement would be that the intensity of passion leads to death. The passion most commonly portrayed is that of anger, fear or desire.

In Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “The lady of Shalott”, the intensity portrayed is that of desire. The Lady is trapped in a tower on “the island of Shalott” (9). She has a view of Camelot through her mirror, “And up and down the people go” (6), as she watches their reflections. She is not seen by others and only heard by a few: “There she weaves by night and day” (37). She has been told that curse will befall her if she dares to pause “To look down to Camelot” (41). One day she sees the reflection of Sir Lancelot and immediately “She left the web, she left the loom, /She made three paces through the room,” (109-110); In her effort of looking at him she also looks towards Camelot “‘The curse is come upon me’, cried/ The Lady of Shalott” (116-117). Here is this beautiful, yet unavailable woman who gives in to her desires in a moment of weakness to see a man she lust for, inevitably activating the curse and ensuring her death made evident in the line: “Singing in her song she died” (152). Tennyson demonstrates how the intensity of her desire to covet what she knows she cannot have will kill her. It is a beautiful and tragic portrayal of love and death. Desires can be so powerful that they override our natural instincts to protect o...

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...of love is too much. They lose their senses and in turn lose their lives. The cliché “It is better to love and lose, then to never have loved at all” comes to mind when analyzing why they made the choices that they did. In Browning’s poem the desire and fear of losing the woman he loves to societal restrictions is too much for the speaker to withstand. Love causes such intense feelings inside of us. We become incapable of making rational decisions and it leads us to project our illusions onto the one we love. In this case Porphyria’s lover has fears and insecurities, and this causes an unhealthy attachment, distorting the speaker’s view of reality. In all situations, the intensity of their love and passion has led to death. They have sacrificed any chance of future happiness for the intense pleasure that loving and being loved provided them in that one moment.