The Presentation of Love by Different Authors
Compare and contrast how love is presented in 5, pre 1914, poems.
Love is conveyed in many different ways by the different authors of
the poems, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ (Elizabeth Barrett Browning), ‘First
Love’ (John Clare), ‘Villegiature’ (Edith Nesbit), ‘My mistresses eyes
are nothing like the sun’ (William Shakespeare) and ‘Sonnet 18’
(William Shakespeare). Love is presented using a different number of
themes such as religion, passion, sickness and nature.
The different authors use many different forms of language to present
love. The poem ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ uses many different forms of
language to calculate Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love for someone.
The author uses imagery to help us imagine the circumstances and her
feelings;
‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach’.
The poems ‘First Love’, ‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the
sun’, ‘Villegiature’ and ‘ Sonnet 18’ also use imagery. ‘First Love’
creates the image of a young girl with a light flower like face framed
with darkness. It also creates physical imagery such as;
‘pale as deadly pale’.
‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun ’ although it does not
convey a nice picture uses imagery to express the ordinariness of the
dark lady. ‘ Villegiature’ although in a dream world gives us a
picture of
‘pear-tree bloom, White-curtained shone’.
‘Sonnet 18’ passion is conveyed through complementing imagery by
creating an angel like image of the man;
‘his gold complexion’
and
‘every fair from fair’.
To create imagery the poets use a mixture of similes; ‘My face turned
pale as deadly pale’ (First Love), rhetorical questions; ‘How do I
love thee? Let me count the ways (How Do I Love Thee?), caesura’s;
‘yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound’ (My
mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun), metaphors; ‘Word’s from my
eyes did start’ (First Love), and alliteration.
‘How do I Love Thee?