Eavan Boland’s poem “Love” comes from her collection entitled In a Time of Violence. In the piece Boland both reflects on the history of her and her husband’s love and ties it in with the story of a hero who travels to hell. The poem’s form is stanzaic, broken into 7 stanzas with 38 lines. “Love” is rich with metaphor, simile, personification and imagery. The poem makes constant allusion to Greek Mythology, and the author’s story runs parallel to that of Odysseus from Homer’s “The Odyssey” . Boland is able to convey the journey loves take throughout the course of a relationship and how it is affected during difficult times. Boland is able to frame her work in a way that helps establish the theme of the journey of love. The poem is immediately …show more content…
This theme is explored mainly through the use of metaphor. The metaphor Boland uses to describe the nature of love is rather powerful. She states, “love had the feather and muscle of wings.” (line 10) This metaphor describes two aspects of love. Firstly, love is strong which is demonstrated over the course of the poem as we see their love survive the near loss of one of their children. The other aspect illustrated is that love can leave at any time. According to Boland love has the muscle of wings and like a bird with wings it has the freedom to come and go. Boland also uses the personification that love is, “a brother of fire and air.” (line 12) Using the term “brother” draws on the family concept that this piece is centred around. This term also makes it obvious to the reader that the relationship is airtight as there is no closer bond than between brothers. The Earth, air, fire and water were once believed to be the four elements essential to live. This would imply that Boland believes love is so powerful that it is also a necessity of life. The nature of love is a theme explored thoroughly thorough the poem and Boland uses metaphor to outline its …show more content…
She is able to use visual imagery to display her spouse in an epic manner. Boland says she wants to return to see her husband, “with snow on the shoulders of [his] coat / and a car passing with its headlights on.” (lines 27-28) When imagining this scene the car serves as somewhat of a spotlight to frame her husband who is standing on a bridge covered in snow, this picture illustrates Boland’s spouse in a heroic light. The snow on his shoulders gives off the idea that he has been travelling through tough conditions. Boland uses the simile, “I see you as a hero in a text- / the image blazing and the edges gilded.” (lines 29-30) This shows just how heroic Boland imagines her old husband, making him out to be like a hero from a Greek epic. The imagery created in the second part of that statement is that of a grand painting, with its edges framed in gold further illustrating the epic like manner Boland sees her husband in. It is clear that through Boland’s depiction of her “old” husband she misses the way things use to
In the poems, “EΡΩΣ” by Robert Bridges and “Eros” by Anne Stevenson both have similar yet distinct concepts of the God of love. “EΡΩΣ” describes the concept of love as being conflicted between humans view of Eros as the god of love and lust; where as Stevenson’s poem describes Eros as being bruised and beat up as a result of this constant misunderstanding by humanity. Thus, both poems are similar with their description of Eros’ constant struggles with human nature.
The overall themes of this poem are beauty, love, and destiny. The speaker constantly discusses beautiful things and how they can help us. Love can be felt throughout the entire poem. In the first stanza, the speaker verbalizes how he “came with love of the race.” He also expresses love for the beautiful things around him. The theme destiny can be seen in the third stanza when the speaker talks about staying on course. It can also be identified in the last stanza when he describes something inevitable that was about to
Can a simple emotion such as love be regarded as one of the greatest weapons to create or attain power? It’s a renowned fact that human beings are by nature designed to need, crave, and even require love as part of their survival mechanisms. It comes to no surprise that one of the first accounts of antique poetry maintains love and the craving for it as its main theme; thereby, reinforcing the deep importance that it upholds in the lives of many individuals. Sappho’s “Deathless Aphrodite” clearly epitomizes the suffering and bitterness that arises from an unrequited love. In Sappho’s case, which portrays the case of many, she constantly finds herself in loneliness and despair for though she tries repeatedly, she is only let down recurrently as no one reciprocates the love she gives. It is only the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who holds
The love of the protagonist and his wife in William Shakespeare’s trgedy Othello can not stand up against the repeated assaults of the sinister Iago. Let us in this essay search for and comment on the examples of love found in the play.
Although the two poems by Robert Bridges and Anne Stevenson revolve around Eros, the god of love, both possess a significantly different view of the topic. Based upon first observation, mutual uses of diction and imagery appear noticeable, emphasizing the overwhelming and insightful background of the Greek god; however, despite focusing solely on equal topics, the representations of both are clearly dissimilar in terms of expressing both the mood and atmosphere of the theme.
...s the theme of family. For example, when you truly love someone in your family, you make sure that you show them you truly love them by not only giving them a hug but also telling them that you love them. I can relate to this situation because whenever I notice that my mom is feeling down, I make sure that I tell her that I love her and she is the best mom in the world. Another theme that is present in this poem that I can relate with my life is the theme of mortality. For example, the man is obsessed with not only how but also why Annabel died. I can relate to the man in this situation because after my mom’s dog passed away about nine or ten years ago I was wondering for the longest time why she had to pass away. She wasn’t always the nicest dog, but I still loved her anyways. This poem celebrates the child-like emotions with the ideals of the Romantic era.
When young and experimental, everyone remembers their first love and what it meant to them and how it shaped them. They are often fond memories of purity or naivety, however, sometimes, those experiences are haunting and leave permanent scars in people's hearts. “Coleman (1993)” tells the tragic love story of a female speaker and her lover. They appear to live out happy lives while keeping to themselves however, are separated later in the poem by a group of white boys who decide to murder her lover on a whim. Her interactions and thoughts about Coleman shape the fundamentals of the poem to the point that he is the driving force of this poem. His being is the purpose of Mary Karr’s piece of writing and her time with him and without
The theme throughout the poetry collection is the emotion of melancholy and the speaker speaking with a wise and philosophical tone. She has also used the repetition of nature and religion-based implications in her poems. Most of the poem titles is named after a specific plant because it fits in the meaning of her entire poem collection. The title of the poems hold symbolism because of the flower language. You can constantly see the cycle of rebirth through the beautiful description of a nonphysical form of a soul and develop into beautiful flowers in her garden. The vivid imagery of the flowers by describing the color and the personification of these living beings. She is also trying to explore the relationship between humans and their god. The poet is a gardener who tends to the flower and she prefer the flowers in her garden over her god, “knowing nothing of the
Relationships between two people can have a strong bond and through poetry can have an everlasting life. The relationship can be between a mother and a child, a man and a woman, or of one person reaching out to their love. No matter what kind of relationship there is, the bond between the two people is shown through literary devices to enhance the romantic impression upon the reader. Through Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Ben Jonson’s “To Celia,” and William Shakespeare’s “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?” relationships are viewed as a powerful bond, an everlasting love, and even a romantic hymn.
The passage begins by discussing how Boland may be experiencing some unease that female poets before her time may not have experienced nor have even considered for a fleeting moment. Boland claims that she had stumbled upon a realization, one tha...
Through the duration of this course there have been many themes influenced through the works of literature that have been read and analyzed. One major theme that has been discussed is that of love. Whether the love being romantic, fantasized, or familial as a class we have seen it all. The focus of this essay will be on the familial type of love. Familial love, an overwhelming theme in some of these stories, strikes a serious type of thought in the mind of any reader. The three main stories that will be focused on are “Fences,” Oedipus the King, and “My Papa”s Waltz.” These three stories are unique and each explains a completely different type of familial love. Familial love that will make the heart warm, the head strong, and the stomach churn.
In this essay I would like to emphasize different ideas of how love is understood and discussed in literature. This topic has been immortal. One can notice that throughout the whole history writers have always been returning to this subject no matter what century people lived in or what their nationality was.
She defines her idea of what is right in a relationship by describing how hard and painful it is for her to stray from that ideal in this instance. As the poem evolves, one can begin to see the author having a conflict with values, while simultaneously expressing which values are hers and which are unnatural to her. She accomplishes this accounting of values by personalizing her position in a somewhat unsettling way throughout the poem.
Even though they were centuries apart, both Aristotle and John Donne share the same opinion that “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Donne captures this beautiful idea of a spiritual love in a poem called Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, written for his wife before he left on a trip in 1611. In only nine stanzas, John Donne presents the ideals for true love; the forbidding mourning due to their physical separation through metaphors such as the “trepidation of the Spheres”, “expansion of gold thread”, and the “union of a compass”; and it will come to prove that True love is a spiritual love that will transcend any physical love.
Love defies the test of time and endures when all things suggest its demise. Against odds, lovers meet, and in line with fate, lovers fall apart. The levels of love, and the numerous reactions to those relationships, help determine if and when the relationship will end. Though factors tear two people apart, the love does not always die. These ideas appear time and again, such as in Boccaccio’s The Decameron (the fourth day, first tale) or Virgil’s The Aeneid. Ideals of love and admiration also appear in Sappho’s poetry. Love ties people together, both literally and figuratively. These three works show that complexities of opinion and circumstance threaten to tear lovers apart, but love may still endure in the most unlikely ways.