Poetry is a form of literature which can be characterized by rhythm. Poetry may be short or may be long. There is no limit to themes that a poet may use for their poem. A poem can be about animals, nature, and a common theme, love. The two poems that will be discussed in the paper have a common theme of love. While one poem speaks of love for a woman, the other explains what love is in general. Theses two poems are "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats, and "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds" by no other than William Shakespeare. In our first poem, "When You Are Old," Yeats uses his aesthetic language to rhyme about the love of a woman whom he addresses. He begins his poem by telling her that when she is "old and grey and full of sleep" and sitting by a fireplace, reading a book, she'll dream of the "soft look her eyes once had" as a younger woman. (Yeats 600) He continues by expressing how many men had loved her in her "moments of glad grace" which a youthful woman may possess. (Yeats 600) There were men who looked beyond her beauty and expressed true love and there were those who did not look at her inner beauty but the outer beauty with "love false." (Yeats 600) But there is one man, William Butler Yeats, who loved the questing, "pilgrim soul in [her]," and embraced and "loved the sorrows of [her] changing face "as she loses her youthful beauty. (600) As Yeats concludes his poem and the woman is by the "glowing bars," the fire place, she "murmurs, a little sadly," how love has escaped her and "hid his face amid a crowd of stars," which are always beautiful to look at. (600) Men's love for her will fade parallel to her beauty. As mentioned before, this poem was written for a woman he loved. She was beautifu... ... middle of paper ... ... love. Though it is interesting how both love poems use this star for symbolism. Symbolism is also presented in the love poems. The reader can imagine an old and grey woman sitting by a fire, nodding while she's reading a book or a crowd of stars. In the sonnet, there's not as much imagery, but one can visualize "rosy lips and cheeks." (Shakespeare 616) Reading both poems gives me a better idea of what love is, but many will never understand what love really is. Love is a timeless and universal theme that is used for poems and is different for each individual person. Though, as one reads different love poems, a comparison, besides the obvious theme of love, can be found amongst them, like the two poems discussed. I found that love poems are easier to interpret, but the theme is difficult to understand. Roberts, V. Edgar, "Literature", Third Ed. New Jersey 2005
The poem goes on to tell of the women, who "...haven't put aside desire/ but sit at ease and in pleasure,/ watching the young men" (Murray 837). This work obviously shows how the women lust after the attractive young men, and clearly are not in love; any one of these men could have been replaced with another attractive man and would have m...
Thanks to the incredible job that Browning did on these poems, readers are now more fully able to grasp the passion and the love that this woman had for her lover. Perhaps they can even connect if they have a lover of their own whom they adore with their "breath, smiles, and tears."
Both poets want to be loved in the poems in their own way. While both poem’s present a theme of love, it is obvious that the poet’s view on love changes from how they view love at the beginning of the poem from how they see it at the end.
I think all in all when love is concerned in poetry nowadays it is a
Love is something that no one can understand completely, but there is one thing that can be universally accepted: love creates a lot of feelings. Some are painful and mysterious, but some are loving and warm. The poems, "Sonnet 18," and "I Am Offering this Poem," demonstrates how the speakers similarly present their love through imagery, symbolism, and tone to show how they truly love their loved ones. Those feelings are so common these two poems are just some of the infinite amoount of poems that express these similar feeling of love: warmth, addiction, and affection. Love comes in many different ways, but the feelings are relatively similar.
Comparison and Contrast is defined by Kennedy and Gioia, the authors of the poetry textbook, as, “A process that places two poems side by side and studies their differences and similarities in order to shed light on both works.” The poem “First Poem for You” was written by Kim Addonizio in 1994. The poem is definitely about love. Poetry is like a stain of feelings that last endlessly on paper, tattoos are pieces of art that last an eternity on the skin. In addition, the poem “Love and Friendship” was written by Emily Brontë in 1839. The theme is love and friendship. The poem is made of a brief analysis of how love and friendship differentiate. The following poems share the same themes, and structure. While the two poem are similar below the surface, their differences lie in plain sight.
The Sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Love is Not All” demonstrates an unpleasant feeling about the knowledge of love with the impression to consider love as an unimportant element that does not worth dying for; the poem is a personal message addressing the intensity, importance, and transitory nature of love. The poet’s impression reflects her general point of view about love as portrays in the title “Love is Not All.” However, the unfolding part of the poem reveals the sarcastic truth that love is important.
While at the onset of the poem between lines one through three, the speaker displays noticeable signs of regret for her partnership by the negative connotation of the diction she chooses. When first learning of her lover’s emotions the speaker “looked forward to the moon,” whereas other young women would be delighted at hearing their significant others proclaim their love. (2) Instead when the speaker implies that she is “looking forward to the moon,” it can be assumed that the speaker was anticipating for the day to end. (2) Furthermore, the
"Plena Timoris," "For Me From You" and "Poem At Thirty-Nine" can be compared and contrasted in several ways regarding the theme of love. Each and every poem approaches the topic of love in a different way but at the same time share certain similarities.
The speaker uses metaphors to describe his mistress’ eyes to being like the sun; her lips being red as coral; cheeks like roses; breast white as snow; and her voices sounding like music. In the first few lines of the sonnet, the speaker view and tells of his mistress as being ugly, as if he was not attracted to her. He give...
While Lord Byron's poem enhances the beauty of love, Keats' does the opposite by showing the detriments of love. In “She Walks in Beauty,” the speaker asides about a beautiful angel with “a heart whose love is innocent” (3, 6). The first two lines in the first stanza portray a defining image:
shows that the poet is so fixated in one woman that he is blinded by
Though ballads and Sonnets are poems that can depict a picture of someone’s beloved, they can have many differences. For instance, a Ballad is a story in short stanzas such as a song would have, where as a sonnet typical, has a traditional structure of 14 lines employing several rhyme schemes and adheres to a tight thematic organization. Both Robert Burn’s ballad “The Red, Red, Rose, and William Shakespeare’s “of the Sonnet 130 “they express their significant other differently. However, “The Red, Red, Rose depicts the Falling in new love through that of a young man’s eyes, and Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 depicts a more realistic picture of the mistress he writes about; which leaves the reader to wonder if beauty is really in the eyes of the beholder.
This poem is a beautiful recollection of love and how difficult it is to attain in our world. Yeats does not seem angry that he lost Maud, however he does feel God’s curse on men. He seems unsure if true love actually exists and thinks that he got as close as he ever will at finding it. Maud was unable to give Yeats the love he yearned in return, which is why Yeats felt the need to express himself through this poem. Perhaps this poem was the beginning of a healing process for Yeats. He was unable to express himself to Maud so he had to express himself through his poetry. His poetry, in turn was as difficult to write as his love for Maud was to accomplish. Yeats is just exhausted at this point and it is seen at the end of his poem.
First of all, throughout the poem “When you are Old” by William Yeats, you can begin to analyze the change and changelessness that he is experiencing in his life. This particular poem is written directly to a woman that he once loved, but she didn’t quite return as great of feelings. Yeats states that this writing is for to specifically read when she is old and gray. He explains that most men only loved her falsely for her beauty, but he loved her soul, “But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face.” (Lines 7-8) This means that he didn’t only care about her appearance and continued to love her no matter how time changed her. He also makes the point that because she didn’t welcome love when she had the chance, the opportunity to have a lover has now fled and she’ll stay alone into her older years. This particular poem focus...