Love and Lust in Most Like an Arch, When You Are Old and Other Poems

Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.

I choose these poems because they all in one way or another are similar to each other. I felt my favorite poem about the irony of love was Parable of the four poster by Erica Jong. For instance Parable of four poster by Erica Jong is about a man and woman who are in love with each other but do not have the guts to say or do anything about it. For this reason they both think the other wants nothing to do with them so they move on to the next person which is who they end up marrying. This was the “four-way mistake” (Jong 16). Not expressing your love can love yourself and that individual but also those individuals around. All this time they thought the other one wanted nothing to do with them but they lay with their spouses thinking of the other.

“Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims is an excellent of example of an author using many types of literary terms to emphasize his theme of a love that is imperfect yet filled with acceptance. In, this poem Nims uses assonance, metaphor, and imagery to support his theme of “Imperfect, yet realistic love”.

Since the beginning of human existence love has earned a meaning of pure bliss and wild passion between two people that cannot be broken. Through out time the meaning of love has had its slight shifts but for the most part, maintains a positive value. In the poem “Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields,” the author, Susan Griffin expresses that this long lost concept of love is often concealed by the madness of everyday life and reality. In the poem, Griffin uses many literary elements to help convey the importance of true love. The usage of imagery, symbolism, and other literary techniques really help communicate Griffins’ meaning

The first poem I am going to study is 'Valentine ' by Carol Ann Duffy. In 'Valentine ' Duffy introduces the reader to her own symbol of love, the onion, which is unusual because the onion is a very tremble, malodorous, bitter and unromantic entity. Duffy throughout the poem uses the onion as a metaphor for love and develops it in different ways to demonstrate parallels between the onion and love.

A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and that often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure. In her poem, “Variations of the Word ‘“love”’,” Margaret Atwood introduces to her audience the word “love” from many different perspectives. Google defines “love” as “an intense feeling of deep affection”, or “having a deep feeling or sexual attachment to (someone).” But “love” is not something that can easily be described. Atwood goes on to present and portray the word through different illustrations, beginning with cliché examples and ending with her own personal scenarios. The author’s tone and metaphorical language effectively conveys her perspective of “love”.

Love is defined as the intense feeling of deep affection. In the play, Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, the attraction between the two protagonists, Romeo and Juliet, does not factually classify as true love. Meanwhile, lust is a concept in which is commonly mistaken for love, which is very apparent throughout this classic “love story” of Romeo and Juliet. While others could debate that Romeo and Juliet’s love, was love at first sight, it is debateable that their feelings towards one another were pure lust. Romeo and Juliet are too immature to fully understand the concept of love as they are too young and hormone-driven, they were both in search for escapism from their present troubles, and they had an excessive amount of

The poems that I chose to compare are “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Porphyria’s Lover,” both of which use a dark tone and end rhyme to tell a story of painful love through symbolism. “My Papa’s Waltz,” written by Theodore Roethke in 1942, tells of a relationship between an alcoholic father who abuses his son. In “Porphyria’s Lover,” written much earlier in 1836,” Robert Browning describes a chilling tale of a madman who murder’s the woman he loves the most. Both poems have the same theme of love with an underlying dark emotion

The idea of timeless love is also reinforced through the natural imagery in the poem such as 'breeze', 'grass'

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

Several poems in the anthology explore the intensity of human emotion. Explore this theme, referring to these three poems in detail and by referencing at least three other poems from your wider reading.’

One of the most used love poems would have to be, “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It has been recited at many weddings for people who use it to announce their love for each other. And if a person were to ask someone if they had ever heard of this poem they would most likely get an answer of yes. In Mrs. Browning’s poem she uses the repeating of the same words, “I Love Thee”, over and over, which gives the poem its rhythm. But yet she still uses the rhyming scheme at the end of sentences that rhyme like these two sentences, “I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight”.

     Poets, in general, are fond of symbolism and figures of speech.  Instead of wallowing in the concrete and the obvious, it has always been the purpose of the poet to give "... to aery nothing a local habitation and a name."  The writers of love poetry are especially fond of imagery, metaphors, and similar devices, comparing their loved ones to such and such an animal or cosmic event.

A comparison of “Come, My Celia, Let us prove” by Ben Jonson and “Wild Nights-Wild Nights” by Emily Dickinson shows that love and desire are not a new thing, but that they have existed for a long time. The message is the same, but the way that they are expressed differs. Both of these poems are about the urgency of a romantic encounter that the authors wish to happen.

The poems that accurately express my ideal of love are Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways” and “If” by Rudyard Kipling. The reason why I picked these poems is because it describes my thinking of love. The poem by Elizabeth Browning asks the question about love and that is my way of thinking because I am still trying to figure that out. Then the main point that it says in the poem that is my ideal level of love is “I love thee with the breath, Smiles, Tears, of all my life!”(Elizabeth Browning, Sonnet 43), when thinking of love that is what I think of. Love is not something difficult that we have to overthink and over complicate, love is simply “Loving” others and yourself. Love is whatever you make of it whether that is doing good deeds for others or caring for them or showing them some gratitude with gifts, it does not need to be broken down it is something we can act out without thinking about it. The other poem “If” talks about loving yourself, and learning about yourself. It is important for us