A Boy's Memories in Robert Penn Warren True Love

Robert Penn Warren's poem “True Love” express the power of love and attraction to cause an unrequited love to become a source of nostalgia, admiration and the idealization of the intended for the admirer. The narrator and admirer, reminisces on his childhood memories of the older girl, still idealizes her to the point of her being a mere object rather than a real person. Years after the boy’s memories, the narrator still holds shallow impressions of the girl’s reality though but has grown to have a slightly deeper view of her situation.

The narrator thought of the girl of more of an ideal than a human being. He addresses his first time seeing her by saying “there is nothing like Beauty... It stops your breath. It Makes you feel dirty.” The capitalization of Beauty suggests that the boy regards the girl as the embodiment of Beauty. His breath is taken away at first sight like the stereotypical “boy meets girl” scene. The line “Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath” is a continuation of where the third stanza abruptly breaks off. The abrupt separation suggests the first feeling of sexual realization in a child around the early age of puberty as the narrator is (He states himself as 10 and, later, 12 years in the poem.) The sexual feeling causes his to objectify her further.

He sees her as superior to him. The “Beauty” of the girl and the boy being “Freckled” are juxtaposed (both being capitalized and starting a new line and closing another) in a way to bring the light the boy's obvious “flaws” in the face of such Beauty. He describes the girl's possible date or boyfriend in terms of physicality. The date is a “big grown boy” with a “big black Buick”. This puts in question the boys own budding masculinity [he is young and ski...

... middle of paper ...

...this sentiment with the statement “In silence the heart raves. It utters words Meaningless that never had meaning.” The crush he had on her gives the boy feeling he couldn’t comprehend and didn’t understand and therefore couldn’t accurately place. It becomes a perfect image or an imperfect reality.

Even his memories of the girl are idealized and false in some aspects. If the girl never came back, how is it possible for him to “know” that the girl’s future is as he envisioned in the last stanza. His ideal that she will be beautiful forever is somewhat delusional. She will not exist forever. But for the speaker, she is immortalized in his mind. She will always be the perfect girl and his first “true love.”

The speaker never had the chance to experience her as a human and therefore, she’ll always be the perfect love that is unmarred by human flaw.