Thematic Comparison of Lovelace’s To Lucasta and Donne’s Song
Modern perceptions of love as expressed in literature-- with gender equality and the abandonment of expected role-playing-- did not arbitrarily become pervasive, but are the product of centuries of incremental progression. The seventeenth century in particular provided a foundation for this progression, as poets for the very first time began to question the dictated structure and male domination of the Elizabethan era. Two poems of the seventeenth century, the cavalier "To Lucasta on Going to the Wars" by Richard Lovelace and the metaphysical "Song" by John Donne, each focusing on the pain inflicted by different aspects of love, employ tactics emblematic of the century’s poetry to demonstrate love’s puzzling nature. Both ostensible attempts to comfort their audiences by universalizing and morally justifying love’s baneful realities, they eventually fail and leave their audiences with only exacerbated pain. "To Lucasta," Lovelace’s attempt to justify his departure from his lover Lucasta for the British Civil War by subjugating his sensual love to honor, fails in its illogical and contradictory nature, and acknowledges the ability of love’s endurance to victimize man, while "Song," by trying to alleviate the pain of fleeting love, only underscores love’s inevitable elusiveness.
Lovelace, one of the preeminent cavalier poets of the seventeenth century, attempts to use his particular situation with his lover Lucasta as well as an appeal to honor and patriotism to justify to all soldiers the departure of their lovers, but the poem’s inconsistencies obviate success. Throughout the poem, Lovelace’s mind, understanding the need to go to battle, remains at war with hi...
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...love for his precious Lucasta, however, inconsistencies and wavering pervade his writing, and reveal his involuntary mockery of soldierly values and his unbreakable bond to Lucasta. As he must venture into battle, he becomes a victim of love’s enduring impregnability.
Donne, in his "Song" attempts at first to comfort all men who have encountered the difficulties of romantic relations. With his strong, dominating voice, however, he obliterates the prospects of enduring love. Much the opposite of Lovelace, Donne delineates himself as a victim of love’s elusiveness. What the two poems have in common is their discomforting effect on their audiences resulting from their eventual resignation to their respective perceived realities. For Lovelace, this reality is a future of battle and a separation from all that matters; for Donne, it is a life void of enduring love.
In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne describes a most perfect and unchangeable love between two people. Throughout the poem he skillfully compares the love of the speaker and his lady to things that seem completely different to the love between them.
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In The Lais of Marie de France, the theme of love is conceivably of the utmost importance. Particularly in the story of Guigemar, the love between a knight and a queen brings them seemingly true happiness. The lovers commit to each other an endless devotion and timeless affection. They are tested by distance and are in turn utterly depressed set apart from their better halves. Prior to their coupling the knight established a belief to never have interest in romantic love while the queen was set in a marriage that left her trapped and unhappy. Guigemar is cursed to have a wound only cured by a woman’s love; he is then sent by an apparent fate to the queen of a city across the shores. The attraction between them sparks quickly and is purely based on desire, but desire within romantic love is the selfishness of it. True love rests on a foundation that is above mere desire for another person. In truth, the selfishness of desire is the
...cruelty. Although love sometimes disguises itself, it always finds a way to survive even in the darkest of places. Valjean and Manette turned their lives around, through the love of others. Lucy and Bienvenu served as saving graces for many by loving people when nobody else id. Consequently the true meaning of love surfaces most prominently in the lives of the unfortunate, hence all the characters within the novels depict love. The thriving of charity presents itself through simple acts, but ultimately in the giving up one’s life for another. For love lives in the hearts of the people, but reveals itself their actions. Thus in acting out of love, one defines love, and displays it for the world to see.
Lorca’s poem “Love’s Wounds” from his collection of Sonnets of Dark Love illustrates the pain he is undergoing as a result of his homosexuality. Lorca’s “Sonnets of Dark Love”, “…were written in 1935, inspired by Lorca's love affair with Rafael Rodriguez Rapún (Archer)”. Lorca’s homosexuality is the focal point of this poem and includes multiple references to the suffering he is enduring ...
John Donne uses poetry to explore his own identity, express his feelings, and most of all, he uses it to deal with the personal experiences occurring in his life. Donne's poetry is a confrontation or struggle to find a place in this world, or rather, a role to play in a society from which he often finds himself detached or withdrawn. This essay will discuss Donne's states of mind, his views on love, women, religion, his relationship with God; and finally how the use of poetic form plays a part in his exploration for an identity and salvation.
The first stanza shows a wide range of fantastical language with the intention of drawing the reader slowly and steadily into the hazy, dreamlike setting. Along with the words like ?fantasy?, ?fables? and ?dreams? come affectionate phrases that effectively show us that the poem is meant to be addressed to a lover, ?Dear love? being the most obvious example. Later on in the poem, the language shifts from drowsy and steady to more intense and complicated, yet less passionate and more doubtful. Donne?s choice in the last stanza to utilize fiery words like ?torches? and phrases ?light and put out? and ?thou cam?st to kindle? depict a sense of overwhelming passion, as uncontrollable as fire. Donne doubts that he can control his lover to continue loving him as fervently as in his dream, which is why his dream lover is ?an angel? while his lover in reality is compared to fire.
The metaphysical era in poetry started in the 17th century when a number of poets extended the content of their poems to a more elaborate one which investigated the principles of nature and thought. John Donne was part of this literary movement and he explored the themes of love, death, and religion to such an extent, that he instilled his own beliefs and theories into his poems. His earlier works, such as The Flea and The Sunne Rising, exhibit his sexist views of women as he wrote more about the physical pleasures of being in a relationship with women. However, John Donne displays maturity and adulthood in his later works, The Canonization and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, in which his attitude transcends to a more grown up one. The content of his earlier works focused on pursuing women for his sexual desires, which contrasts heavily with his latter work. John Donne’s desire for physical pleasure subsides and he seeks to gain an emotional bond with women, as expressed in his later poetry.
He compares his relationship with his love as “stiff twin compasses” and other similar comparisons to describe their unity (Dunne 26). Like a compass, they always seem to be working cohesively as one unit. It could have the same theme as “The Passionate Shephard to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe, the theme of love conquering all. They both seem to have an idealistic view to the relationship as well, as the shephard in Marlowe’s poem insists that his love “will all the pleasures prove” if she were to go with him (Marlowe 2). Both poems aim for a perfect life with their love, and Donne’s poem manages to come up with a more realistic option out of the
In both ‘The Sun Rising’ and ‘The Good Morrow’ Donne presents the experience of love, in a typical Metaphysical style, to engage his reader through sharing his own experiences. These poems show distinctive characteristics of Metaphysical poems which involve colloquial diction, drawing inventive imagery from unconventional sources, passionately analysing relationships and examining feelings. Donne presents the experience of love through conceits, Metaphysical wit, language techniques and imagery, in a confident tone using logical argument. The impact of Donne’s use of direct and idiomatic language shows the reader how he feels about a woman and ultimately love.
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John Donne lived in an era when the lyric was at its pinnacle. Poets were writing well-rounded, almost musical poetry on subjects that ranged from all kinds of love to enchantment with nature. Donne could not help but revolt against this excess of fluency and melody. John Donne's style stands in such sharp contrast to the accepted Elizabethan lyrical style that it becomes difficult to accept the fact that his works date from the same era. To highlight this statement, one has to compare a typical Elizabethan lyric to one of Donne's works.
Donne develops this idea through the symbolism of the flea and the twisted imagery of the Trinity. He uses slant rhyme to depict the man’s slanted argument and stretched logic, which highlights the man’s crooked idea of what physical love is. Donne’s use of slant rhyme and hyperbole mock other poems that praise women with flowery language in an attempt to charm them into bed. In contrast, the speaker here uses crude arguments meant to woo this woman to sex with him. Renaissance carpe diem poems speak about enjoying physical love within one’s short-lived youth.
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Concentration is one of the features of metaphysical poetry especially in Donne’s poetry because he introduces the readers to the new realm of argument and the closely interwoven thought, emotion and affection. We can find the communion of two souls of lovers into one existence in “The Ecstasy” where Donne intended to explain the different acts of love and the function of man as worthily performed man.