John Clare’s “An Invite to Eternity” is a poem that at first glance seems happy and inviting but once examined, is actually quite depressing and aloof. Although it appears to be a direct address to an anonymous “maiden,” in reality the poem is much more complex. Clare offers his “sweet maid” a less than appealing future life, presenting her with an “eternity” filled with harsh landscapes and loneliness. Most readers’ first impression when they think of eternity is almost dream-like or heavenly. However, Clare’s vision of eternity is dark and mysterious and uninviting. These different versions of expectations, as well as the use of antique word forms such as “thou” and “wilt”, seems to suggest a conscious misuse of traditional and old-fashioned love poetry and portrays the “maiden” as being nothing more than a figment in Clare’s imagination. Further, this is not the first time Clare has written about such a hellish place. His poem “I am” resembles the “eternity” he is speaking of in “An Invite to Eternity.” “I am” was a reflection of a period in his life where he was isolated in a mental institution. In this context, the strange and ominous world that Clare presents as “eternity” takes on a new meaning as a representation of his social death while in the asylum. Supporting this idea, “An Invite to Eternity” …show more content…
The notion of love is nothing but a shadow that covers the truth of ones’ own struggles and the improbable triumph of love over isolation is nearly impossible in his eyes. By complicating his poem through the filter of the maid and the frame of traditional love poetry, Clare’s portrait of isolation and social death becomes even more moving, for it is just as obvious to the reader as it is to Clare that such an “eternity” is unlikely to be
Editors have always played an important and powerful role in the works of John Clare, from Clare’s own time until the present. An Invite to Eternity presents a model of that relationship between text and editor in microcosm, from its composition inside the walls of a mental institution to its transcription by an asylum attendant, to its early publication and its modern re-presentation today. Written in the 1840s, no extant manuscript of the poem exists in Clare’s own hand and each version of the poem is inflected by its editor in different but always significant ways. In recent years, this is reflected in the sole copyright control over Clare’s work exercised by his most prominent editor, whose own interpretation of Clare governs the way the poet and his poems are presented to a modern audience.
When looking out the window "she was drinking in a very elixir of life” (Chopin). The short story comes to an end with her husband walking through the door and Louise falls dead at the sight of her diminishing dreams. This well known short story is comprehended in many ways deciding the reason of Louise’s death and what “freedom” she experiences.
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
The Lais of Marie de France is a compilation of short stories that delineate situations where love is just. Love is presented as a complex emotion and is portrayed as positive, while at other times, it is portrayed as negative. The author varies on whether or not love is favorable as is expressed by the outcomes of the characters in the story, such as lovers dying or being banished from the city. To demonstrate, the author weaves stories that exhibit binaries of love. Two distinct types of love are described: selfish and selfless. Love is selfish when a person leaves their current partner for another due to covetous reasons. Contrarily, selfless love occurs when a lover leaves to be in a superior relationship. The stark contrast between the types of love can be analyzed to derive a universal truth about love.
Cottino-Jones sums up love and the community in this story in her book. She says, "the lovers in this books are constantly faced with violence, death and isolation when their affairs come into conflict with society’s rigid behavior codes "(Cottino-Jones, 79). Lack of communication and social factors made everyone in the story unhappy or dead.
Mary Wroth alludes to mythology in her sonnet “In This Strange Labyrinth” to describe a woman’s confused struggle with love. The speaker of the poem is a woman stuck in a labyrinth, alluding to the original myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The suggestion that love is not perfect and in fact painful was a revolutionary thing for a woman to write about in the Renaissance. Wroth uses the poem’s title and its relation to the myth, symbolism and poem structure to communicate her message about the tortures of love.
Love plays an important role in most physical and emotional relationships. Love is a word that can prove difficult to define or even compare to other emotions. This is due to the diversity of meaning and the complexity of the emotion itself. Everyone has been in love at least once before and has gotten a taste of all the good and bad things that come with it. Christina Rossetti’s “Song” presents some of the good parts of love while Philip Larkin’s “Talking in Bed” shows us some of the bad parts of love. Larkin’s poem presents a failing relationship where communication has failed between a couple and things are getting more and more difficult. Rossetti’s poem presents a wholly different view on love; it is told from the viewpoint of someone talking to his or her lover about what said lover should do after the speaker dies. The love between them seems better, more powerful and good. The two poems also present wholly different attitudes towards “The End,” whether that is the end of life or the end of the relationship. Larkin presents the end as something dark and sad, difficult to cope with. Rossetti, on the other hand, talks about the end as just another beginning, a chance to start over in a new world. Finally, the two poems represent remembrance in different ways. Larkin’s presents memory as something extremely important while Rossetti implies that it does not matter whether we remember or not.
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
The concept of love has long been the preferred topic of conversation among prominent male poets. Towards the closing of the sixteenth century, however, the emerging of the female poet took place. With the introduction of Queen Elizabeth, an initial path was now cleared for future women poets to share their views on the acclaimed topic of love. Due to this clashing of ideas, the conflicting views of two exceedingly different sexes could manifest itself. Who better to discuss the topic of love then Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who expresses her ideas with intelligence comparable to the best male poets, and Emerson, world renowned for his poignant opinions? In accordance with the long history of conflict between males and females, both Emerson’s "Give All to Love" and Browning’s "Sonnet 43" convey the pleasure love brings, but while Emerson’s poem urges the retention of individualism in a relationship, Browning pleads for a complete surrender to love.
Love is a big part of human life. Love in this poem can be described in two different ways. One way is the love of helping people. The other way is the love of a relationship. The love of a relationship is more than a feeling when it is real. It is a sensation, a connection, something that can not be replaced. In the poem the speaker is torn between the two types of love at first. It is shown in the first two stanzas that the speaker does not know what to choose. Either to let the stranger into the house and not make love to his new wife, or not let the stranger in and send him out into the dangerous night and make love to his wife. The last line of the poem shows that the speaker in someway have feelings for the stranger. The speaker wish he knew what would happen to the stranger after he sent him out into the night.
Authors use poetry to creatively present attitudes and opinions. “A Man’s Requirements,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” are two poems with distinct attitudes about love that contain different literary approaches. In both of the poems, love is addressed from a different perspective, producing the difference in expectation and presentation, but both suggest the women are subservient in the relationships.
I’m captivated by the new viewpoint Poe brought to my attention about death. While death’s topic is usually associated with either sympathy or horror, Poe succeeded in portraying a feeling caught between the two. “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;” (Poe, 789). Poe has communicated this poem through the use of abstract language and connotation. The abstract phrase repeated throughout the poem is the word “Nevermore” combined with
She is marginalize from society by her partner and she has to live in the shadows of him. She is unbelievably happy when she found out about the death of her husband. She expresses her feelings of freedom in her room where she realize she will live by herself. This illustrates that Louise has been living in an inner-deep life disconnected form the outside world where only on her room away from family and friends she discovers her feelings. It is important to mention that even though Louise has a sister, she does not feel the trust to communicate her sentiments towards her. We discover a marginalization from family members and more surprising from a women, Louise’s sister. The narrator strictly described Louise’s outside world but vividly reveals what is in her mind. At the same time she feels guilty of her emotional state by recognizing that she loved Brently mallard sometimes, her husband. Louise contradict herself but this demonstrates her emotional feelings about her husband disregarding her marriage. The situation of this woman represents the unhappiness and disgraceful life that women had to suffer from their
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a poem composed by Thomas Gray over a period of ten years. Beginning shortly after the death of his close friend Richard West in 1742, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” was first published in 1751. This poem’s use of dubbal entendre may lead the intended audience away from the overall theme of death, mourning, loss, despair and sadness; however, this poem clearly uses several literary devices to convey the author’s feelings toward the death of his friend Richard West, his beloved mother, aunt and those fallen soldiers of the Civil War. This essay will discuss how Gray uses that symbolism and dubbal entendre throughout the poem to convey the inevitability of death, mourning, conflict within self, finding virtue in one’s life, dealing with one’s misfortunes and giving recognition to those who would otherwise seem insignificant.
Hemingway synthesizes the theory that because of the pain that is brought about, love is not able to survive. The feeling of love is felt by both Henry and Catherine, but it is hard to realize that when pain always surrounds the couple. Hemingway’s creative mind creates a frustrating love story for the reader – one in which ends in devastation. Love is present but will not last. Human nature is to be attracted to love, but humanity may be destined for pain because of the tragedy brought about by love.