David Solway Unrequited Love Theme

1161 Words3 Pages

Love is undoubtedly a universal theme with numerous characterisations in different genres. David Solway illustrates unrequited love in his poem The Dream as agonising, bewildering and hard to accept by the use of ideas, perspectives and language. In a similar way, Marc Webb’s film 500 Days of Summer and Gavin Degraw’s song Not Over You expresses this representation of unrequited love through their use of ideas, perspectives and language. They effectively translate this representation of unrequited love in their genres in order to create an emotional response from their audiences.

By the use of poetic techniques, Solway successfully represents his unrequited love in the poem The Dream as bewildering and hard to accept. Through Solway’s figurative …show more content…

The lyrics are written through Degraw’s perspective as he experiences frustration and misery as he has romantic feelings for an ex-partner. The song captures the idea of masking your vulnerability and your ceaseless love for someone who has moved on from a relationship. Degraw has stated that masking feelings from someone who has moved on is not on the account of pride or ego, but rather as a way of coping with heartache and complexity of unrequited love. The song’s harmony incorporates two minor chords, C minor and G minor, in the progression instead of the typical one minor chord progression in romantic love songs. Degraw strayed from the normality with the intention to stimulate a musical atmosphere of sorrow and pain instead of contentment to showcase his agonising unrequited love. Additionally, the song applies a range of forte and piano dynamics and Degraw’s vocal timbre is raw and unrefined. The polar dynamics in the song demonstrates Degraw’s agonising love as the forte dynamics represent his anger and his piano dynamics represents his suffering. The raw and unrefined vocal timbre was also manipulated by Degraw in order to acknowledge his incapacity to keep composure and disguise his heartache. Moreover, the lyrics of the song include poetic techniques which highlight Degraw’s bewildering unrequited love. In the lyrics, Degraw metaphorically compares himself to a Boomerang since no matter how much his ex-partner pushes his love away, he always returns to her. This metaphor was strategically chosen by him as it unveils a bewildering response from the audience and it allows them to identify with his unreturned feelings. The song Not Over You successfully conveys the representation of unrequited love as agonising and bewildering as a result of Gavin Degraw’s manipulation of musical

Open Document