Enslaving Nature of Love Exposed in Lucretius

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Enslaving Nature of Love Exposed in Lucretius

In Dryden's Lucretius, the speaker argues that (1) Love is a sickness, (2) Love's sickness enslaves, and (3) all attempts to remedy Love's sickness are vain and will only frustrate the lover. Just as Milton's Adam and Eve become enslaved to sin by disobeying God, so mankind becomes enslaved to Love when pierced with Cupid's "winged arrow". In Milton, there is redemption and freedom through Christ, but in Dryden, no salvation from love is possible. This poem leaves mankind in a hopeless, frustrated state, unable to break free from love's yoke. This essay will center on the last heroic couplet: "All wayes they try, successeless all they prove,/To cure the secret sore of lingering love".

In order to prove the first premise, this essay will begin by examining the last line of the couplet which argues that the lovers are trying to "cure the secret sore". This line prompts the idea that love is a sore that needs a cure, but it also raises two questions: (1) why does the speaker call love a secret sore? And (2) how does the speaker use this imagery in the rest of the poem? In the poem's mythology, love is a sore left by Love's arrow (which probably alludes to Cupid's handy-work) as described in the first line of the poem: "he who feels the Fiery dart/ Of strong desire transfix his amorous heart". The "secret sore" can also refer to the idea that Love's wound is concealed (as an internal injury), and thus cannot be helped by external/physical remedies. The speaker argues that even sex proves unprofitable in trying to cure love: "Our hands pull nothing from the parts they strain,/But wande...

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...ess appetite". It seems as though the speaker is trying to frustrate the lover by offering impossible remedies. The speaker amplifies frustration by using an eye rhyme to finish the poem. This doesn't show Dryden's lack of skill, but rather a way to frustrate a reader's rhyme.

The last heroic couplet provides no hope and leaves only frustrating thoughts for the lover: "All wayes they try, successeless all they prove,/To cure the secret sore of lingering love". The speaker even argues that though Nature provides satisfaction for physical urges (e.g. hunger and thirst), Nature does not give Love the same satisfaction. The speaker describes a lover as a type of Sisyphus, enslaved in a vicious cycle of trying to accomplish the task (of fulfilling love's desires), only to have the problem roll back down and having to start over again.

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