Roger Mucgugh: An Analysis Of 40-Love By Roger Mcgough

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Poet Roger McGough, in his structural poem, cleverly administers a disheartened picture of two members of a middle-aged couple. The two middle-aged members may materialize at first to be spending time with each other playing tennis and enjoying each other’s company. However, as the concise story progresses, the truth exhibits that other than playing the game of tennis, in reality, the two people may have little or no connection to each other whatsoever. In Roger McGough’s poem, “40----Love”, the words, syntax, and the techniques of structure of his poem convey the emotional gap between the members of a middle-aged couple.
In “40----Love”, McGough pays distinct notice to the word choice and word positioning in the poem to convey an extensive interpretation. First of all, the title “40---Love” resembles two meanings that are very important to understanding the poem. One refers to forty-year-old love and the other meaning refers to one person being up forty-love, while playing tennis. The number forty stands for the age of the middle-aged people while on the other hand; 40-Love represents the scoring term in tennis, with love meaning zero. The scoring in tennis rivalry can be very complex and needs to be understood to grasp the concept of the aggregate of the poem. Games and sets make up the game of tennis. In a game, those who win 15, 30, 40 will get one point and the player who gets six points will win one set. With love meaning zero, it can also be a reference to the position that women had in society and also to the area of what was considered to be a woman’s domain. Because of the time period in which the poem was written, one could assume the forty points belong to the man and love belonging to the woman. The men in this peri...

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... rising and falling impression. The word “but” has been omitted in the sentence “the net will still be between them” here to undeniably entail that life of the middle-aged couple is no longer full of ups and downs, great happiness or sadness.
The poem “40----Love”, written by Roger McGough, with exclusive style, has prosperous significance with its very exclusive form. In this poem, with perfect combination of the spirit and form, the emotional gap of the middle-aged couple can be discerned and expressed by the construction of technique, syntax, and word choice. McGough uses the construction of technique, syntax, and word choice to his advantage by cleverly administering a disheartening picture for his readers while his story exhibits the truth about the two members of a middle-aged couple, all the while allowing readers to gain a deeper understanding of the poem.

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