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Themes of love in poetry
Themes of love in poetry
Themes of love in poetry
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Love is? What is love? A question many have pondered on for ages. As children we believe one day our true love will come on a white horse sweeping us off of our feet, and then we will live happily ever after. Then as we grow older and realize the world isn’t full of happily ever afters, but instead the world is real, not a fairy tale. Often times we think of love as just that, only in the sense of a significant other. In “Those Winter Sundays” Robert Hayden shows us a love other than the usual form of love of a man and women. He shows us love in the sense of family and selflessness. William Shakespeare also gives us a picture of love in the sense of a relationship in “Let me not to the marriage of true minds.” Furthermore Hayden shows love though a father getting up every day to go work hard for his family and also heating his house for his family. This type of love in Hayden’s poem is unconditional. Even though he doesn’t get a thankyou from his family he
"I was told that love should be unconditional. That 's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge?" (Gillian Flynn) This is an interesting outlook on love that is completely opposite of what Shakespeare and Hayden portray what love is. This author asks the question of “why should anyone do the right thing ever?” if she knows she will be loved no matter what why wouldn’t you want to break the rules, and live freely, and do whatever you want. However love is not selfish it is selfless and Flynn’s outlook on love is the complete opposite of that. Her point is completely opposite of the love Shakespeare and Hayden describe in their poems. They believe that it is a choice to love someone not an
When we think about the force that holds the world together and what makes humans different from animals, one answer comes to our minds - that humans can love. Love is a state of mind that cannot be defined easily but can be experienced by everyone. Love is very complicated. In fact it is so complicated that a person in love may be misunderstood to be acting in an extremely foolish manner by other people. The complexity of love is displayed in Rostand’s masterpiece drama Cyrano de Bergerac. This is accomplished by two characters that love the same woman and in the course neither one achieves love in utter perfection.
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Father as a Guitar” by Martin Espada, and “Digging” by Seamus Heaney are three poems that look into the past of the authors and dig up memories of the authors fathers. The poems contain similar conflicts, settings, and themes that are essential in helping the reader understand the heartfelt feelings the authors have for their fathers. With the authors of the three poems all living the gust of their life in the 1900’s, their biographical will be similar and easier to connect with each other.
If I were asked who the most precious people in my life are, I would undoubtedly answer: my family. They were the people whom I could lean on to matter what happens. Nonetheless, after overhearing my mother demanded a divorce, I could not love her as much as how I loved her once because she had crushed my belief on how perfect life was when I had a family. I felt as if she did not love me anymore. Poets like Philip Levine and Robert Hayden understand this feeling and depict it in their poems “What Work Is” and “Those Winter Sundays.” These poems convey how it feels like to not feel love from the family that should have loved us more than anything in the world. Yet, they also convey the reconciliation that these family members finally reach because the speakers can eventually see love, the fundamental component of every family in the world, which is always presence, indeed. Just like I finally comprehended the reason behind my mother’s decision was to protect me from living in poverty after my father lost his job.
In romantic words, the poet expresses how much she does think of love. She state it clear that she will not trade love for peace in times of anguish.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
Robert Hayden poem ”Those Winter Sundays” explores his father as an unsung hero and it also presents an acknowledgement of poets lack of gratitude for his father. The speaker reflects on the childhood memories of his father and goes on to find all kinds of disabilities he had in terms of realization regarding the pain father bared for the poet. Story is very emotional in the way that the speaker reveals sacrifices of his father during his childhood throughout the poem. It is agonizing and the words used in the poem are really an expression of desperation and sadness as he is really missing that time. There are a number of sacrifices made by the father during the harsh winter season of writer’s childhood. In his childhood he was not actually aware about the harshness of those lovely and affectionate feelings that his father had about him. In the poem ”Those Winter Sundays” Robert Hayden uses imagery and sound devices to portray his father as an unsung hero and to acknowledge his own lack of gratitude
The events of our childhood and interactions with our parents is an outline of our views as parents ourselves. Although Robert Hayden’s relationship with his father differentiates from the relationship of Theodore Roethke and his father, they are both pondering back to their childhood and expressing the events in a poem. “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those winter Sundays” provide the reader with an image of a childhood event which states how fathers are being viewed by their children. These poems reflect upon the relationship of the father and child when the child was a youth. Both Roethke and Hayden both indicate that their fathers weren’t perfect although they look back admiringly at their fathers’ actions. To most individuals, a father is a man that spends time with and takes care of them which gains him love and respect. An episode of Roethke’s childhood is illustrated in “My Papa’s Waltz”. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, the father comes home showing signs of alcohol and then begins waltzing with his son. Roethke states that the father’s hands are “battered on one knuckle”. The mother was so upset about the dancing that she did nothing other than frown. At the end of the day, the father waltzed the son to bed. “Those Winter Sundays” is based on a regular Sunday morning. The father rises early to wake his family and warm the house. To warm the house, he goes out in the cold and splits wood to start a fire. This is a poem about an older boy looking back to his childhood and regretting that “No one ever thanked him.” In Those Winter Sundays'; by Robert Hayden, the poet also relinquishes on a regular occurrence in his childhood. On Sunday mornings, just as any other morning, his father rises early and puts on his clothes in the cold darkness. He ...
The concept of love is a very ambiguous, controversial, idea that is nearly impossible to come to a singular consensus on. In this essay I will be describing and comparing two philosophical views on the concepts and ideas behind love. Through the works of Todd May and Plato, different approaches to the concept of love will be illustrated as well as determining the similarities and differences between the two perspectives.
The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer around 1386, is a collection of tale told by pilgrims on a religious pilgrimage. Two of these tales, "The Knight's Tale" and "The Wife of Bath's Tale", involve different kinds of love and different love relationships. Some of the loves are based on nobility, some are forced, and some are based on mutual respect for each partner. My idea of love is one that combines aspects from each of the tales told in The Canterbury Tales.
What is love? It seems to be a pretty simple word, but there is so much meaning behind it. Love is difficult to define, difficult to measure, and frequently difficult to understand. Love is what great writers write about; great philosophers wonder about; singers sing about. Love is a very powerful emotion. Love saves; love conquers; love creates. Love is passion that cannot be controlled. Both poems we have read, Waiting for Icarus and One Art, tell us how love alters human minds and hearts, making people in love struggle with the desire to remain in control of themselves and with the scary feeling of “losing themselves”.
The other day I was babysitting my three-year-old niece, a most conniving little angel. As she sat gawking at my girlfriend's brother, Matthew, who was eating potato chips, she told me that she loved me "so much." She had already devoured her potato chips, but she obviously wanted more. Many more expressions of love proceeded to drip from her lips. Finally, the question came; "Reg, can I have some more chips?" At first, I thought this little show of bribery was cute and funny, but then I started to think about the true meaning of love. What is true love? Poets, philosophers, religious leaders, and the American media all have different definitions for this word. Too often, love is conceived as doing whatever it takes to get your potato chips. However, true love involves much more than personal satisfaction.
Love is by far one of the most talked about, written about, expressed and implied feelings in the human array of emotions. The Beatles told us that “love is all you need”. Dr. Theodor Geisel, best known under the pseudonym Seuss, stated that “When you are in love you can't fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.” Douglas Adams gave us a dry warning in his book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, stressing that, in terms of love, “Avoid, if at all possible.” With all the artists, poets, writers, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers of the world giving us conflicting and equally meaningful views of love, can it really be explained? Love is loosely defined as “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties” and, indeed, there are aspects of this complex emotion that can be pinpointed and discussed on all three levels of psychological analysis, from cognition to physiology to the sociocultural aspects of love.
In the play “Romeo and Juliet”, Shakespeare shows that love has power to control one’s actions, feelings, and the relationship itself through the bond between a destined couple. The passion between the pair grew strong enough to have the capability to do these mighty things. The predestined newlyweds are brought down a rocky road of obstacles learning love’s strength and the meaning of love.
LOVE is word we Homo sapiens have defined and yet struggled to understand throughout time and different cultures. It is a word that can mean simultaneously both pain and ecstasy. Such a simple four-letter word has been the bane of some poet’s existence and at the same time been the muse for others. When pondered about, love can be determined as an easy emotion but at the same time vastly hard to achieve. This contradiction and overall ideology has been the topic of poets, writers and artist since humans first invented the word. Divided by two different artistic movements, both Sir Thomas Wyatt and William Shakespeare were no strangers to the subject of love. While Wyatt wrote primarily poems and is credited as the father of sonnets, Shakespeare wrote both plays and sonnets. Each author tackle’s the subject from there own prospective and offers their thoughts on what they think the word love means. Two sonnets that can represent both authors’ attitudes on love are Wyatt’s “The Long Love” and Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”. While some similarities between “Sonnet 130” and “The Long Love” are evident, the differences are striking. Both sonnets offering wonderful examples on what two brilliant minds think of the overdone and universal theme of love.
Love has been expressed since the beginning of time; since Adam and Eve. Each culture expresses its love in its own special way. Though out history, though, it’s aspect has always been the same. Love has been a major characteristic of literature also. One of the most famous works in literary history is, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. This story deals with the love of a man and a woman who’s families have been sworn enemies. There love surpassed the hatred in which the families endured for generations. In the end they both ended up killing their selves, for one could not live without the other. This story is a perfect example of true love.