Comparison of Love Poetry

The following example essay on “Comparison of Love Poetry” be examining 3 poems of affection, of which will inclusively talk about the themes of the love and also describe the views that have been used. The poems going to unravel to you are When We Two Parted by Lord Byron, A Woman To Her Lover by Christina Walsh and finally Villegiature by Edith Nesbit.

Love can mean different things to different people. There are also different types of love such as un-conditional love between a parent and a child or un-required love which is when you love someone and the feelings are not reciprocated.

Firstly a woman to her lover is a poem that is written by a female writer called Christina Walsh. This poem is about a woman that is expressing her feelings about her lover openly as you read on through the poem she reveals more about her life and what she demands from her husband. For example: in the first paragraph she talks about how women are slaves but she then goes on to say that she would reject her lover if that’s the case.

I know this as she says “To make me a bondslave, then says, no servant will I be, if that be what you ask o lover I refuse you”! Since the poem is written in the 1900’s you straight away know that she is a strong and demanding women at the time as women were treated as slaves and did not have rights.

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Secondly I will make clear the second poem which is Villegiature. Straight away people ask what is Villegiature? Well it’s a French word meaning holiday retreat or getaway. Edith Nesbit was the author of this poem and she was a person with strong political views, who had a sense of independency. She published her work with a fake name which is Edith Nesbit because she was married between 1858-1924, you can see straight away why she had a fake name and how she was treated by (husband) her man.

I personally think that this poem is unique compared to ordinary love poems even though it’s a sonnet (4 stanza’s 4 lines each mainly about love and feelings of love), the poem starts off with there being a lost mate. “Your ghost last night climbed uninvited.” As the poem goes on she expresses her feelings by talking of romance but in the last stanza she realizes why she had left him and how boring he was. So basically this love poem is about a break up of two people in the style of romantic poetry. Typical romance alliteration is used like “solid self” used to emphasis the love and emotion used.

Third of all I would like to express the feelings of Lord Byron who was a player at his time but when he was outplayed he couldn’t take it and wrote this poem. It’s like the saying the player got played. Lord Byron was a famous poet to start with and he was the type of person who did drugs and sleep with various women. When he wrote when we two parted he expresses his feelings about an affair with this woman that was married and cannot express his emotions openly as he committed an illegal sin.

I know he was in mental pain as he articulated “In Silent we met – in silence I grieve.” This also points out how unsecure and secret the relationship really was. He also emphasizes his feelings using a few rhetorical questions such as “Why wert thou so dear?” Rhetorical questions are often used for confusion or to show the feelings of the writer, but Lord Byron not only use it for theses purposes but to show us his emotions. This is also a type of emotive language used. My opinion is that the tone used in the poem could be described as regretful because when she broke up with him he found out how it really felt and realized he had scarred many women’s lives. The imagery used in the poem is physical imagery as “Pale grew thy cheek and cold.” Is death imagery and death is physical.

There are some similarities though, between the three poems, the fact that in Villegiature and when we two parted is about a break up and a women to her lover is threatening to break up if she is treated wrongly (this could also be a difference). One of the major similarities is that all of the three writers talk in the first person expressing their emotions using such emotive language as “pear tree bloom” (from Villegiature) to slowly tell you whats inside the envelope.

A woman to her starts directly into the speech “do you come to bend me to your will”, Villegiature comes from the beginning to say “my window”, when we two parted is getting to the point “when we two parted in silence and tears”, all of these poems start sharp and to the point using first person. A similarity between When we two parted and Villegiature could be that they both rhyme in between every two sentences. One of the rhymes used is lighted uninvited in Villegiature and tears years in when we two parted. I think the rhyming done in these two poems are to catch people attention when reading the two poems. These two poems also have the same amount of lines in each stanza.

I think even though all of these poems are love poems they are quite different as they all talk about different types of love and have different stories but not just that also the layouts are completely different. For example: even if all of these three poems are love poetry they all have different meanings: a women to her lover is a poem about a woman demanding her rights even though she’s way beyond her years whereas Villegiature is a poem where even the title has a meaning and also the fact that it’s a sonnet although when we two parted is a man in grief as a women he was having an affair with a woman who left her and the process is all in secrecy. One of the biggest differences was the authors who had different life stories like Lord Byron who was first of all a male but not just that as he was a player in his time who was played finally.

Christina Walsh was a women well beyond her years as she talked to men like she was the boss, this took place in the 1900’s where at the time women were treated as objects but she wouldn’t stand for it. Edith Nesbit was the complete opposite as she was scared which I know as she used the false name Edith Nesbit to write such eloquent and deep meaning poems. I think the poem that is most different from the others is A woman to her lover as it is not a break up but a control freak who wants to do as she likes even though the whole country forbids it which shows that she is mentally strong.

The other two poems are break ups and the tone is different to this. But even they have a singular difference e.g. when we two parted is written in an older time and written in older fashion than other two poems. Villegiature is a short sonnet that gets to the point towards the end instead of begging which makes it quite unique.

Finally I think that these three poems are not quite as eye catching as I would of liked but quite boring as they are quite long but the only poem that was short got to the point right at the end and was an odd sonnet as most sonnets are about romance. If I had to choose one of these poems to work on or write about in the future I would choose Villegiature as it is the easiest to write about and it is relatively short compared to the other poems, Overall reviewing the love poems was a good experience for me as I have learnt a lot but still need to read a variety of interesting romantic poems to actually get involved.