Poetry has been written throughout history to portray a variety of different feelings and emotions. A major emotion depicted using poetry is love. Love has many different aspects that can be explored individually by various poets, depending on their own views of love and the thoughts and actions that can be shown. In this essay, I will be focusing on the works of Robert Browning, Simon Armitage, Chinua Achebe and William Shakespeare and how each of their poems compare and contrast how love has been presented in each.
Robert Browning has written a variety of poems surrounding the feeling of love. I will be focusing on My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. My Last Duchess is composed as a dramatic monologue and is about an egotistical …show more content…
This is shown as Browning uses pronouns such as ‘my’, this shows the possessive element. The use of the phrase ‘there she stands’ is used when he is describing the painting of his last duchess. The choice of words suggests his control as if his previous wife was an object for display and still is even after her death. Obsession is focused upon as the Duke says ‘the curtain I have drawn for you’, showing clearly that he keeps a curtain draped over the painting, hinting at the power and control the Duke holds. The unhealthy possessive nature of the Duke links closely to his controlling attitude as he is able to frighten and manipulate people, this is what leads to the death of his Duchess as he commands for her to be killed due to the fact he does not like the attention she received. This is explored towards the middle of the poem as he says ‘calling up that spot of joy’, suggesting that she was too easily impressed by other men and was not loyal enough to him. This associates with jealous and controlling love. Jealousy is analysed thoroughly throughout My Last Duchess, his paranoia is first highlighted upon when he is describing the painting of the last duchess as he quotes the words of the painter who says ‘never hope to produce the
Robert Browning has written a variety of poems surrounding the feeling of love. I will be focusing on My Last Duchess and Porphyria’s Lover. My Last Duchess is composed as a dramatic monologue and is about an egotistical …show more content…
This is shown as Browning uses pronouns such as ‘my’, this shows the possessive element. The use of the phrase ‘there she stands’ is used when he is describing the painting of his last duchess. The choice of words suggests his control as if his previous wife was an object for display and still is even after her death. Obsession is focused upon as the Duke says ‘the curtain I have drawn for you’, showing clearly that he keeps a curtain draped over the painting, hinting at the power and control the Duke holds. The unhealthy possessive nature of the Duke links closely to his controlling attitude as he is able to frighten and manipulate people, this is what leads to the death of his Duchess as he commands for her to be killed due to the fact he does not like the attention she received. This is explored towards the middle of the poem as he says ‘calling up that spot of joy’, suggesting that she was too easily impressed by other men and was not loyal enough to him. This associates with jealous and controlling love. Jealousy is analysed thoroughly throughout My Last Duchess, his paranoia is first highlighted upon when he is describing the painting of the last duchess as he quotes the words of the painter who says ‘never hope to produce the