Example poetry anthology essay 1

Compare how poets present powerful feelings about love in ‘Neutral Tones’ and in one other poem from ‘Love and relationships’.

Both ‘Neutral Tones' and ‘Winter Swans' suggest that romantic relationships aren’t as idyllic and perfect as they seem. Both poems illustrate how challenges can arise during the course of romantic relationships due to the deep love of the partners. Both poems also demonstrate the different ways in which these problems can be resolved as a result of whether the powerful feelings of love between the individuals in the couple are enough to salvage the relationship.

Both poems suggest that even though relationships can be deeply loving, this romance can fade over time as the couple is faced with challenges. Neutral Tones is a poem about an individual reminiscing about a past relationship that has scarred them. In the first stanza, Hardy uses pathetic fallacy and imagery with the opening line: "We stood by a pond that winter day." Here, the use of pathetic fallacy illustrates the coldness and bleakness of the weather, and therefore also metaphorically demonstrates the bleakness of the speaker’s relationship. Moreover, the verb "stood" is stationary and in the past tense, which suggests that this is a memory and the speaker is reflecting on a past relationship. Hardy uses this to display how, over time, couples can lose the deep feelings of love they once had. Furthermore, it also suggests that when an individual deeply loved the person they were with, it is the relationship that haunts them later in life, as they become unable to forget the passionate feelings they associated with that person. Hardy also uses a cyclical structure by reusing the imagery of "the God-curst sun, and a pond edged with leaves." This suggests that the speaker is still thinking about their past relationship, which illustrates the idea that every bad relationship since this one has reminded him of the memory of his past lover. This implies that when a couple has a strong connection of love, the end of this relationship can still continue to cause pain. Moreover, the use of the adjective "God-curst" to describe the sun along with the phrase "children of God" imply that the speaker feels as though God is against his relationship, and the speaker feels as though he must blame someone. Also, this idea of a divine being causing the end of the speaker's relationship, in the same way the sun is described as being cursed by God, suggests that the speaker's deep love for his partner was so profound that he feels that the only way it could have ended is by divine intervention. Hardy uses this as an allegory to convey how the end of a seemingly loving relationship can cause bitterness to fester in the heart of the jilted lover. Similarly, Winter Swans suggests that even deeply loving relationships involve complications. The poem begins with the phrase "the clouds had given their all." Here, Sheers uses symbolism and imagery to convey the gloomy nature of the couple’s relationship. Moreover, this could also suggest ignorance in the sense of things being "clouded," which implies that the couple are ignoring their issues. Also, the personification of the clouds suggests that just like the clouds, the couple has given their all, said all they need to say — the argument has run its course. Sheers poignantly uses this as an allegory to convey how in relationships, arguments and problems can arise as the individuals love each other which may mean they argue often. Sheers also says the phrase "we skirted the lake, silent and apart." Here, the poet uses caesura to convey how the couple is physically and psychologically apart in the sense way the one is apart from the rest of the stanza. Moreover, the "lake" could be a metaphor for the couple’s problems — he suggests that they are avoiding their issues. Finally, the use of the harsh plosives of "k" and “t” makes the line awkward to read, which could symbolically display the couple’s own awkwardness due to the things said throughout their unresolved argument. This clearly demonstrates how often in romantic relationships, couples can avoid talking about their issues due to their powerful feelings of love for each other (as illustrated by the collective pronoun “we” in the poem) and reluctance to hurt each other’s feelings.

Both poems display contrasting ideas about the effects of these challenges on relationships and whether the love between the couple is enough to salvage the relationship. For the speaker in Neutral Tones, the relationship had no reconciliation which left the speaker bitter and in pain. In the final stanza, Hardy illustrates how since this relationship, the speaker has learnt “keen lessons that love deceives, / And wrings with wrong.” Here, Hardy uses the harsh plosives of the “k” sound to convey how difficult the lessons the speaker learnt were. Moreover, the use of the personification and metaphor that love “wrings with wrong” suggests that love is so wrong that when you squeeze it metaphorically speaking, all that comes out is wrong — there is no right in there. This presents the speaker’s voice as jaded which suggests that his past relationship has made him lose all hope in love. He now feels as though the whole institution of love is a lie. This conveys the sense that after the ending of a deeply intimate and loving relationship, people can descend into utter despair due to their belief that if their passionate relationship ended, love can not be possible. However, Winter Swans conveys a strikingly different solution. In Winter Swans, the couple are able to reconcile and reunite due to their love for each other. ‘Winter Swans’ is a poem about a couple that endures difficulties during a relationship but overcomes them in the end. Sheers uses the phrase “slow-stepping in the lake’s shingle and sand” to convey how the couple is moving forward. Here, the use of the sibilance in comparison to the harsh plosive sounds of the previous stanza convey the softening of attitude between the lovers. Moreover, the verb “slow-stepping” suggests that there is movement and the couple is trying to overcome their issues. However, the verb also connotes slowness to suggest that this is a gradual process. The use of the noun phrase “shingle and sand” also connotes difficulty in the way that sand is difficult to walk in — to suggest that working through these complications is not an easy process. Through this, Sheers displays how when a couple loves each other enough, they are willing to confront their problems head-on rather than avoiding them which leads to a sustained relationship of unconditional love. However, the poem doesn’t end on a couplet with a perfect rhyme which suggests that the relationship isn’t completely harmonious and perfect in the same way love and relationships aren’t always perfect and easy.

Both poems suggest that love is not a perfect fairytale as the storybooks like Cinderella present it to be — there is not always a happily ever after. These poems instead convey the difficulties that arise within relationships and the pain this can cause. The main difference between the two poems, however, however, is while some couples can overcome these issues due to their love, others may not reach this same reconciliation which can be despairing and painful. Collectively, these poems act as an accurate portrayal of the effect of powerful feelings of love.