Symptoms of Love Flashcards
(9 cards)
What is this poem about?
Written after his separation from his wife, expresses the pain and misery of heartbreak by likening love to a disease
What does the title mean?
Emphasises the irrationally and physical symptoms associated with unrequited love, it has a negative view of love.
Themes
Love
Passion
Jealousy
Context
Graves’ experience of relationships was turbulent. Despite his early homosexual feelings, he eventually married Nancy Nicholson with whom he had four children and left to live with another poet Riding and they separated and he married Beryl Pritchard.
Techniques from stanza one
“Vision - figurative language, refers to an individual’s desire to change society according to their principles, love distracts the speaker from his ambitions for the world around him and he has chosen to focus on his own emotional development before trying to effect change on a grander scale.
Technique in stanza four
“Darkened room” - symbolic topography representing the need for privacy in a relationship and withdrawal from the eyes of society, searching for each other in the darkness reflects the ongoing process of trying to understand each other better, true love involved a willingness to compromise and understand the other’s weaknesses.
Technique in stanza five
Final rhetorical question challenges the assumption that all afflictions, where love is concerned, need necessarily be treated
Structural methods
Form - second person voice suggests the aim of giving an education in love qualified by actual experience, this is no means a stuffy entry in a dusty medical encyclopaedia but a personal exploration of the high and lows of a real romantic relationship.
Rhyme - half rhyme in first stanza gives a cautious nod in the direction of courtly love as the speaker registers his scepticism about traditional ideas of refined courtship from the outset.
What poems does this link to?
How do I love thee? - love
The laboratory
