1
Eng 251Q
February 4, 2003
Differences of Love
Love is one subject that has been looked upon with different views until the beginning of time. It is often explored in various ways, especially in literature. In the early 1600s, two poets wrote about their own views and definitions of love. In Lady Mary Wroth’s “Song: Love What Art Thou,” she explores various earthly things to create a meaning of love. Andrew Marvell wrote his “The Definition of Love” for the review of his on beliefs of love. These two poems shared both similar and different attributes, but their gender has a large effect on what causes the poems to be different. These differences are related to gender because man and woman are just as much complete opposites as they are alike, which can bring up controversial thoughts when it comes to looking at a particular subject like love.
Lady Mary Wroth brings up the question of what exactly is love in her poem. However in her questioning, there is much evidence of a certain bitterness towards love and its effects on the heart and the mind. In the first stanza, she describes love as a “vain thought, In our minds by fant’sy wrought” (656). This first line leads the negative feeling of the whole poem because it describes love as a useless fantasy of the mind. She goes on to give bad images of love in the mind of the reader by using metaphors throughout the rest of the poem. For example, she relates love to “a sweet flower, Once full blown, dead in an hour” and “Firm as bubbles made by rain” (656). Both of these imply that love is only a very short and temporary event in one’s lifetime, which has no chance of living. It is her use of metaphors that point out her negative views on love.
Wroth’s poem has a certain relevance to gender because of the story that it seems to hold within. It seems that she is relating love to a very hurtful event in her own life, in which she was greatly disappointed by someone who she loved or was extremely infatuated with. The clues that lead to this belief are the words that she uses, especially in the last two stanzas of the poem. The word “wantonness” is the first clue because it means sexual impurity. “Wantonness thy greatest pride…But babes can no staidness gain” (656). It seems that she is giving the inference that she has had some sort of sexual affair in which a baby was the product, but the child itself could not cause keep the “love” between her and her lover. In the next stanza, Wroth describes love as a “Causeless cursed” and then “But thy law I once obeyed, Therefore say no more at first” (656). This is also evidence that she is speaking of her own encounters with love because it proposes that she has given up on love. The line “But thy law I once obeyed” is the one that supports this the most, because it seems that she “once obeyed” the laws of love. Her story within the poem shows that her gender influenced the poem because it can be related to many women in general. In many cases, when a woman wants something, she will do anything to get it. This means that if a woman thinks she is in love with a man, she may purposely get pregnant with that man to create a permanent bond between her and her lover. This is something that can be seen today in everyday life, and often women may see it as the only way for them to hold on to the one that they “love,” by making pregnancy a last resort. Also, women in more cases than men, are more likely to give up on love after being extremely hurt. Men seem to be able to move on easier, while the woman may have trouble doing so. Both of these examples can be seen in Wroth’s poem, and also in many women in today’s world and throughout history, so the influence of her gender is very obvious.
Andrew Marvell’s “The Definition of Love” shows a different point of view on love, and that difference can be linked to his gender. Marvell describes love as being “begotten by Despair” (681), or created by a loss of hope. He continues of describing how “Where my extended soul is fixed; But Fate does iron wedges drive, And always crowds itself betwixt” (681). Basically, he is describing how he has united himself with his lover, only to be drawn apart by fate. These lines are the beginning of the rest of the poem, and following is a chain of how “Fate” has its ways of keeping true love from happening. This theme can be seen up to the last lines, “Therefore the love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debars” (681). He relates the reasons of fate and the interruption of love by saying that fate is jealous and envious of love, which therefore leads to the separation of two lovers. This is the basic focus of his poem and belief of what love is.
As in Wroth’s poem, Marvell’s poem tells a story that seems to be somewhat personal. It seems that Marvell speaks of lustful thoughts that has occurred between two married people. The writing in the poem leads to this belief by the way it describes how fate steps in between two lovers. It could be that two married people have thought they have fallen in love with each other or lusting for each other, but it is their marriage that is their actual fate. Their lust is one based on mostly physical attraction, as with most feelings of lust, so only the feeling of love is there, but not real love. Their fate is that they were meant to be with the person that they are married to, and not the person with whom they are lusting over. Therefore, their fate is getting in the way of the ability to have an affair. This can be seen in lines like “Two perfect loves, nor lets them close, Their union would her ruin be” in describing how the affair can not happen without ruining the lovers’ marriages. Marvell’s story can be linked to the male gender because men are more likely to lust over another, even if they are married or in an existing relationship. It is the following through of these lustful thoughts that lead to the end of that existing relationship or marriage, which in many cases is the reason that one doesn’t take their lustful thoughts into actions. Women also lust, but it is more common with the male gender, and it is even more likely for a male to focus on those lustful thoughts for longer periods of time. Therefore, Marvell seems to be writing about a woman he has lusted over many times, but there is a great force that is holding him back from following through with those thoughts.
The greatest differences between these two poems are the actual meanings and interpretations of what love is. The fact that gender plays a role in the view of love between the man and the woman is an addition to the actual context. Based on these poems, it can be concluded that men are more likely to put love and lust along the same terms, and easily confuse feelings of infatuation with real love. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to see love as an actual bond between two people, and seem to put more emotional ties in the meaning of love than men do. Many times the definition of what love is will differ between the man and the woman, but there still exists that balance of feelings and compatibility that can create true love between a man and a woman. Therefore, the gender of Wroth and Marvell had a great significance on their actual belief of what love is.
Works Cited
Marvell, Andrew. “The Definition of Love.” Norton Anthology of English Literature.
Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 681.
Oxford English Dictionary. 2002. 31 Jan. 2003. <http://www.lib.ncsu.edu:2121/>
Wroth, Mary. “Song: Love What Art Thou.” Norton Anthology of English Literature.
Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 656.