A Dedication to My Wife - By T. S. Eliot

To whom I owe the leaping delight
That quickens my senses in our wakingtime
And the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,
the breathing in unison.

Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Who think the same thoughts without need of speech,
And babble the same speech without need of meaning...

No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours only

But this dedication is for others to read:
These are private words addressed to you in public.

*This poem bridges the gap between the private and public aspects of love, a public celebration of the intimacies of love.

*The lover that Eliot addresses is never named. The poem is a dedication to his 'wife', to 'whom' he loves, and identifying her and himself as 'lovers'. This could be interpreted in many different ways. It could firstly connote how our identities are taken over by love. By addressing her as his 'wife' and not by her name demonstrates how one becomes defined by the person they love, with her belonging to him as her wife. It could also show how although this poem is a 'public' dedication, the privacy of love is still retained. They are simply 'lovers'. The last line of the poem encapsulates this, 'These are private words addressed to you in public'. A public celebration of the deep intimacies of their relationship. The anonymity emphasises this key message of Eliot's.

*In the first stanza, two metaphors for love are expressed. Love is described as both 'the leaping delight', and 'the rhythm'. This depicts two different forms of love. The 'leaping delight' connotes the initial stage of falling in love, the euphoria and infatuation that is often seen as a youthful love. The 'rhythm' , however, can be seen as what remains when the euphoria has gone, connoting the stability of love and the regularity it provides in life. In Eliot's poem, he presents both forms of love, showing how true love remains because of the developments it makes. Love is eternal - but it only remains so if we let it develop as we do. Furthermore, both the metaphors used can be seen as linked to the heart. The first, 'leaping delight' is a typical way that the heart is associated to love, with the word 'leaping' connoting the skipping of heart beats etc. The second metaphor is also linked to the heart, but in a less obviously romantic way. It is the 'rhythm' of the heart that keep us alive. In this, Eliot makes interesting reflections on the different forms of love. Whilst it is the euphoria of love that keeps us happy, it is what remains after this that really matters, placing emphasis on the later through assimilating the regularities if love to the rhythm of the heart that keeps one alive.

*The poem can be seen as more of a celebration of love rather than the lover. Although the title of the poem is, 'A Dedication to My Wife', the poem seems to be more of a dedication to the love that Eliot is able to share with his wife. The second stanza in particular demonstrates how Eliot is celebrating what they share, the way that they are united in love, his language connoting unity and understanding. Lines such as, 'Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other', explore the idea of lovers both united and defined by each other. They are firstly identified as 'lovers' rather than their names and something as personal as a smell is shared with the one they love. The poem is not a 'dedication 'in the sense of celebrating her beauty or virtue - he celebrates his wife in how it is through her and her love that they are united in this way. Furthermore, the first line of the second stanza, 'Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other' is the latter half of the last line of the first stanza, 'The breathing in unision'. The way that this line runs over two stanzas further connotes the unison of love, with the idea that, as the line bridges the two separate stanza's, love unites two separate individuals as 'lovers'

*In the third stanza, Eliot uses natural imagery to demonstrate the eternal nature of love.The words 'No peevish winter wind shall chill... the roses in the rose garden which is ours, and ours only', demonstrate how whilst the seasons may change, affecting natural elements, their love withstands all. Interesting comparisons of the use of natural imagery to explore love can be made with Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. The sonnet begins with the question, 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?', and after exploring the comparisons of their beauty, 'Thou art more lovely and more temperate', Shakespeare addresses the main difference between the beauty of the lover and that of a summer's day, 'But thy eternal Summer shall not fade'. Both Eliot and Shakespeare use natural imagery to compare love or the lover, both concluding that whilst the natural elements alter, the love, or lover, remains .

Lots more stuff can be said about this poem - even though it is only short there are a lot of interesting ideas/concepts of love :)

*

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20905807/Jane-Austen

Elizabeth Gaskell - Mary Barton

I initially began reading this for my personal statement, without the concept of love in mind. Gaskell sets out in this novel to document the social deprivation of industrial Manchester, a she herself explains in the preface of her novel, 'The more i reflected on this unhappy state of things...the more anxious I became to give some utterance to this agony'. Gaskell is more than a novelist - she is a social commentator as she often reminds us with reflections such as, 'but what I wish to impress is what the working man feels'. This occasional interaction with the reader distances us form the novel's narrative. This can be seen as a devise of Gaskell's in making sure the reader is aware that this is not simply a story - this is a picture of society.


In spite of all of this, 'Mary Barton' is rich in sources for the study of love. Within her social commentary we see many forms of love; paternal, maternal, grand paternal, romantic, unrequited, forbidden and platonic. Furthermore, we see the emergence of the nuclear family which is important in studying how family love and relationships have evolved.

Gaskell fuses her social commentary with her presentation of love in her demonstration of lost love. Gaskell's most emotive devise in communicating the hardship of the Mancunian working class is creating vivid characters in relationships that die, leaving a legacy of heartache. The novel opens with the meeting of two married couples with their children, and almost picturesque scene, away form the city, and gradually we see many of them die.

I will continue to explore more of these forms of love at a later date, focusing predominately on Mary herself, as the protagonist of the novel.

W B Yeats - Ephemera

'YOUR eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sorrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning.'
And then She:
'Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars

seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!'
Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
'Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.'
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors

in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves
Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,
In bosom and hair.
'Ah, do not mourn,' he said,
'That we are tired, for other loves await us;
Hate on and love through unrepining hours.
Before us lies eternity; our souls
Are love, and a continual farewell.'

This is an interesting poem to look at with the concept of love in mind. My own interpretation was the idea of preserving a love by letting it go, rather than holding on to it and turing it sour. Perhaps a type of young love or passion. It assumes the idea of love having a transitory nature - rather than it being eternal it is ephemeral.

Many would dispute the validity of this idea of love - surely a true love is eternal and can stand everything. Yet Yeats perhaps justifies this by avoiding the idea of a love 'dying' and that letting love go is in fact the best thing to do. The words, 'When the poor tired child, Passion, falls asleep' exemplify this idea. Firstly the idea of a child connotes an innocence; we can't help but fall in love and we are powerless to stop falling out of love. We are therefore, powerless and innocent to our emotions. However. more so Yeats carefully selects the words 'falls asleep'. The love may be 'waning' as described before but it does not die, and it is because we 'put love to bed' that it is preserved. It is through this careful imagery of love as a sleeping child that Yeats creates a purity in the love he describes.

Yeats presents this idea of 'falling out of love' as one that is entirely natural, and he achieves this (unsurprisingly!) through dense description of nature. Yeats describes 'Autumn was over him', with autumn, the season of change creating the idea of this change being a natural one. Furthermore, a change such as a seasonal one cannot be fought, 'was over him', and Yeats uses this idea to demonstrate how we cannot and should not fight the nature of our own hearts.

Restoration Literature

The Restoration and Augustan period

The character of literature (especially drama) is greatly characterised by the political (and social) change of 1660. In 1660 English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II. 'Restoration' refers to both the act and the period that followed the commonwealth of 1649 - 1660.

Theatres reopened after having been closed during the protectorship of Oliver Cromwell. Theatres were closed for 18 years by the puritan regime. Inevitably when drama returned it was with change, a change that represented the constraints of expression. This period is known as the renaissance of English drama. Restoration comedies are known for their sexual explicitness (this was encouraged by Charles II).

The Restoration period saw the emergence of the first female playwright, Aphra Behn. Behn's work was all in light of her royalist views and can be seen as a protest of the powerlessness of women.

Prose in the restoration period is dominated by christian religious writing but the restoration also saw the beginnings of two genres that later would dominate - fiction and journalism.

works include-
Thomas Sprat - History of the Royal Society
John Locke - Philosophical works. Introduces the concept of Empiricism. He emphasized the plastic nature of Society (he saw monarchy overthrown, democracy evolve, democracy corrupt and monarchy restored)
John Bunyan - 'The Pilgrim's process' - an allegory of personal salvation and guide to Christianity.

OK, I know I am useless at anything that requires trying new things and am a self confessed technophobe but I will change....
this summer I have read:
*The picture of Dorian Gray - this is my brother's favourite book and is also one of mine too, for it is excellent. I love Oscar Wilde's plays with A woman of no importance topping the list. This could fall into the theme of love in the sense of vanity, being in love with the self, and also idealism, being in love with a certain concept, with this being youth and beauty. But then again maybe this is straying away a little. Regardless, it was fantastic.
*Wuthering Heights - obviously, I'll post what I thought etc when I am less tired
* Brideshead revisited - I actually read this last summer but when Becky said she was going to read it I gave it another go. I guess its a novel that is fundamentally about religion, and love of God is irrelevant in the exam as I read on Mrs Sim's notes, but actually its quite a good one to read following on from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Breakfast at Tiffany's explores the power of platonic love and this is also key to Waugh's novel as this is central to his novel.
*Lady Chatterley's Lover - Tash will be pleased - a bit of D.H Lawrence. This book was banned due to its explicit content. This is probably the one to read when looking at sexual love. Lawrence wrote to liberate the generations who found sex as merely an embarrassment and a mechanical art. Lawrence said about his work, 'To me it is beautiful and tender and frail as the naked self is'.
*Much ado about nothing - this has always been one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, even though it is considered his least ambitious. Oh well! The language of Beatrice and Benedict is so carefully constructed to make the other look a fool.
*A Room with a view - actually a fantastically funny look at the English manner. One of Forster's favourite themes was the 'undeveloped heart' of the English. Lucy is torn between Victorian society and what her heart tells her. I actually read this book because i remembered watching the film at about the age of seven and finding Cecil completely hilarious.
Right, I'm tired and hate staring at the computer screen. I will write again. I promise. xxxxxx

Useful site

http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/chaucer.htm