Love's Philosophy - Perey Bysshe Shelley Flashcards
Love’s Philosophy
This poem was written in a strongly Christian society. Religion was often used as a reason to not express sexual love outside of marriage, especially for women.
The message of this poem is radical : God created nature and sex is natural, therefore expressing sexual love outside of marriage is not a sin, like how Shelley eloped with his extra-marital lover Mary Wollstonecraft.
General Context
- Shelley published a pamphlet on atheism. He denied the authorship and was expelled from Oxford University.
- He was married to Mary Wollstonecraft and ran away with her to Switzerland, leaving his pregnant wife behind.
- He was a Romantic poet, favouring personal, emotional and natural themes in his poetry.
‘fountains mingle with the river’
L - euphemism
Used as a phallic symbol to imply sex.
L - natural imagery
Stating that the fountain mingles with the ocean is natural in order to persuade her that sexual desire is natural.
‘winds of Heaven mix forever’
‘all things by a law divine’
L - time marker
The time reference suggests the speaker is trying to convince her that his love for her is eternal so she will have sex with him.
L - religious semantic field, metaphor
The speaker’s argument is that God created winds and the winds mingle, so they should mingle too. Perhaps we can infer the subject of the poem may object to have sex with him on religious ground.
‘see the mountain kiss high heaven’
L - imperative verb
The speaker wants her to imagine them together sexually in her mind.
‘no sister-flower would be forgiven if it disdain’d its brother’
L - imagery
The speaker describes a platonic relationship while he wants a sexual relationship.
‘sunlight’ ‘moonbeams’
The reference to the sun and the moon implies that the speaker’s feeling will never fade. He will love her day and night.
‘why not I with thine?’
‘what are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?’
L - rhetorical questions to end both stanzas
It is an emotional blackmail as he is saying life worths nothing if she does not kiss him.
It also makes the subject to question her resistance to him.
reference to the four elements : air, water, fire, earth
The speaker wants to imply that sex is elemental for survival as the four elements.
Written in two eight lines stanzas
The two stanzas represents the couple while the stanzaic break represents the fact that he has not yet persuaded her to couple with him.
There is no full stop in the poem, only two question marks
The lines mingle just as he wants them to mingle.
The metre of the poem
The poem uses iambic tetrameter for the first three lines of every four and iambic trimeter for the fourth.
The change in metre reflects the fact that they are not in harmony with each other.
Written in alternating rhyme scheme with half-rhymes
Emphasises that they are not yet together.
Reader Response
- think that he is manipulative
- radical message
