Love Through The Ages

Question 1

What are the FOURTEEN poems in the Anthology?

Answer 1

1. Who so List to Hount
2. Sonnet 116
3. The Flea
4. To His Coy Mistress
5. The Scrutiny
6. Absent From Thee
7. Garden of Love
8. Ae Fond Kiss
9. She Walks in Beauty
10. Remember
11. The Ruined Maid
12. At An Inn
13. La Belle
14. Nom Sum (Cyanara)

Question 2

What is ‘Who so List to Hount’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 2

‘Who so List to Hount’ is about the unattainability of women presented through the metaphorical hunt, comparing the woman to a ‘female deer’.

• Unattainability of women

Question 3

What is ‘Sonnet 116’’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 3

‘Sonnet 116’ explores the idea of everlasting love, defining love by telling what it is and what it is not.

• Everlasting love

Question 4

What is ‘The Flea’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 4

‘The Flea’ is about the sexual connection between a man and a woman, using the flea as a metaphor for sex, also as the voice of God.

• Erotic love (Eros)

Question 5

What is ‘To His Coy Mistress’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 5

The speaker attempts to persuade his resistant lover that they should have sexual intercourse.

• Erotic Love (Eros)

Question 6

What is ‘The Scrutiny’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 6

‘The Scrutiny’ is a poem that explores the unfaithfulness of a man to his wife with a playful argument.

• Unfaithfulness

Question 7

What is ‘Absent from Thee’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 7

‘Absent from Thee’ explores a petrarchan relationship, challenging the light of traditional love poetry by speaking of serial unfaithfulness.

• Unfaithfulness

Question 8

What is ‘Garden of Love’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 8

‘The Garden of Love’ is a poem containing lots of religious imagery to argue that religion should be about love, freedom, and joy, not rules and restrictions

• Religion

Question 9

What is ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 9

‘Ae Fond Kiss’ describes two lovers parting, was sent by Burns to a woman he loved just before she left Scotland, never to see Burns again.

• Storge love

Question 10

What is ‘She Walks in Beauty’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 10

‘She Walks in Beauty’ is a poem that celebrates female beauty.

Question 11

What is ‘Remember’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 11

‘Remember’ is a poem that explores the reaction to death, a partner wishing their significant other to remember them when they die but also to move on though demanding and permissive tones.

• Enduring love
• Love
• Death
• Reaction to death

Question 12

What is ‘The Ruined Maid’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 12

‘The Ruined Maid’ is about a woman who loses her purity or virginity during the Victorian Era, which is looked down upon, challenging the double standards between men and women

• Womens position in society

Question 13

What is ‘At an Inn’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 13

‘At an Inn’ describes the love that does not and then does exist between the speaker and his listener.

• Philia love

Question 14

What is ‘La Belle’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 14

Describes how a beautiful lady without mercy Charms and then deceives the knight badly. The knight falls in love with the beautiful
lady.

• Distorted perceptions of reality

Question 15

What is ‘Nom Sum’ about and what are the central themes?

Answer 15

‘Nom Sum’ explores the idea of a hopeless love and the transformation into an obsessive love between a male and a young polish girl named ‘Cyanara’.

• Mania, Manic love

Question 16

What does ‘Plato’s ladder of love’ represent?

Answer 16

The ladder represents the path of love as an ascent from, initially, pure physical attraction to, finally, love of divinity, split into three sections: Physical, emotional, spiritual