Compare how ideas about enduring love are presented in two texts you have studied.
You must write about at least two poems in your answer as well as the prose text you have studied. [25 marks]
Example A* level english literature essay for A room with a view and poetry anthology
Compare how ideas about enduring love are presented in two texts you have studied.
You must write about at least two poems in your answer as well as the prose text you
have studied. [25 marks]
Both Rossetti and Shakespeare explore their ideas of enduring love within their sonnets
‘Remember’ and ‘Sonnet 116’. For Rossetti, love is more of a permanent state which cannot
be broken, as once one has experienced it with someone; it will stay between them forever,
so being happy is more important than dwelling on the past and remaining sad by mourning
for that love. However for the speaker of Shakespeare’s poem this would be a betrayal of
true love; if one forgets about a relationship then they were never in love in the first place.
Alternatively Forster’s ‘A Room with a View’ charts the discovery of long-lasting love
between Lucy and George, even if neither of them realise at the start of the novel. Within all
three texts the writers explore the boundaries of enduring love and what it actually means to
be in a loving relationship.
In Rossetti’s ‘Remember’ the speaker characterises enduring, long-lasting love as wanting
the best for one’s lover. At the start of the poem, the speaker wants the people left behind
after their death to “remember me when I am gone”, showing that they think that their love
means they should be in each other’s thoughts all of the time. The central idea of
remembrance is explored throughout the sonnet, however after the first quatrain the speaker
realises that happiness is more important than remembering a past lover and remaining sad,
so tells the reader “afterwards remember, do not grieve”, showing that they realise that
enduring love can remain between them even if the lover gains happiness by moving on with
their life. It also conveys the speaker's own selflessness given that they are willing to be
forgotten so that their lover can find happiness, and perhaps even love, again. This is
continued when the speaker says “better by far you should forget and smile” which shows
that in their view love can remain between them even if the lover, who is still alive, doesn’t
think about the relationship all of the time. Rossetti also explores the spiritual element of love
as the speaker believes that even when they are in “the silent land”, love will remain despite
not being able to physically show the lover who will be left behind. “Silent” has connotations
of desolation and loneliness but it serves to attest the strength and persistence of love:
ultimately that it can survive anything. The poem takes the form of a sonnet, a traditional
love poem, highlighting the intense love between the speaker and reader but also that even
at the end of the poem, love remains albeit in a different form. Therefore Rossetti’s
‘Remember’ shows the power of enduring love in that it can remain even when one party
dies and the other moves on.
In contrast to ‘Remember’, ‘Sonnet 116’ presents a differing view of enduring love: that if one
can move on from love then it was never love. Within the first quattrian “love is not love
which alters” establishes that the central theme of the poem is the everlasting and fixed
nature of love which is either present or missing - there is no inbetween. The speaker
describes love as “an ever-fixed mark”, highlighting the belief that one cannot move on from
love or simply fall out of love because that would mean they were never in love in the first
place. Love is presented as strong and unbreakable when the speaker says that time cannot
affect it saying “love is not Time's fool…[it] alters not with his brief hours and weeks”, this
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