Linking unrequited love texts...

Comparing Comparing Never give all Never give all the Heart the Heart by Yeats, The by Yeats, The

Sorrows Of Young Werther Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von by Johann Wolfgang von

Goethe, Goethe, First Love First Love by Clare by Clare and and Twelfth Night Twelfth Night by by

Shakespeare Shakespeare

Never give all the heart W.B Yeats

The poem is 14 lines in the form of a sonnet and it is written in simple language, which can be linked to the idea, that by not giving your heart to the person you love

would be much simpler than having your love unrequited, and complicating the matters of the heart. The poem is written in rhyming couplets, which is seen as

breaks in the flow of the poem. This can possibly be personified with the rhythm of beats in the heart when in love, but when the love is unrequited, the heart

‘breaks’.

 Never give all the heart, for love

Will hardly seem worth thinking ofTo passionate women if it seemCertain, and they never dream

That it fades out from kiss to kiss;For everything that's lovely is

But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight.O never give the heart outright,

For they, for all smooth lips can say,Have given their hearts up to the play.

And who could play it well enoughif deaf and dumb and blind with love?He that made this knows all the cost,

for he gave all his heart and lost.

The poem begins with ‘never give all the heart, for love’. This seems to be acting as a warning for those individuals who fall in love to be cautious with their heart and who they give it to.

The break in the sentence before adding ‘for love’ in one line enforces the idea that it is only for love that a person should not completely commit themselves to through their hearts, perhaps suggesting that it can lead to disastrous consequences if it turns out to be unrequited love.

We can see the desperation of this warning in line 8 ‘O never give the heart outright’, perhaps stressing the pain that the poet himself has experienced with his unrequited love, which can be further seen with the sentence beginning with ‘O’, which emphasises the grief an individual experiences when their love has not been reciprocated.

The breaks made within the sentences in the poem such as ‘but a brief, dreamy. Kind delight’, which shows that after the breaking of the heart, the heart no longer retains a continuous flow.

The last two lines clearly stresses the consequence of unrequited love because we can see Yeats’ broken dreams, and experience his heartache when we read ‘for he gave all his heart and lost’, because it suggests that he has given up on his dream of being loved by the person who he had wholeheartedly given his heart to but in return his love had not been reciprocated.

Never give all the heart 

The Sorrows Of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The novel is written in the style of an epistolary and is loosely based on a fling Johann had when he was young that led him to suicidal feelings.

It is a collection of letters to his friend, Wilhelm, which makes it more personal and heartfelt, therefore the reader feels more sympathy with Werther.

Johann uses the technique stream of consciousness to create a more informal writing style that compliments the form.

Written from a males perspective which is a contrast to many of the extracts we have previously looked at.

OCTOBER 27.I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and, though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.OCTOBER 27: Evening.I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.

Creates a powerful image in the readers mind using language to express how it aggravates him that he is unable to make her love him.  

Uses the word inherent to describe Charlotte as being able to distance herself from the love she feels. Whereas it is constant for him she is able to switch it off and ignore it for her love is not unconditional.

The word possess gives the idea he wants to own her and have control of her in the way he does his materialistic belongings. This portrays Werther as being obsessive.

Similar to the Yeats, both are saying you can’t change how I feel; you can’t make me feel love less intensely than I do now or anymore than I already feel.‘All that you need is patience.‘                                          Heart cries, 'No, ’I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain’. 

Contrast to Warming her Pearls as it is the pearls, the materialistic item, that makes her feel closer to her mistress ‘I feel their absence and I burn’ burn could be a reference to hell and torture which is a contrast as it shows she is pained to be without the item whereas Werther is describing how it would not matter if he had nothing because ‘without her I have nothing’.

OCTOBER 30.One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I!

Compares himself to a child which could represent his innocence and the pureness of

his love for her. Also the amount he is mystified and awestruck by her , the same

way children are amazed by everything they see.

Short sentences and his use of exclamation marks could

symbolise the excitement she provokes in him.

Compare to Echo and Narcissus in the way he is tormented as he watches her pass ‘torment it is

to see so much loveliness passing’ similar to ‘like a starving wolf following a stag too strong to be tackled’ both lines present someone so in love

they want to take hold of them yet they are unable to reach out.

Contrast to Dusty Answer. Judith is willing to put herself out there ‘Last night I gave

you what has always belonged to you’ whereas Werther is meek and unable to act upon his feelings. ‘yet not dare to lay

hold of it!’

The frequent breaks in the sentences could reflect how his heart his faltering as he is unable to act upon his feelings.

NOVEMBER 3.Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again. And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly. I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my sorrow, as it previously contained the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who, at every step, saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded toward the whole world? And this heart is now dead, no sentiment can revive it; my eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me, -- it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart, I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.But I feel that God does not grant sunshine or rain to our importunate entreaties. And oh, those bygone days, whose memory now torments me! why were they so fortunate? Because I then waited with patience for the blessings of the Eternal, and received his gifts with the grateful feelings of a thankful heart.

Echo and Narcissus comparison, ‘Echo moped under the leaves humiliated, she hid’. Like he ‘hides’ in bed she hides in the woods as their loss of love consumes them causing them to waste away for nothing is worth living for apart from that one person.

He realises that he is the reason for his pain, he has no one else to blame. In Dusty Answer Judith feels her pain is due to her own fault ‘it had been so improper, so altogether monstrous to write like that’.

Contrast to Yeats whose personified heart expresses its pain this guys heart is so dead he can feel nothing. ‘ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart’.

Uses descriptive language to emphasise how little he feels in comparison to how much he is able to recall.

This implies that God will not give to those who beg but only to those who have waited with patience and are therefore worthy of what they desire.

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First Love by John Clare

John Clare was commonly known as “the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet” and since his formal education was brief, he resisted the use of the increasingly-standardised English grammar in his poetry

and prose. He was born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his representations of the English countryside.

In terms of structure, the poem has three stanzas and eight lines in each stanza; there is twenty-four lines altogether. The poem rhythms, it goes in A, B, A, B form and is in first person, because it uses a lot

of I, for example”I could not see a single thing” or “I never saw so sweet a face”.

From the title we can see that the poet was never in love before, which consequently meant that the pain was emphasised when the love was unrequited. ‘First Love’ has a lyrical texture with rhyming

couplets, ‘A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D’ ‘, which could resemble the beating of the heart.

Overall Clare never learned to spell or use grammar properly and wrote his poetry whilst walking in the local fields. His surroundings have reflected his poetry since it is extremely expressive and flowing.

First Love 

I ne’er was struck before that hourWith love so sudden and so sweet,

Her face bloomed like a sweet flowerAnd stole my heart away complete.My face turned pale as deadly pale.

My legs refused to walk away,And when she looked, what could I ail?My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face

And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place

Seemed midnight at noonday.I could not see a single thing,

Words from my eyes did start – They spoke as chords do from the string,

And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?Is love’s bed always snow?

She seemed to hear my silent voice,Not love’s appeals to know.I never saw so sweet a face

As that I stood before.My heart has left its dwelling-place

And can return no more.

John Clare1793 – 1864, b. England

First Love’ emphasises an instant attraction and highlights the aspect of unrequited love as the relationship between the poet and the person he loves has not even started. ‘And when she looked, what could I ail?’ is a rhetorical question which reveals how he is hardly acknowledged and it is only in his own mind that she even perceived his love for her. John Clare spent much of his life in an insane asylum, but escaped in 1841 to look for his first love that he thought he would be reunited with, but consequently he never was and returned to asylum.

‘My heart has left its dwelling-place / And can return no more.’ This means that he feels that he cannot love again despite the love not being returned.

Clare also does not want anyone to experience the same pain as but is in the middle of dying. This is evident in the lines; 'My face turned pale as deadly pale,' and 'my life and all seemed turned to clay’ enables the reader to sympathise with the pain he is undergoing.

In the second line it says “With love so sudden and so sweet”, this line tells us that the poet fell in love so suddenly this line has alliteration, for example “so sudden and so sweet”.

First Love’ contains synaesthesia can be seen in phrases such as ‘Words from my eyes did start’. ‘First Love’ can also be compared to ‘The Folly of Being Comforted’ since the heart is personified, where Clare is love ‘struck’ and ‘My heart has left its dwelling place / And can return no more.’ This device provokes sympathy for the writers, because it can be viewed that the heart is more influential than the head.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

As a play, Shakespeare’s romantic comedy relies on delivery of the plot through dialogue. This choice of form was effective as Shakespeare can present the thoughts and feelings of his characters clearly with the use

of monologues, allowing the audience to engage more intimately with them.

A play of disguise and mistaken identity, Twelfth Night also focuses on the pain caused by love. In this scene (Act I Scene i), Duke Orsino in his despondency, is pining over his love for Olivia, who has rejected him as

she is mourning for her brother and has vowed to wear a veil to cover her face for seven years, and refuses to marry until then. The extent of Orsino’s despair at his rejection is evident from his opening

speech...

First three lines; Orsino describes love as an “appetite” which he cannot

satisfy and his desires as “fell and cruel hounds”. Shakespeare uses

such language to present the idea of Orsiono feeling tortured by his love and reveals his anguish in having

been rejected.

Meaning salt water which hurts the eyes, phrases such as this highlight the pain caused by love

Recurring theme in unrequited love textsWriters seem to be preoccupied by the impression of the first sight of their love (also seen in ‘First Love’)This suggests the uncertainty and fleetingness involved in such a love

From this exclamation made by Orsino, the audience is presented with the extent of his infatuation, as mention of the name of his love triggers such a reaction revealing his desperation to hear some word from her

Orsino’s opening speech is delivered in iambic pentameter, allowing focus to build on his choice of topic; his unrequited love