Comparison between The Voice and First Love In the poems The Voice by Thomas Hardy and First

Love by John Clare the main topic is love, so they both are emotional poems that express ideas and emotions about romantic love through comparable ways. Different aspects of love are presented in the two poems, however they both show that love has made a big impact on the writers and both poets look back on memories about love. Thomas Hardy focuses more on the negative aspects of love, he shows guilt and regret for not having spent much time with his woman and gives to his poem a very depressed tone. On the other hand Clare focuses on the more positive side of love, showing very strong feelings of happiness and surprise. Hardy and Clare both show very strong feelings in their poems. These feelings are very different between the two poems. Thomas Hardy shows regret and guilt in the poem, and we can see clearly that he misses his woman. The first words of his poem are woman much missed, with which he immediately shows to the reader his feelings for his woman. In the first stanza, Hardy looks back when he and his woman were younger. In the later years of their life together, their love for each other has almost disappeared, which we can see when he says you had changed from the one who was all to me and now you ar e not as you were. Another clue that they were much happier in their youth is in the last line of the first stanza, in which Hardy writes at first, when our day was fair. However Clares feelings are very different from Hardys feelings. He focuses on his emotions of surprise on seeing the woman. His face turned pale, which shows that he is confuse by seeing his woman. We can see that he was suddenly impacted by love, because he says love so sudden and so sweet. This is a new experience for him, which is shown in the first line, where he says I neer was struck before that hour, meaning that it is the f irst time that love has had a big impact on him. In The Voice, we can see that Hardy wants to see his woman again, when he imagines that she is calling him, in the first stanza how you call to me, call to me. In the second stanza he wonders whether he is imagining those calls can it be you that I hear? We can see that he wants to see his wife again when he says let me view you, then.

However Clare has a more physical reaction to the situation in the poem, compared to Hardy that thinks he is hearing his woman calling him. Clare is suddenly impacted by love and he cannot control his reaction. We can see that in the second stanza and the end of the first stanza , where he says my blood rushed to my face and took my eyesight quite away, I could not see a single thing. These lines show that he is surprised and he can only see the woman. Clares reactions do not only describe when he met the woman, but they also describe the sad memories of the time when she left him. He has again a very strong reaction, but this time it is a very negative reaction. When she looked what I could ail refers to when sh e saw something wrong in Clare and decided to leave him. In the next line, Clare shows his strong reaction saying my life and all seemed turned to clay. This is another example of figurative language and it is also an example of natural imagery that Clare uses to convey his feelings. The two poets present the women in very different ways. Hardys presentation of the woman described in his poem is very vague, because Hardy focuses more on his own feelings. On the other hand Clare presents the woman in his poem in a more direct and explicit way. Both poets present the two women as beautiful women, although Hardy focuses more on the time of their young. He remembers her original air-blue gown, which is probably what she was wearing when they first met. Clare describes the woman in his poem as a very beautiful woman, by saying her face it bloomed like a sweet flower. This is one of several images of nature used by Clare and Hardy in their poems. Clare also uses repetition to tell us how beautiful the woman was. He repeats sweet several times throughout his poem. This puts emphasis on the fact that she was very beautiful. Although the two poets describe different aspects of love in their poems, there are similarities in the way love has made a big impact on them. In Clares case, it was mostly a positive impact, except when his wife left him, while Hardy conveys a feeling of guilt and regret throughout The Voice. Even though Clare was much clearer in the description of his feelings than Hardy, who described his feelings in a more vague way, I think both poets were very successful in portraying their love for the two women described in the poems.

Poetry and Theater Angel Camargo X Semester Jorge Peluffo