English 2112 [REDACTED]

Blackburn

11/06/2016

An Analysis of Love Poems

Poems are a form of literature that manipulates literary devices to convey a theme or

image with a symbolic and rhythmic feel. A love poem would be classified as a poem that has

the theme of or expresses the idea of love. Baudelaires poem A Carcass is about a man who

sees a corpse and is prompted to write a poem about the woman he loves. He goes on to compare

the woman and the corpse, and the poem has an overall theme that love is undying. Yeats poem

When You Are Old is written about the woman he loves. Yeats explains how even as the

woman ages, his love is timeless and will last forever. Baudelaire and Yeats poems are both

considered love poems because of their sharing the theme of love and its undying nature as well

as both of their abilities to use literary devices to convey their themes of love to the audience.

Baudelaires A Carcass is a prime example of a love poem. In the beginning of this

poem the writer claims Remember, my love, the item you saw That beautiful morning in June

(659). The writer is immediately referring to his love whom this poem is about. Throughout

the poem the writer compares the corpse he finds to this woman. The writer states, And you, in

your turn, will be rotten as this: Horrible, filthy, undone (660). This can also be seen as an

example of loaded words because of the striking and negative vocabulary used throughout the

poem to describe the corpse. In his own way the writer is claiming his love for the woman by

loving her even as she will eventually turn into a corpse. This poem shows that love is

completely timeless and is treasured throughout all times and walks of life. In addition to this,

Baudelaire was able to use symbolism to convey his theme of love throughout the poem. This is
because for the entire duration of the poem, Baudelaire is comparing the love of his life to a

lifeless and cold corpse.

In Yeats When You Are Old the writer talks about beauty and love. He writes, How

many of your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true. (1370).

This is another example of loaded words used by the author, however these are contrasting with

Baudelaires because they are more positive and said through love. Yeats is claiming his love of

her beauty to be absolutely true. Yeats will still love her even when you are old and gray and

full of sleep (1370). This is a love poem because Yeats expresses his love for this woman by

writing about how he will love her even as she changes and becomes old. This is a classic love

poem and is also an example of how love has no limit based on age or time. Additionally Yeats

was able to characterize his love with his explanation of her by painting a picture in the

audiences mind of a graceful and beautiful woman that he loved. This showed the love of his

life in a happy and joyful way because even though she is aging, he still considers her as

beautiful.

Both of these poems express the idea of undying love and affection for another human

being. Baudelaire does this through his use of imagery. An example of this is the use of words

like horrible, filthy, and undone (660) to describe what will become of his love when she is

long departed from the world. In contrast, Yeats uses an approach that appeals to pathos. He does

this by using the terms such as old and grey (1370) which make the audience feel as though his

comments are genuine and from the heart. While both Baudelaire and Yeats approaches were

different, they both gave off the same effect. The authors were expressing love as undying and

unchanging, despite the fact that aging and eventually death come for us all in the end.

Baudelaire and Yeats were both able to use loaded words to bring their themes to life. However,
they both were able to use different literary devices to assist in the audiences interpretations of

the poems, even though their topics were relatively the same.

Baudelaire and Yeats both wrote about love being something that has no time limit or

age. Their use of literary devices in their poems, which shows exactly how and why both of these

pieces of literature are love poems. Baudelaire took a more negative approach in comparing his

love to a corpse, while Yeats showed his love in a more positive light by talking about the aging

of humans. Both of these men conveyed their themes of undying and unchanging love regardless

of death, age, or time, and were able to do so rhythmically and symbolically. Baudelaire and

Yeats are both perfect examples of authors who wrote love poems, even if their methods were

strikingly contrasting.