Thematic Comparison of Lovelace’s To Lucasta and Donne’s Song Essay

Thematic equivalence of Lovelaces To Lucasta and Donnes Song Modern perceptions of complete as denotative in literature-- with gender equality and the abandonment of expected role-playing-- did not helter-skelter become pervasive, but are the product of centuries of incremental progression. The seventeenth ascorbic acid in particular provided a foundation for this progression, as poets for the very source time began to question the dictated structure and male domination of the Elizabethan era. Two poems of the seventeenth century, the chevalier To Lucasta on Going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace and the metaphysical Song by John Donne, each focusing on the hurting inflicted by different aspects of love, employ tactics emblematic of the centurys poetry to demonstrate loves puzzling nature. Both ostensive attempts to comfort their audiences by universalizing and morally justifying loves baneful realities, they finally fail and leave their audiences with only exacerbated pain. To Lucasta, Lovelaces attempt to justify his release from his lover Lucasta for the British Civil War by subjugating his sensual love to honor, fails in its illogical and contradictory nature, and acknowledges the ability of loves resolution to victimize man, while Song, by trying to alleviate the pain of ephemeral love, only underscores loves inevitable elusiveness. Lovelace, one of the preeminent cavalier poets of the seventeenth century, attempts to use his particular situation with his lover Lucasta as puff up as an appeal to honor and patriotism to justify to all soldiers the deviance of their lovers, but the poems inconsistencies obviate success. Throughout the poem, Lovelaces mind, judgement the need to go to battle, remains at war with hi... ...love for his precious Lucasta, however, inconsistencies and fluctuation pervade his writing, and reveal his involuntary mockery of soldierly values and his splinterproof bond to Lucasta. As he must venture into battle, he b ecomes a victim of loves enduring impregnability. Donne, in his Song attempts at first to comfort all men who have encountered the difficulties of romantic relations. With his strong, bossy voice, however, he obliterates the prospects of enduring love. Much the opposite of Lovelace, Donne delineates himself as a victim of loves elusiveness. What the two poems have in common is their discomforting establish on their audiences resulting from their eventual resignation to their respective perceived realities. For Lovelace, this reality is a future of battle and a separation from all that matters for Donne, it is a living void of enduring love.