English Essay 2

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.

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English 2112 [REDACTED]

An Analysis of Love Poems

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

lifeless and cold corpse.

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