Shelley Galitz
Dr. Warner
English 112B
3 December 2008
True Love Poetry: Annotated
Bibliography
Why teach love poems? Does anyone believe
in true love? Maybe it's naive to think there is such a thing, and even more
naive to expose teens to images involving true love in the hopes of achieving
even a serious discussion of whether it exists, much less any serious
consideration of looking for such a romantic ideal in one's own life. Isn't it
much more realistic and sophisticated to wait to choose a spouse on reality TV
than to entertain the possibility that one might find a partner who shares
one's values and offers and accepts trust and respect? If the world really is
neutral toward the individual, then why work against the grain, why not simply
prepare teens for the world's cruelty and leave it at that; wouldn't it be
kinder to do that than to hold up images that no one can attain in real life?
But what if the purpose of the image is
to inspire? It's possible to use disturbing images to help teens deal with the
consequences of rape, incest, and other "real life" issues, without also
categorically banishing images of life that do not include such issues but
instead focus on ways of being such as trust that can make one's life more
meaningful. If meaningful is out of style, that's just the point. Love poetry
should not be allowed to disappear from the bookshelves or the classrooms just
because it's out of style right now.
There's a saying that we should be both
the wood and the fire that burns the wood at the same time. In other words, be
neither a "poor me" person who only identifies only with being burned, nor a Pollyanna
who identifies only with joy; otherwise, either way, you're missing out on the
richness of life. So does teaching poetry that emphasizes and conveys images of
true love qualify as teaching images of a Pollyanna outlook? No, and
here's why: love is just about the scariest thing there is. Teens need to know
that nevertheless, it's still possible.
How scary is it to open yourself to
another person so much that you're actually, not comically but actually,
sitting on the toilet with them in the room? The thought of it is so scary that
it's almost impossible not to make this into a comic situation. But from Sharon
Olds' "True Love," there's an image of just this. The fear is balanced with the
reward in this poem; true love with a partner is made to seem possible, to feel
possible.
The other poems in this bibliography
don't reach that same balance; they provide individually and collectively
different perspectives on the topic. Sharon Olds to me is the most intensely
real of all of these because it best blends the physical with the bigger
picture.
Shakespeare, William. "Let me not to the marriage of true
minds." Making
Literature Matter. Comp.
John Clifford, John Schilb. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 573.
Shakespeare's 1609 Sonnet 116 provides timeless
images of true love while giving a shorter offering of Shakespeare than Romeo
and Juliet. While the short length of the work allows for investigating the
meanings and images more deeply, the beauty of the language lends itself to the
subject matter. This is a moving poem read aloud even if the listener doesn't
know the meaning of the Shakespearean language or consciously understand all of
the imagery.
Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear and Loving Husband." Making Literature Matter. Comp. John Clifford, John Schilb.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 574.
This is a poem that just dares you to ask
whether it can possibly be sincere. It's the one that starts, "If ever two were
one, then surely we./ If ever man were loved by wife, then thee." The poet was born
in England and came over to what is now the USA in the 1600's. Read it for
yourself and see what you think; I take it as sincere. From the questions in
the anthology from which I took this poem, the editor(s) doubt Bradstreet's
sincerity. The first question is "Do you believe that the speaker means what
she says? Why?" Look at that question in light of this one: "Why might she feel
she has to repay her husband's love? Is true love based on reciprocity?" The
second question assumes the speaker does feel she has to repay her husband's
love; the poem need not be read this way. So, of course, use the questions
critically.
Cummings, E..E. "somewhere I have never travelled." Making Literature Matter. Comp. John Clifford, John Schilb.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 573.
The editors have indicated in the
introduction to this poem that Edward Estlin Cummings (1894 – 1962)
preferred upper case for his name, usually written "e.e. cummings." He wrote
this poem in 1931. The first two stanzas seem mysterious, but then the third
suddenly brings you into the moment, but told from a certain distance, of how
this male speaker's love of the woman he speaks of impacts him.
The last three stanzas are worth a
thousand magazine articles speculating on and recounting what a man can feel
for a woman, except that this poem has both clarity and significance. It, like
Sharon Olds' "True Love," shows how (exactly how) love can change the inside of
you.
Szymborska, Wislawa. "True Love." Making Literature Matter. Comp. John Clifford, John Schilb.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 577.
If students laugh at the previous poems,
and they also laugh at this one, they've been caught! This poem, most of it
anyway, gets into how disgusting lovers can be with their happiness overflowing
all over the place. But then here are the last two stanzas: "Let the people who
never find true love/keep saying that there's no such thing. /Their faith will
make it easier for them to live and die."
This poem dramatically demonstrates use of
tone and irony, and shows one way that love changes the bigger picture.
Olds, Sharon. "True Love." [This isn't a typo; same title as
the previous poem.] Making
Literature Matter. Comp.
John Clifford, John Schilb. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 573.
This poem uses sexual imagery in a way
that shows how the sexual relationship in marriage symbolizes and creates a
living union that is "the most blessed time of [the speaker's] life." She is on
the toilet, her husband who has been in the same room takes her hand as she
calls to him, and he says as he takes it, "I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see
beyond it." This image of what love can be is
unforgettable.
Harper, Michael. "Discovery." Making Literature Matter. Comp. John Clifford, John Schilb. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 580.
This uses an extended image of the
speaker's experience waking up to find his partner next to him awake, caring
enough not to have woken him up despite her desire in the moment. He touches
the light bulb to find out how long she had "looked" and "cared." The last line
is, "The bulb was hot. It burned my hand." What is hot is the desire, and
it is the caring.
The poem gets across very well this blend
of desire and caring that is such an integral part of marriage.
Dickinson, Emily. "Wild Nights – Wild Nights!" Making Literature Matter. Comp. John Clifford, John Schilb.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 581.
The speaker has found what he or she is
looking for. The poet is Emily Dickenson, but the speaker says, in the last two
lines, "Might I but moor – Tonight --/In Thee." The poem describes the
speaker's clarity as he or she contemplates his or her lover. The subject of
the poem seems to be the clarity itself, although in the context the speaker
gives, what the speaker is clear about is not merely sexual, despite the erotic
feel of the last two lines.
This short poem teaches how just a little
bit deeper of a reading can give an enormously deeper meaning.
Rose, Wendy. "Julia." Making
Literature Matter. Comp.
John Clifford, John Schilb. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 583.
Supposedly, or according to the editors
of Making Literature Matter, the speaker in the poem is Julia Pastrana (1834
– 1860), a woman whose husband exhibited her as a freak because of a
medical condition of hers that resulted in hair covering her body. But
the poem can be read without reference to this Julia. If it is read without the
reference, it speaks to the fear that the love whose evidence is so strong,
"Tell me again/how . . . my eyes [are] so dark/you would lose yourself
swimming/man into fish," is not real after all.
This poem can be taught alongside some of
the others, perhaps especially "Wild Nights – Wild Nights!" and Sharon
Olds' "True Love, " both of which express a felt certainty of love, to bring
out the idea of this fear that the love isn't real.
Shakespeare, William. "that time of year." [sonnet 73] The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1974. 1762.
Can love be this strong? The speaker is
old, in ruins, and he sees that his lover perceives this in all its
manifestations and loves him all the more.
The poem gives one answer to the
question, "How can this be?" How can love be this strong?
Shakespeare, William. "My mistress' eyes." [sonnet 130] The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1974. 1773.
The speaker goes on and on about how
badly his lover fulfils his, or some assumed, romantic ideal, "And in some
perfumes is there more delight/Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks."
Ouch! But then the speaker goes on, "I grant I never saw a goddess go, / My
mistress when she walks treads on the ground. / And yet, by heaven, I think my
love as rare/ As any she belied with false compare."
Apparently, love doesn't depend on
whether or not the lover matches some ideal; a valuable lesson for teens.