Edward Thomas - analysis of quote 'And yet I am half in love with pain'
Thomas expresses the view that he is ‘half in love with pain’ in various poems, particularly ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Rain’. In both of these poems he seems to resent his troubles but also appreciates them in a rather unusual way. He expresses this by juxtaposing his inner states of joy and melancholy and the outer states of weather and the natural world.
Throughout ‘Melancholy’, we see a relationship between pain and pleasure as he presents them as two halves of a whole experience, where one is consistently reinforming the other, as an endless cycle and revolution, like the seasons. When looking at ‘Melancholy’, it is clear that Thomas is suffering and in sadness; it is a state of mind for him. This may also be due to his mother suffering from depression, that he too lived with. Although Thomas resents his illness in this poem, he does not want to change his ways, ‘so that if I feared the solitude / far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude.’ His disliking of being alone does not motivate him to find any company as he has found faults in this too. Instead, Thomas remains in this state, which shows the audience that maybe he does not want to escape this gloomy mind set; which then shows us that maybe a part of him takes pleasure in his own sadness. This strange behaviour is expressed more clearly throughout the poem, where he uses a metaphor of weather for his illness, (as we have seen in various other poems from Thomas, such as ‘March’), ‘The rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly.’ Considering dreary and terrible weather usually reflects Thomas’ own feelings, Thomas’ use of repetition accentuates the never ending pain he endures, as does the more to the point, ‘raved endlessly’. However, Thomas then goes on to say ‘On me the summer storm, and fever, and melancholy / Wrought magic’ Even from ‘summer storm’ we can infer that he has a bittersweet view of his own pain – Summer usually being something Thomas takes pleasure in (as in many poems such as
Throughout ‘Melancholy’, we see a relationship between pain and pleasure as he presents them as two halves of a whole experience, where one is consistently reinforming the other, as an endless cycle and revolution, like the seasons. When looking at ‘Melancholy’, it is clear that Thomas is suffering and in sadness; it is a state of mind for him. This may also be due to his mother suffering from depression, that he too lived with. Although Thomas resents his illness in this poem, he does not want to change his ways, ‘so that if I feared the solitude / far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude.’ His disliking of being alone does not motivate him to find any company as he has found faults in this too. Instead, Thomas remains in this state, which shows the audience that maybe he does not want to escape this gloomy mind set; which then shows us that maybe a part of him takes pleasure in his own sadness. This strange behaviour is expressed more clearly throughout the poem, where he uses a metaphor of weather for his illness, (as we have seen in various other poems from Thomas, such as ‘March’), ‘The rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly.’ Considering dreary and terrible weather usually reflects Thomas’ own feelings, Thomas’ use of repetition accentuates the never ending pain he endures, as does the more to the point, ‘raved endlessly’. However, Thomas then goes on to say ‘On me the summer storm, and fever, and melancholy / Wrought magic’ Even from ‘summer storm’ we can infer that he has a bittersweet view of his own pain – Summer usually being something Thomas takes pleasure in (as in many poems such as