Love

I have learnt that there are two different attitudes towards love; I have selected four poems that consider this issue and show the poets true thoughts on love. Two of my texts, ‘Leaving Prince Charming Behind,’ written by Karlo Mila and ‘Advice to a discarded Lover,’ written by Fleur Adcock, both look at the theme of love and past relationships in a negative and quite a depressing manner. Whereas, the other two texts deal with both the poets sweet, happy and more realistic attitude towards the power of true love. ‘To the girl who stood beside me at the checkout counter of Whitcoulls in Hamilton on Tuesday,’ written by Glenn Colohoun and ‘This is love,’ written by Karlo Mila both deal with the positive aspects of love and the journey of love and what it means to them.

The two texts ‘Leaving Prince Charming Behind,’ written by Karlo Mila and ‘Advice to a discarded Lover,’ written by Fleur Adcock. Look at the theme of love through two similar ways. The connection between the texts is the poets stating their sad and negative outlook on love, certain techniques such as metaphors help to demonstrate and illustrate the visual image of both poets’ similar negative perceptions of love and relationships. In the poem, ‘Leaving Prince Charming Behind’ relating to fairy tales clarified that she did not want to be a ‘princess’ anymore. By using a metaphor the poem constantly referred to the fairy tale characters. The technique was effective in showing the connection between the two texts, as the fairy tale characters provide stereotypes and presumed knowledge. So we assume what is going to happen. However Mila proves our assumption wrong by showing the paradoxical side of each event or character. As a reader we know Rapunzel as a princess in a tower. Mila modifies this image by describing her long hair as ‘shorn.’ ‘The architect of isolation’ relates to Rapunzel feeling helpless. She has used this to show that she wanted to escape from him and that she did not love him