7/28/2019 Comparison Between the Voice and First Love

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Comparison between The Voice and First Love

In t he poems The Voice by Thomas Hardy and First Love by John Clare the main topic islove, so they both are emotional poems that express ideas and emotions about romantic lovethrough comparable ways. Different aspects of love are presented in the two poems, however

they both show that love has made a big impact on the writers and both poets look back onmemories about love.

Thomas Hardy focuses more on the negative aspects of love, he shows guilt and regret for nothaving spent much time with his woman and gives to his poem a very depressed tone.On the other hand Clare focuses on the more positive side of love, showing very strongfeelings of happiness and surprise.

Hardy and Clare both show very strong feelings in their poems. These feelings are verydifferent between the two poems. Thomas Hardy shows regret and guilt in the poem, and wecan see clearly that he misses his woman. The first words of his poem are woman muchmissed, wi th which he immediately shows to the reader his feelings for his woman.

In the first stanza, Hardy looks back when he and his woman were younger. In the later yearsof their life together, their love for each other has almost disappeared, which we can see whenhe says you had changed from the one who was all to me and now you ar e not as youwere. Another clue that they were much happier in their youth is in the last line of the firststanza, in which Hardy writes at first, when our day was fair.

However Clares feelings are very different from Hardys feelings. He focuses on his emotionsof surprise on seeing the woman. His face turned pale, which shows that he is confuse byseeing his woman.

We can see that he was suddenly impacted by love, because he says love so sudden and sosweet.

This is a new experience for him, which is shown in the first line, where he says I neer wasstruck before that hour, meaning that it is the f irst time that love has had a big impact on him.

In The Voice, we can see that Hardy wants to see his woman again, when he imagines thatshe is calling him, in the first stanza how you call to me, call to me . In the second stanza hewonders whether he is imagining those calls can it be you that I hear? We can see that hewants to see his wife again when he says let me view you, then.

7/28/2019 Comparison Between the Voice and First Love

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However Clare has a more physical reaction to the situation in the poem, compared to Hardythat thinks he is hearing his woman calling him. Clare is suddenly impacted by love and hecannot control his reaction.

We can see that in the second stanza and the end of the first stanza , where he says my bloodrushed to my face and took my eyesight quite away, I could not see a single thing. Theselines show that he is surprised and he can only see the woman.

Clares reac tions do not only describe when he met the woman, but they also describe the sadmemories of the time when she left him. He has again a very strong reaction, but this time it isa very negative reaction. When she looked what I could ail refers to when sh e saw somethingwrong in Clare and decided to leave him. In the next line, Clare shows his strong reactionsaying my life and all seemed turned to clay. This is another example of figurative languageand it is also an example of natural imagery that Clare uses to convey his feelings.

The two poets present the women in very different ways. Hardys presentation of the womandescribed in his poem is very vague, because Hardy focuses more on his own feelings. On theother hand Clare presents the woman in his poem in a more direct and explicit way.Both poets present the two women as beautiful women, although Hardy focuses more on thetime of their young . He remembers her original air -blue gown, which is probably what shewas wearing when they first met.

Clare describes the woman in his poem as a very beautiful woman, by saying her face itbloomed like a sweet flower. This is one of several images of nature used by Clare and Hardy

in their poems. Clare also uses repetition to tell us how beautiful the woman was. He repeatssweet several times throughout his poem. This puts emphasis on the fact that she was verybeautiful.

Although the two poets describe different aspects of love in their poems, there are similaritiesin the way love has made a big impact on them. In Clares case, it was mostly a positiveimpact, except when his wife left him, while Hardy conveys a feeling of guilt and regretthroughout The Voice. Even though Clare was much clearer in th e description of his feelingsthan Hardy, who described his feelings in a more vague way, I think both poets were verysuccessful in portraying their love for the two women described in the poems.

Poetry and Theater Angel Camargo

X Semester Jorge Peluffo