Love in "Remembrance" isn't just about that warm fuzzy feeling in your chest. Instead it's more like a battlefield between the mind, time, and the speaker's ability to hold on to her love without wanting to throw herself in an early grave. Her survival depends on checking those tears of passion and grief before her despair over losing love destroys her completely. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, but love also comes with a price.
Questions About Love
- How does the speaker initially feel about the loss of her "Sweet Love of youth"? How does the poem's meter reflect that feeling?
- Why is first love a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing? Is it fair to say that it's always incomparable to anything that comes after it?
- How does the speaker later regard her love in terms of her remembrance of it? Is it as out of control as it was in the beginning?
- Can life really be cherished "without the aid of joy" that comes from love? If so, how?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.
The memory of love needs to be checked in order for the speaker to survive and resist throwing herself in an early grave.
Feeling love may not be the same as recalling love, as the former is more so something that comes naturally while remembrance involves the digging up of pain and thought.