Key Quotes & Comparisons
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 2.1.3
Key Quotations: Love's Philosophy
Here's some key quotes to remember for your exam:
'The winds of Heaven mix...'
- 'The winds of Heaven mix forever / With a sweet emotion'.
- Shelley uses religious imagery to try to elevate the status of his love and to present his intentions as pure.
'And sunlight clasps the earth...'
- 'And sunlight clasps the earth / And the moonbeams kiss the sea-'.
- Here, Shelley personifies the 'sunlight', 'moonbeams', 'earth' and the 'sea' as lovers as an attempt to present physical union with his lover as the next logical and natural step
'What is all this sweet...'
- 'What is all this sweet work worth / If thou kiss not me?"
- N.B. in some versions of the poem, the line is: "What are all these kissings worth...'.
- There is a clearly manipulative voice in this poem.
- The narrator is trying to get what he wants out of his lover, by any means of persuasion necessary.
Key Comparisons: Love's Philosophy
Here are some suggestions for poems you could compare Love's Philosophy to. Remember, there are endless options!
Natural imagery
- Sonnet 29 ‘I think of thee!’ and Winter Swans.
- You could compare natural imagery across any of these three poems.
Letters from Yorkshire
- This poem has a similar narrator who also comes to a realisation about the reality of her relationship.
Test yourself on Key Quotes & Comparisons
Which of these techniques is found in the following quote:
"And sunlight clasps the earth / And the moonbeams kiss the sea-"Which of these themes could you compare across Love's Philsophy, Sonnet 29 – ‘I think of thee!’ and Winter Swans?
You could discuss natural imagery in Love's Philosophy and...