hello all
im just wondering if somebody can give me some help with an english assignment that i have at present. the task is to deconstruct a love poem (preferable old poem) in respect to the cultural context. i was wondering if anybody could reccomend an old love poem that is easy to understnd and deconstruck as i am not the best english student. any help appreciated.

cheers
linden

Good grief! What kind of cultural context does your teacher want you to focus on in respect of a love poem?
Love between members of feuding families, perhaps? You could select a part of the dialogue between Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Social inequality, perhaps? There's 'Love Without Hope' by Robert Graves. Probably still copyright, but hang it, it's only four lines:

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.

Sonnet VII
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The face of all the world is changed, I think,
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
The names of country, heaven, are changed away
For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,
(The singing angels know) are only dear
Because thy name moves right in what they say.

It might be interesting to place this poem into the context of E. B. Browning's relationship to her husband. She was known as his little "Portuguese" to which she replied with her Sonnets from the "Portuguese".

Les

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