Love (Leaving Cert English): Revision Notes
Love
Context and introduction
Eavan Boland's poem "Love" appears in her 1994 poetry collection In a Time of Violence. The poem explores the central themes of love, regret, and memory, examining how intense emotions from the past cannot be recreated in the present.
Boland was an Irish poet whose work often focused on Irish life from a feminist perspective. Her poetry frequently examines domestic life and relationships with deep emotional insight.
Summary of the poem
"Love" presents a speaker addressing her partner about their shared past in a small Irish town. The poem contrasts images of their simple, ordinary life together with mythical references to heroes and legends. The speaker recalls a time when they almost lost a child and when their love felt transcendent - described as having "the feather and muscle of wings".
The poem moves between the mythical and the mundane, showing how their passionate past love has settled into a calmer but less intense present relationship. The speaker expresses a longing to return to those earlier feelings, but ultimately accepts that "words are shadows" and cannot recreate what has been lost.
Structure and form
The poem consists of six stanzas of varying lengths, ranging from just two lines to thirteen lines each. This uneven structure reflects the irregular nature of memory and emotion.
Boland doesn't use a single rhyme scheme throughout, but she does employ half-rhyme techniques. These create subtle sound connections through:
- Consonance: repetition of consonant sounds (like the "d" sound in "Dusk," "hidden," and "bridge")
- Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds (such as the "o" sound in "no" and "knowing")
Key poetic techniques
Alliteration
Boland uses alliteration - words beginning with the same sound appearing close together.
Example of Alliteration:
"Snow" and "shoulders" appear in successive lines, creating a musical effect that draws attention to these images.
Anaphora
Anaphora involves repeating words or phrases at the start of multiple lines.
Example of Anaphora:
Lines two and three of the second stanza both begin with "We had a", emphasising the shared experiences of the couple.
Enjambment
Enjambment occurs when lines flow into each other without natural stopping points. This technique appears throughout "Love", forcing readers to move quickly between lines and creating a sense of flowing memory and thought.
Caesura
Caesura creates pauses within lines, sometimes marked by punctuation.
Example of Caesura:
"We had a view. And we discovered there" - the full stop creates a deliberate pause mid-line.
Stanza-by-stanza analysis
Stanza one
The opening stanza establishes the setting of a "mid-western town" as darkness falls. Boland introduces mythical imagery alongside everyday details - the bridge becomes hidden by dusk and transforms into the water "the hero crossed on his way to hell". This reference possibly alludes to the River Styx from Greek mythology.
This technique of mixing the legendary with the ordinary continues throughout the poem, showing how the speaker views their past love through both realistic and romantic lenses.
Stanza two
The speaker shifts to describing their shared domestic life using the pronoun "we". Their apartment contained simple furnishings - "a kitchen and an Amish table" - yet they discovered that "love had the feather and muscle of wings".
Boland personifies love as an angelic presence, "a brother of fire and air", using traditional religious imagery to suggest something transcendent within their ordinary surroundings. This juxtaposition between the mundane apartment and the mythical description of love creates emotional depth.
The stanza reveals they "had two infant children one of whom was touched by death" but survived, adding undertones of vulnerability and precious survival.
Stanza three
This brief four-line stanza shifts to the present, using simple, direct language. The speaker states "I am your wife" and notes that now "we speak plainly. We hear each other clearly."
Their relationship has evolved from the intense, mythical love of the past to something more settled and communicative, though perhaps less passionate.
Stanza four
The speaker confesses her desire to "return to you" as you were in the past. She remembers a specific moment involving "a car passing with its headlights on" - a simple but significant memory that represents the kind of love she felt then.
The language remains deliberately simple and understated, but the emotional importance of the image is clear.
Stanza five
Here the speaker directly compares her partner to "the hero in a text", seeing him as a "blazing" image with "edges gilded". She asks rhetorical questions about whether their past love was "so formidable" that it offered them "ascension".
This stanza shows the speaker's recognition that their past love felt mythical and transformative, elevating them beyond ordinary experience.
Stanza six
The final two lines bring the poem to a melancholic conclusion. The speaker acknowledges that "the words are shadows and you cannot hear me. You walk away and I cannot follow."
This ending emphasises the theme of acceptance - she understands that language cannot recreate past emotions, and their relationship has moved beyond that earlier intensity.
Key themes
Love and its evolution
The poem traces how love changes over time, from the passionate, mythical experience of their youth to the calmer, more communicative relationship of their present.
Memory and regret
The speaker clearly longs for the intensity of their past love, using mythical imagery to convey how transcendent it felt. However, she ultimately accepts that this cannot be recaptured.
The ordinary and the extraordinary
Boland consistently contrasts everyday details (the apartment, the Amish table, car headlights) with mythical and religious imagery, suggesting how love can transform mundane experience into something magical.
Key Points to Remember:
- "Love" appears in Boland's 1994 collection In a Time of Violence and explores love, regret, and memory
- The poem uses six uneven stanzas and half-rhyme techniques rather than a regular rhyme scheme
- Key techniques include alliteration, anaphora, enjambment, and caesura
- The speaker contrasts mythical imagery with ordinary domestic details throughout
- The poem shows how intense past love cannot be recreated, ending with acceptance that "words are shadows"