Analysis of Love Sonnets by Lope de Vega
Go and Staying
Analysis
This love poem explores the theme of absence and separation. It uses vivid imagery, contrasting verbs, and mythological references to depict the speaker’s emotional turmoil.
The opening lines present opposing verbs (“Go and stay”) to illustrate the lover’s inner conflict. Part of him remains with his beloved in spirit, while the other part is torn away, leaving him heartbroken (“without a soul”). The poem alludes to Ulysses and the Sirens, comparing the speaker’s experience to Ulysses’ suffering from afar, hearing the beloved’s voice but unable to overcome the obstacles that separate them.
The image of a consuming candle (“burn like candle”) symbolizes love as a life-giving but also destructive force. The phrase “with towers on soft sand” represents the lover’s precarious emotional state, building dreams on an unstable foundation. The lines “falling from heaven, and be evil in pain and regret ever be” describe the lover’s descent into unhappiness, yet without regret, as the memory of love persists.
The poem portrays the lover talking to “silent solitude,” engaging in imaginary conversations with the beloved. It suggests that the lover clings to the belief in eternal love (“it remains on faith patience, time and what is called eternal”).
Living in an illusion, the lover constantly anticipates the beloved’s return (“believe suspicions and deny truths”). The poem concludes with a powerful image: “which is what the world called absence, fire in the soul, and the living hell,” where love is equated with fire and its consequences with hell.
Fainting, Daring
Analysis
This poem delves into the bipolarity of love through contrasting verbs and a hidden meaning revealed at the end. The first stanza uses a series of opposing adjectives to depict love’s inherent imbalance.
The second stanza expresses the lover’s inability to find happiness and peace without the beloved (“not found well outside the center and rest”). It continues with another set of contrasting adjectives, emphasizing the emotional extremes of love.
The third stanza describes the lover’s self-deception, clinging to the hope of an everlasting relationship (“face to clear away the disappointment”). Love is compared to poison (“poison liquor soft drink”), something beautiful yet destructive.
The fourth stanza questions the possibility of happiness in love, portraying it as a source of disappointment (“believe that a heaven in hell it is, give life and soul of a disappointment”). The poem concludes with a striking revelation: “this is love, who tried it knows.”
San Martino del Corso
Analysis
This poem expresses the loss of loved ones through images of devastation. It connects external destruction with internal feelings, inviting the reader to relate the parallel structures to understand the poet’s profound grief.
The poem begins with an image of a ruined city (“of these houses has not been more than a piece of wall”) and links it to the loss of loved ones (“many of whom had joined has not been not even that”).
The heart is compared to a cemetery, where the crosses represent deceased loved ones who remain in the speaker’s memory (“but no cross in heart failure”).
The poem concludes by drawing a powerful analogy between the external destruction of the city and the internal devastation within the speaker’s heart.