Literary Analysis of Samuel Taylor Cleridge's Poem "Love"

The time old cliché “It is better to have loved and lost to have never loved at all” is the foundation for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Love,” as the narrator tells a tale within a tale about the perplexing idea of love’s ever changing emotions that range from either extreme of joy and sorrow. The format of the poem set up by Coleridge in 24 quatrains, makes it simpler to witness the effect the story the narrator tells his beloved has on his life. Coleridge’s use of setting, word choice, and metaphors emphasize how this event has forever changed the course of the narrator’s life.

The first two quatrains are essential because Coleridge uses them to introduce the narrator and essential details about his opinion on love. Before actually acknowledging his lover, the narrator defines what love is to create a basis for this tale. He describes it as “all thoughts, all passions, all delights,” (line 1) which are nothing “but ministers of Love,” (line 3).There are many words within these two lines that present significance, one being “all,” nothing is omitted, everything is included whether it be passionate jealousy or romantic delights. This is Coleridge’s way of implementing that love includes all forms of feeling, not only the noble ones.

The second one being “ministers,” conceivably a foreshadowing to reveal the purpose of the anecdote the narrator tells to his love. It is apparent after the second quatrain that what is following is a memory for “oft in [his] waking dreams [does he]/ Live o’er again that happy hour, /When midway on the mount [he] lay[s] /Beside the ruined tower.” He from time to time relives this certain memory because it makes him feel the same as he was in that moment.

Lines 9 to 12, the narrator presents his beloved Genevieve and the setting with which they both exist, one with “the moonshine” which was “blended with the lights of eve,” a very euphoric and romantic description. His love enjoys when he sings the “songs that make her grieve” (line 20). The narrator concedes to this wish and “played a soft and doleful air,” which is an odd way of mentioning that he’d do anything to make her happy. This is one of the songs that show his love for her, a second is by defining how striking her physical features are to him, “she knew [he] could not choose/ But gaze upon her face,” (line 28). He starts to tell the story of the Knight and “that for ten long years he wooed/ The Lady of the Land,” which puts an emphasis on how much this story parallels his own love for Genevieve.

During this story, he “told her how he pined-“ (line 33) and the narrator most certainly identifies with the Knight as he writes “With which I sang another’s love, / Interpreted my own,” (line 34-35). It is important to note that the “K” in “Knight” is capitalized, it is most likely a metaphor for the narrator since he feels the same passion as the Knight, the intense love for another and doing anything for them as later mentioned, “And that unknowing what he did,/ He leaped amid a murderous band, /And saved from outrage worse than death / The Lady of the Land!” (line 49-52). The Knight went as far as to commit murder to save the woman he loved. In the narration it is learned that the Knight is hurt during the fight to save his love and she is trying to cure him back to health, although he is fatally injured. As the narrator is telling Genevieve what “His dying words” (line 65) were, she stops enjoying the story because it “Disturbed her soul with pity!” (line 68).

Understandably, this is a powerful physical reaction to hearing a loved one die. Since the Knight metaphorically stands for the narrator, she cannot stand the idea of his death, she “fled to [him] and wept” (line 84). However she did not weep immediately, she wept after “stepp[ing] aside/ As conscious of [his] look” (line 82) then suddenly she runs to him and cries. This scene is the most significant of the entire poem because it demonstrates that thinking of his death influenced by the Knights’ makes Genevieve question whether she wants to be with him if she is just going to lose him one day. So she “stepped aside,” but flees back to him with a “timorous eye” (line 82), with fear she returns and rather be with him and lose him than to not have him at all.

By the end of the poem Genevieve overwhelmingly shows her adoration for him, “enclosed [him] with her arms, / press[ing] [him] with a meek embrace,/And, bending back her head, looked up/ And gazed upon [his] face,” (lines 85-88) she is clearly content with her choice of staying with him. Another aspect of love is showed in the preceding line, “that I might rather feel, than see,/ The swelling of her heart” (line 92), it is imperative to be able to feel a loved one’s pain rather than merely watching them go through suffering on their own. She is sharing the fear of losing him with her, and as they both experience this feeling they know they could not live without one another. The last two lines wrap up the story within a story with a nostalgic conclusion, this is the moment they fell in love as he “calmed her fears, and she was calm,/ And told her love with virgin pride-/And so [he] won [his] Genevieve,/[His] bright and beauteous bride” (lines 93-96).