The Theme of Love in Two Poems: "To The Ladies" and "Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines"

Poetry connects the conscious with the subconscious mind to produce a catharsis. The poem To the Ladies by Mary Chudleigh talks about how marriage turns a man evil and controlling back in the 1700s and that women were treated more like servants than wives. Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines, by Pablo Neruda, conveys a message that love is a temporary satisfaction. These two poems portray an aspect of the theme of love. The use of poetic devices such as metaphor, repetition and simile are used to describe a different perspective of love from both speakers.

In today’s society, women can decide whether they want to take their husband’s last name or not. But for Lady Mary Chudleigh, she was forced to take over her husband’s: “And man by law supreme has made,” was made to show that women belonged to their husband. In Chudleigh’s poem a comparison between wife and servant through the use of metaphor. The tone of this poem is sarcastic and suggests obedience. Sarcasm is used towards the ending of her poem as a way to mock the power men possessed. “But still governed by a nod” was used to emphasise the tone of obedience as women were only allowed to do things if their only husbands approve. This poem is a couplet poem with two lines of verse and a rhyme scheme of AABB. Metaphor is displayed throughout the poem. “Which nothing, nothing can divide: When she the word obey has said,” “‘nothing’ is a repetition stressing the permanent nature of the bond’’ ‘obey’ was a word to express her dislikes in her marriage, it was a word to show the readers that marriage life was submissive, servitude and required loyalty and commitment which the speaker disliked. “Fierce as an Eastern prince” is a simile used to exaggerate that once a man is married, his aggressive-like behaviour begins to show. “Mutes she signs alone must make, And never freedom take” is another message to show how women were not allowed to speak their mind because women had no rights.

Poems that brought Pablo Neruda to rise into fame was that he used his poems about to express a perspective of imagery and symbolism to express himself. His poem “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” it is written in free verse. He uses irony, metaphor, personification, repetition and paraphrases to emphasise the language of love in his poems. The tone quiet and cold was used in Neruda’s poem “The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.” was a metaphor that the night was delicate and clear as a piece of glass. “I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too… she loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.” was an irony that seemed like she loved him less that he loved her, but also mentioned that he loved her sometimes. Gives the reader an understanding that both of them lost feelings for each other but does not give the reader an understanding of who lost feelings for the other first. “To hear the immense night, still more immense without her” was a personification used as you can not hear a sight. It gives the reader an image of how the night’s broad and almost lonely without her. “Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.” uses a paraphrase that she will find someone else and that it is a relieving feeling that they are able to move on from each other. “Love is so short, forgetting is so long” is a message that love is a temporary feeling and if getting over someone takes too much time then the love did not last long, to begin with.

Both the poem, “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” by Pablo Neruda and “To the Ladies” by Lady Mary Chudleigh, are very different from each other, at the same time they both display a different perspective of love to the reader. The similarities that the poem both have are that both speakers use figurative meaning to talk about love. Chudleigh’s poem shares a message that women were more like slaves than wives and that their husbands owned them. Neruda’s poem was about him loving someone but she did not love him as much as he loved her.