Love through the ages: exemplar student response

Below you will find an exemplar student response to a Section B question in the sample assessment materials, followed by an examiner commentary on the response.

Paper 1, Section B

It has been said that Rossetti's poem is conventional and celebratory, whereas Millay's poem offers a very different view of love.

Compare and contrast the presentation of love in the following poems in the light of this comment.

Band 5 response

Both poems, although written some seventy years apart, can be regarded as Lyric poetry, which is usually written in the first person and which expresses personal emotions and feelings, some of which can be extreme. This type of poetry was popular in both the 19th and 20th centuries. Victorian lyric poetry was influenced by Romantic poets, such as Keats and Wordsworth, and so it can be argued that Rossetti's poem 'A Birthday' is conventional for the time in which it was written because of its reliance on natural and religious imagery and in its outpouring of happiness at thoughts of her love; this outpouring, together with the poem's title, suggest that the poem is indeed a celebration of love.  Millay's poem appears to challenge this romantic view of love but it might be argued that, although Millay uses very different imagery to Rossetti, she does still celebrate the power of love.

Rossetti's outpouring of love is achieved in the first stanza by a series of similes which create images of happiness and celebration linked to the natural world. Firstly Rossetti's heart is likened to 'a singing bird', which is always a joyful sound. The poem itself could be seen as song-like in its alternating rhyme scheme and the refrain of 'My heart is…' The potential for love to grow is conveyed through the idea of it as a 'shoot' which is 'watered' and cared for within the security of a 'nest'. A nest is associated with the birth of a baby, a cause for celebration, and perhaps what the poet is hoping for from this relationship. The following simile, however, suggests that love has grown strong as the boughs of the apple tree 'are bent with thickset fruit', which would be a cause for celebration. The final simile is gentle and relates to a state of peace where her heart 'paddles in a halcyon sea.' It seems as if the poet is searching for the right words to express how her heart feels but, in spite of these increasingly romantic, celebratory images, Rossetti cannot find images strong enough and so ends by simply saying that her heart is 'gladder' than any of these images, which would effectively convey the strength of her love for a Victorian reader used to celebrating images of the natural world in Romantic poetry.

Millay also suggests what love is not but, unlike Rossetti, Millay does not use positive images to emphasise the power of love but instead uses negative images to provide a much more realistic view of what love is, or is not, capable of.  The simple sentiment in the opening line, informs us that love cannot provide us with even the basic necessities of 'meat nor drink Nor/ slumber nor a roof against the rain.' As with Rossetti, the images intensify as the poem goes on but here with images of sickness and pain that love is not able to overcome. The alliterative 'breath', 'blood' and 'bone' help Millay to stress how love may be a disappointment because it cannot help us in times of need and hardship.

Where Rossetti introduces even stronger images of richness into stanza two of her poem, however, Millay seems to change her attitude a little in Line 7 and this is signalled by the word 'yet'. The negative images continue with the personification of 'death' and 'pain' but Millay does begin to suggest that she would endure this pain rather than trade her lover for 'release' from it. Before we begin to see her poem as celebrating love after all, however, Millay finishes it on a note of uncertainty as to whether she would make that trade: 'I do not think I would.' This ambiguity is also emphasised in Millay's use of the sonnet form, usually associated with a romantic outpouring of love, to convey a much more uncertain and perhaps realistic view of love. As Millay was writing in the 20th century, she would have had greater freedom than Rossetti to express unconventional ideas about love; it is interesting and effective, therefore, that she chooses a conventional love poetry form to convey such ideas and one that has more famously been used by men. Perhaps this is her way of showing that, even though she is not shouting about the joy of love as Rossetti does, Millay does believe that love should be celebrated.

Conversely, Rossetti's attitude towards love remains celebratory throughout her poem although there is a shift in tone between stanzas one and two. Having decided that none of the similes in stanza one adequately describe her heart, Rossetti uses a series of imperatives in stanza two to demand 'a dais' which can be decorated in a way that will reflect how important her love is. Rossetti uses rich imagery for this decoration of 'silk', 'vair' and 'purple dyes' and exotic carvings of 'doves', 'pomegranates', 'peacocks', 'gold and silver grapes' and 'silver fleur-de-lys', which remind the reader of robes and furnishings for royalty and Rossetti seems to be preparing for a celebration. The celebration could of course be the birthday but the religious imagery Rossetti includes, 'an apple-tree', 'a rainbow' and 'doves', suggests that the dais might be the altar in a church and the celebration her marriage to her love.  Once again, the inclusion of this religious imagery can be seen as conventional for the period in which it was written.

There seems little doubt, therefore, that Rossetti's poem is conventional and celebratory. Rossetti's outpouring of joy at her love is achieved through the song-like structure of the poem and the natural and religious imagery, which is full of richness and happiness. Millay's poem does indeed use a conventional sonnet form but this only serves to emphasise the unconventional ideas about love it contains. Whether Millay celebrates love or not is uncertain; she does not express any joy about love but is prepared to endure pain rather than lose it. Her lack of joyful imagery might reflect the fact that she was writing in the 20th century when a more realistic view of love was possible in poetry but that does not mean that Millay does not think love is worth celebrating. She leaves this to the reader to decide.                                                                   

Examiner commentary

AO1 

The candidate has produced a confident and perceptive argument which is wholly relevant to the task. The use of literary critical concepts and terminology is assured and the response is maturely expressed.

AO2

There is a perceptive understanding of how meanings are shaped by the methods used by each of the poets. A range of methods are analysed and there is confident and integrated comparison of how these methods are presented.

AO3

The candidate shows an assured understanding of how the ideas conveyed by the poets and the methods used to convey these ideas are influenced by the time in which the poems were written.

AO4

There is perceptive exploration of the similarities and differences between the poems, both in their attitudes to love and in the ways in which love is presented. Through this assured comparison, the candidate is addressing the central issue of literary representations of how lovers express their feelings in two texts separated by a substantial period of time.

AO5 

Through a perceptive and confident discussion about the proposition set up in the task, the candidate engages intelligently with different interpretations which arise.

Overall: Perceptive and assured. This response seems to fit the band 5 descriptors.

This resource is part of the Love through the ages resource package.