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But as this poem demonstrates, Clare’s poetry is a curious blend of the simple or direct and the complex, and a few words of analysis of ‘First Love’ may help to elucidate the poem. First love is powerful and stays with us, but it can be painful as well as joyous or liberating. This poem, one of John Clare’s most widely anthologised ...
- Stanza One
- Stanza Two
- Stanza Three
In the first stanza of ‘First Love’, the speaker begins by outlining what the rest of the poem is going to be about. He has fallen in love and is using these stanzasto outline how that happened and how he has changed because of it. The speaker explains that there was one particular moment, an “hour,” that he was “struck…With love so sudden and so s...
In the second stanza, the speaker goes into greater detail concerning the way his body reacted to seeing this woman. It is important to keep in mind, for the sake of perspective, that this all occurs before he speaks to her. The next thing that happened to him, after the woman looked at him, is all the “blood rushed to [his] face.” This caused his ...
In the last stanza of ‘First Love’, the words the speaker makes with his eyes are described. The first two lines are the questions. These are likely originating from his love addled mind and posed at the woman. He is asking, rhetorically, if the “flowers” are “winter’s choice?” And it “love’s bed” is “always snow?” With these words, he is probing t...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
In “First Love,” John Clare begins from the premise of a conventional love poem, but then subverts the reader’s expectations by presenting love as disorienting and strange, rather than sweet and sentimental. The first four lines are extremely simple, and closely mimic the norms of sentimental love poetry.
Popularity of “First Love”: The poem ‘First Love’ was written by John Clare, a not-so-well-known English poet of the 18 th century. However, his work on love is an excellent piece. It is not clear when this piece was published. Recently, the poem has become a hot topic because of the poet’s intense expression of feelings of love.
Nov 27, 2007 · The first is assuming that they should understand what they encounter on the first reading, and if they don’t, that something is wrong with them or with the poem. The second is assuming that the poem is a kind of code, that each detail corresponds to one, and only one, thing, and unless they can crack this code, they’ve missed the point.
Jun 21, 2024 · Reading poetry doesn’t require a highfalutin approach; you can read as you’d read anything else. On the first pass through, absorb whatever it is that arises upon first impression. Notice where in the poem you react — maybe your stomach churns at a particular phrase, or you hold your breath at a certain line.
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How should I read a poem for the second time?
Read the second time for sound. Concentrate on how the sounds fall. Hit the rhymes, pick up on the rhythms, notice (but don’t dwell on) any interesting use of sounds in the poem. Read slowly and smoothly. If you stumble through the poem the second time, read it again and again until you get to the point where you no longer stumble over sound.
