“Love" by Samuel Coleridge is a poem
that hits romantic ideals on the head and uniquely spins a tale that
tells two love stories in one. It is about a minstrel who is in love
with a young woman by the name of Genevieve. He is completely
consumed by Genevieve, and has wanted her love for a while.
“My hope! My Joy! My Genevieve!/ She
loves me best whene'er I sing”
The poet woos Genevieve with his lyre
and by singing her a story of love that ends in tragedy. He uses the
story to play on her emotions and provoke the response he wanted,
which was her affections. He tells the story in a way that allow
Genevieve to draw connections between the two stories. She
understands on some level that the poet is also telling her of his
love. He calls his main character “The Lady of the Land”, making
it sound like she was the most beautiful, giving Genevieve a
compliment through the story.
The structure reminds one a little of
Shakespeare. Coleridge also uses vocabulary that has a Shakespearean
flare. In the opening of the poem, Genevieve is standing beside a
statue of a armed knight, which could possibly given the poet his
inspiration for his story. The story Coleridge picks for the poet to
tell is one of a knight saving a damsel in distress. The knight has
been love with the Lady of the Land for ten years. He had been
constantly wooing her, begging for her affections. The story goes on
to tell its audience that The Lady of the Land was threatened by a
band of “murderous band” and the “knight leapt out and saved
her from an outrage worse than death.” The knight was mortally
wounded during the fight, and the Lady of the Land attempted to nurse
him back to health in a cave, where he later died. The love story
ends in tragedy, which many of Shakespeare's tales do.
The poet holds Genevieve in the
highest esteem. He is desperately in love with her and wants her to
be seen in the purest of lights. In the opening of the poem,
Genevieve is standing nest to a large statue of a man, alone, at
night. A young woman during these times was not permitted to so
things like that because it make them look improper. The poet paints
Genevieve as a naive young girl, but harmlessly so. He is just
uncultivated in the ways of society. He makes a it a point to
repeatedly tell the audience of her modesty and purity. He made
several blunt references to her virginity.
“I calmed her fears and she was
calm/ and told her love with virgin pride;”
It was also improper for a man to
blatantly stare at a young, unmarried girl, and the poet tells us
that Genevieve had to forgive him for being too forward with his
glances.
“She listened with a fitting blush/
with downcast eyes and modest grace/ For she well know I could not
chose/ But gaze upon her face.”
Once the poet had finished his story,
Genevieve was weeping “with pity and delight”. The power of the
story seemed to overcome the stigma of being seen together in public.
Genevieve fell in love with the poet as well and ran to be in his
arms.
“Her bosom heaved—she stepped
aside,/ As conscious of my look she stepped--/Then suddenly, with
timorous eye/ She fled to me and wept.”
The poet, in the end won Genevieve
because of how closely tied human emotions and literature are. His
story impacted her emotions and heart so much that she wept and ran
to him to be held.
