Preliminary discussion

1. In groups, decide on your favourite love song, and describe why you have chosen that particular one. Give details about who wrote it, who it is addressed to, and the ways in which they describe each other.

2. Next, decide on your favourite love story, be it from a poem, novel, song, or film. Explain your choice. Why do you think that love is such an important and enduring theme in all forms of art?

3. Make a short list of words, both in Polish and English, that lovers tend to use to describe each other. Are there any similarities between the two?

4. Make a list of as many ways you can think of that love itself has been described throughout history in different cultures.

5. Is there a difference between love and seduction? If so, why could this be? Does it use a different kind of language? Are there different techniques and strategies?

6. In the history of poems of seduction, there is a tradition that it is always a man seducing a woman. Why do you think that is? Can you think of ANY poem, or even a love song for that matter, where it is the woman who is doing the seducing? Are the techniques any different?

William Shakespeare- Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Emily Dickinson - Surrender

Doubt me, my dim companion!
Why, God would be content
With but a fraction of the love
Poured thee without a stint.

The whole of me, forever,
What more the woman can, --
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last delight I own!

It cannot be my spirit,
For that was thine before;
I ceded all of dust I knew, --
What opulence the more

Had I, a humble maiden,
Whose farthest of degree
Was that she might,
Some distant heaven,
Dwell timidly with thee!

Andrew Marvell - To his Coy (nieśmiały/ wstydliwy) Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous (miłosny; [looks] uwodzicielski; [person] kochliwy) birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour (poż|reć, -erać),
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife (konflikty/spory)
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

John Donne - The Flea (Pchła)

MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled (zmieszany) be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead (dziewictwo) ;
    Yet this enjoys before it woo (zalecać się do),
    And pamper'd (rozpieszczony) swells with one blood made of two ;
    And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd (odizolow|ać, -ywać się, odgr|odzić, -adzać się od otoczenia) in these living walls of jet.
    Though use make you apt to kill me,
    Let not to that self-murder added be,
    And sacrilege (świętokradztwo), three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st (ule|c, -gać) to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Textual discussion

1. How is the lover compared in each of the four poems?

2. What is the intentions of the poet in each of the poems? Why has he/she written this particular poem?

3. The first two poems could be said to be love poems, whilst the last two could be described as poems of seduction. Do you see any clear difference between the two?

4. What exactly is it in the last two poems that the writers are trying to overcome in their female companion? Why is this such a common phenomenon, even these days?

5. One of the poems is written from a woman to a man. Do you see any differences between the way the men and the woman write their poems? Does the gender difference actually make a difference?

6. The male poets were all famous for being “Lotharios”, of being very successful lovers of the opposite sex, whilst Dickinson was the complete opposite, as she lived most of her life alone as a recluse, and eventually killed herself. Do these facts change in any way how you feel about these poems?

7. Two of the poems make use of the word maiden. What exactly does this mean in the context of the two poems? Does it have the same meaning, and what is the attitude towards this word in the two poems?

8. The last two poems in particular make heavy use of hyperbole in their descriptions. Can you identify some examples? Why is this technique used?

9. It could be claimed that these poems are as much about a completely different theme than about love. Can you identify what it could be? Is there any connection between the two?

10. These are all poems that were written over 400 years ago, with the exception of Dickinson's, when attitudes towards love and sex were very different. Are these poems still relevant in today's society?

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