true love

Huiliu Wu

Professor / Instructor

Course / Subject

24 July 2007

True Love

This explores the theme `True Love ' in relation to the texts of E .E Cummings ' poem , Somewhere I Have Never Travelled (621-2 ) and Wislawa Szymborska 's poem , True Love (p . xxx . Here , Cummings ' poem explores the symbolisms of true love . Meanwhile , Szymborska 's poem explores its essence . Finally , this will conclude why true love is both symbolic and essential

Why is true love abstract and indefinite , yet when a person feels it that person knows it is

true love but fail to define its very nature ? To provide an answer to that question and attempt a definition of true love , this will explore two poems from two poets with two different poetic styles . One poet is Cummings ' who conveys poetic ideas in an abstract , symbolic manner . Another is Szymborska who tells a poem in a rhetorical manner and uses irony to stress the 's importance

True love is a sweet feeling that is felt without bounds . It is indefinite because when someone feels it for the first time , the feelings have no reference point for a lover to compare it from Moreover , when someone feels it for the first time , it is highly unlikely that a second true love will come again . For instance , Cummings notes that : somewhere i have never travelled , gladly beyond any experience (p . 621 . Here , Cummings is glad , which is naturally a sweet feeling , and that gladness is beyond any experience ' which make it indefinite , abstract and without bounds . Someone who has never felt true love before and feels it for the first time would be like someone who says : somewhere I have never traveled ' which indicates a person 's inexperience with the sweet feeling . Most importantly , Cummings beautifully writes that

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility : whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries

rendering death and forever with each breathing (p . 621

Note that the above stanza from Cummings ' poem easily explains why someone who feels true love for the first time , is highly unlikely to experience a second true love . . death and forever ' appear to show why true love is a one-time feeling that cannot be duplicated in a person 's lifetime . Moreover , note that Cummings ' poem consists of five stanzas with four poetic lines for each stanza and the poem does not have a period . Not even one . This is symbolic . It creates an effect that makes the poem appear to have no ending . More so , the poem has 11 commas , two colons , two semi-colons and two parentheses . This pattern is suggestive of a long , unending travel . Most significantly all `I ' and `YOU ' are not capitalized . Cumming 's wrote all these in small or baby letters . These baby letters signify the usual qualities of babies Babies suggest emotions , frailty , fragileness and small hands . Hence when someone feels true love , a person becomes vulnerable , frail fragile , and almost...