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Compare And Contrast Sylvia Plath And Mad Girl's Love Song

1322 Words6 Pages
The poems that Sylvia Plath and Sir Philip Sidney present to the public eye leave one in complete awe because of the rich poetic sentiment they evoke in their poetry. In Sir Philip Sidney’s Renaissance poem, “Sonnet 31” he presents the subject of unrequited love through his love sick speaker. Likewise, Sylvia Plath in her modern poem, “Mad Girl’s Love Song” depicts a depressed and heartbroken woman incapable of distinguishing if her lover was real, which incorporates the poetic subjects of obsessive love and unrequited love. Although similar in poetic subject, the worldview in “Mad Girl 's Love Song” differs from the worldview held by the speaker in “Sonnet 31” because “Mad Girl 's Love Song” presented two worldviews one being ideal love and the other being unrequited love. Through the use of imagery, both Sylvia Plath and Sir Philip Sidney are able to convey a similar poetic subject, but the tones they set for their works delineate different worldviews on love. The strong use of images developed the poetic subject of unrequited love, however, Plath also incorporated the poetic subject of obsessive love. For example, in, “Sonnet 31” Sidney presents the predicament of a scorned lover asking the moon for guidance. The sonnet begins with a detailed description of the speaker staring out into the dark night and pointing out the“[sad] steps” the moon uses to “climb’st the skies” (Sidney 1). The speaker paints a picture of the moon being sad and lonely to convey his
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