The theme of love is complex and varied. How is the theme of love portrayed respectively in La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats, Mother in a Refugee Camp by Chinua Achebe and My Last Duchess by Robert Browning and with reference to Sonnet 116 ‘Let me not to the marriage...’ and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare and Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy? Love is a prominent theme that is constantly explored through literature. It has the power to induce fear, feelings of warmth, or even loss and despair. The following poems describe the unrequited love of a knight doomed to forever wander the meadows, the powerful familial love between mother and son and the perspective of a Duke whose obsessive love destroyed his spouse. Through the use of a variety of poetic devices, structures and form, these poets express their differing views on love. La Belle Dame Sans Merci is a ballad written by John Keats. It was simultaneously a reaction to the widespread Enlightment ideals in the early 19th century, and also to express his passionate feelings for Fanny Brawne with the threat of death constantly hanging over him. Within the poem, Keats describes the plight of a medieval knight who tells an unnamed narrator about his seduction by a faery who has since abandoned him, leaving him alone on the cold hillside. Following an ABCB rhyme scheme and iambic tetrameter, the poem has a lyrical structure; however, the tone is sombre and sorrowful, hinting that love will only end in sadness. Also, as