Love is an emotion that can play you like a violin. John Clare, who was a farmer’s son, was madly in love. He had a deep affection for Mary Joyce, who was his very first love. He actually thought he was married to her even though she died three years previous, he went insane. First Love is a poem he wrote about Mary Joyce. This exquisitely charming poem takes place in England during the 19th century. The following text will be discussing how the author uses various poetic techniques to portray love as either a negative or positive emotion. John uses lots of personifications like “Words from my eyes did speak” which symbolizes the poet’s eyes showing deep affection for the girl standing in front of him. It captures quite a positive effect of …show more content…
An imagery that portrays love as a negative emotion is “my face turned pale as deadly pale.” This quote illustrates an image of the poet being so nervous that the powerful emotion turned his face pale. It conveys life taken away from him. Some people can even get sick; physically or mentally. John Clare is an example himself! He went insane and had to go to an asylum, all because of the strong feelings that conquered his life. It does indeed apply a negative effect on love. Overall, the writer successfully used various techniques and poetic devices that portray love as both a negative and positive emotion. He widely uses personifications as a technique that creates vivid images, as well as some similes and metaphors. I felt like love is an emotion that can either make or break your life, as I was reading the end of the poem where he was questioning himself and began to portray love as a negative emotion. In my opinion, using a vast amount of personifications was the right thing to do since love does actually bring objects to life in the eyes of lovers. Love is an emotion that can either make or break your life. I found that, in the poem, love is portrayed mostly as a positive emotion. Although, there are a few negative thoughts here and