Dante the Phrase Love and Term Paper

Total Length: 1614 words ( 5 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 1

Page 1 of 5

Desire has been a key catalyst awakening love from its passive state. "Till love, at last, out of its dreaming starts." The yearning and desire that struck strongly at the heart has caused the rebirth of desire, and the awakening of true love. Moreover, the power of the desire can be so great as to become a permanent fixture of the heart: "...and often, rooting there with longing, stays." The word "rooting" closely mirrors the earlier imagery of nature; the word "stays" is a direct repetition of the last word in line six: "stay." Rossetti portrays the heart as a fertile ground for the flourishing of love and passion.

Therefore, in "Love and the gentle heart," Rossetti refers to the type of love shared between the spouses in an old married couple. The married couple relies on the staying power of a gentle heart, a heart subject to nature's innate craving for love. The gentle heart establishes love as ultimate ruler, and one could not possibly become divorced from the other.
Similarly, many couples who have been together for decades could not become divorced from one another. Although love often rests in a quiet and slumbering state in the heart, a fresh new face may eventually stir the passions and reawaken the desire that once bonded the couple in their youth. What might have caused the couple to continue taking each other for granted has been revitalized.

The poet takes care to impart the universality of his theme, its application to both genders. Women are as susceptible to the moving power of desire as men are: "Woman's moved likewise by a virtuous man." Dante Gabriel Rossetti's sonnet is a genuinely Romantic-era love poem, which follows the thematic and structural form of the Petrarchian sonnet.

Works.....

Show More ⇣


     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"Dante The Phrase Love And" (2005, July 03) Retrieved May 1, 2024, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/dante-phrase-love-64772

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"Dante The Phrase Love And" 03 July 2005. Web.1 May. 2024. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/dante-phrase-love-64772>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"Dante The Phrase Love And", 03 July 2005, Accessed.1 May. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/dante-phrase-love-64772