Eros Comparison by Evan D.
Eros is a poem originally written in 1899 by Robert Bridges, a British poet, and
later, under the same title, rewritten by Anne Stevenson, an American-British poet and
writer, in 1990. Although the poems focus on Eros, the Greek god of love and beauty,
they do contain different view points of the god. Bridge's poem focuses more on how he
is a figure of beauty with an "unchristen'd smile", whereas the poem produced by
Stevenson shows Eros as being a "thug with [a] broken nose and squinty eyes" and as a
brute. In Stevenson's poem, Eros is depicted as such because of "overuse" of his ability to
bring people love. Line 25 of Bridge's version talks about how none have "cared to look
upon thy face", meaning that no one has ever loved Eros. This line corresponds with Eros'
"overuse", where lovers use his service, but provide no love to him in return. The lovedeprived Eros seems tormented because the selfishness of others have given him a
"battered visage".
Bridges describes Eros as being far more magnificent and "exuberant" than of
what Stevenson thinks of him. Eros seems much of a greater figure, as by how Bridges
defines him in the poem. Eros is the "king of joy", his body is his mind, and since his
body is of high beauty, his mind consists of incredible beauty as well as of strong
intelligence. He "makest the light where'er [he goes]" as he is a god of "power immense",
but with a side of "sensuous innocense." In my opinion, anyone reading Bridge's poem is
most likely sure to think positive things of Eros and view of him highly, opposite of
Stevenson's poem.
To conclude some final details, Bridge’s has his poem organized three stanzas,
twenty-five lines, and contains an 8,8,9,9 syllable pattern, including a rhyme scheme
1,1,2,2. Our negative description of Eros includes three stanzas, twenty-four lines, a
much more varied syllable pattern for each individual stanza, and it contains an intriguing
rhyme scheme, starting off by skipping a line, having an end word, skipping another line,
having a rhyming word with the last end word, and from here on this pattern overtakes
the poem. Clearly, both poets had a very different sense of style. Their methods of
organizing a poem are quite different, if not, almost entirely. Bridges and Stevenson
establish their differentiating views on the god in every aspect. Their points have been
stretched dramatically in their works to show us how they personally feel and interpret
the god itself.