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English 251Q
Dr. J. Morillo
February 4, 2003
Love, Humourously Defined
Love, possibly the most inconsistent and unexplainable force at work in the
universe: to define Love is a task of Herculean proportions. Regardless, poets strive to
take on this difficult chore, and with every poet comes a unique understanding of Love
based upon differing personalities and experiences. In Mary Wroth’s “Song: Love what
art thou?” and Andrew Marvell’s “The Definition of Love,” the imagery and use of
figurative language in these two differing works on Love suggest an essential difference
in the qualities of the poets, but not necessarily the most obvious difference: their gender.
Wroth’s “Song” depicts a love of instability. Her poem, like its subject, is a
question with many answers. Described as both “light and fair” (6) and “dead in an hour”
(12), love takes on a deceptive personality. Wroth writes of how love catches “fools” (5)
in its “net”(4) and how it only remains as “firm as bubbles made by rain” (17). This and
other examples of nature imagery, such as a comparison of love to the weather (7-9),
define love as a chaotic force of nature, beautiful yet temporary. Love’s “childish” and
“vain” (16) qualities picture how love, like a naughty toddler, can be fickle and selfish.
Love enters and leaves minds at its own pleasure, leading one to lofty dreams and leaving
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one in pain and “coldness” (9). This tone of overall irritation and disappointment in love
suggests that Wroth writes from her own ill-fated experience with it. Perhaps at one time
she fell into love’s trap only to find her expectations unfulfilled and her heart broken.
Perhaps Wroth’s ideal partner turned out to be less than adequate, and her love for him
changed from blessing to curse. Whatever her own experience, Wroth’s metaphorical
answers to “Love what art thou?” suggest that when one hopes for love, one hopes for its
“virtues” and instead receives its “foul faults” (line19).
While Wroth answers her own question, Marvell, on the other hand, gives “The
Definition of Love” by not defining it. Instead of listing its qualities, his poem regales
Love’s interaction with the other abstract forces of the universe. Instead of hoped for, as
in Wroth’s work, Love is conceived from a union of “Despair upon Impossibility” (4). In
a stroke of irony, Marvell writes how a “Magnanimous Despair” (5) for love made it
come into being, while the overrated and “feeble Hope” (7) is shown as inadequate in the
pursuit of love, a bird of only “tinsel wing” (8). But after love’s birth, when the speaker
discovers his soul-mate, the point where his “extended soul is fixed” (9), he meets an
adversary: Fate. In the way of pagan deities, Fate sees the speaker’s match of two perfect
loves with “jealous eyes” (13), for such a strong union would be so unchangeable as to
defy the will of Fate. To prevent this deposition of her “tyrannic power” (16), Fate places
the two Loves as far apart as the two poles of the Earth. Only a disaster powerful enough
to change the shape of the planet could Marvell’s speakers loves together.
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And it is from this extended metaphor of love and the shape of the Earth that
makes his definition of love apparent. When the Earth becomes “cramped into a
planisphere” (24), as in a 2-dimensional map, the two points of North and South pole
become two parallel lines, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the page. Like
lines of latitude on a map, the speaker and his love upon these poles are both parallel and
straight, but they never meet. Crooked, “oblique” (25) loves, like lines of longitude on a
map, can in “every angle greet” (26); but this ease of the loves’ unity is based upon the
understanding that the loves are necessarily bent and imperfect. Because of Fate’s way of
making two perfect loves so distant, infinite, and parallel, those two perfect loves can
never intersect.
In this cartographer’s language, Marvell’s final message becomes nearly the same
as Wroth’s; for though they define and present Love with very dissimilar tones and
personalities, these different strings weave into the same cloth. Essentially, both Marvell
and Wroth both define the lack of perfection in love. Wroth approaches this conclusion
by stating Love’s faults, shortcomings, and inconsistencies, and Marvell writes how
perfection in love is necessarily futile. But why do they come to this conclusion from
such different foundations? It is not a difference in the gender of the poets, but a
difference in their humours.
Wroth’s and Marvell’s experiences with Love are not specific to their sexes.
Either a man or woman has the capability to be deceived by love and left irritated at it.
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Either a man or woman could despair for a perfect love, find it, and then realize its
incompatibility with reality. Although some gender-specific archetypes such as the
innocent girl cheated and the romantic male unsatisfied might have some bearing upon
this difference in approach, the better explanation of Mary Wroth’s and Andrew
Marvell’s discrepancies is one of an ancient pseudo-science: an examination of their
humours and elements. According to Greek philosophers and medieval astrologers, the
major humours of the body control a personality. Wroth’s humour was most likely of fire
and choler; the humour that brings about a pro-active and hot-tempered nature. Her poem
reflects this, and she describes love likewise. She comes to her conclusion about love in
the first line, and the rest of the poem is but a series of descriptions to support the idea
that love is but “a vain thought” (1). Her words are accusative and harsh, giving Love
only a few brief instances of positive traits and immediately attacking them with more
negative ones. This anger in Wroth’s writing is typical of choleric humour; Marvell’s
calculative and despairing view suggests an opposite humour, melancholy. Instead of
defining Love through decision and justification, Marvell draws upon deliberation and
contemplation. He uses Love’s geography, Love’s history, and Love’s battle with Fate to
produce a well-thought-out, almost mathematical definition of perfect love. Also typical
of melancholy is finding some comfort in despair, for negative expectations are more
often fulfilled than those of an optimistic nature.
To Love and humours, “much more of thee may be said” (Wroth 23). So many
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approaches to the definition have been made and will be made; Mary Wroth’s and
Andrew Marvell’s are but two of an infinite number. But despite their difference in
gender and humour, both poets recognize the importance of love. And both write on an
unsatisfied need: to define and possess that which can neither be perfectly defined nor
perfectly possessed.