Words: 930
Misleading Love Although love can be kind and beautiful, it can cause some people to become blind and follow their hearts rather than think with their mind. “Sonnet 30” by Edmund Spenser dramatizes the conflict of a man’s burning desire to be with a woman who has no interest in him. Edmund Spenser uses the metaphorical comparisons of dramatically opposites, fire and ice. The man is fire, who is obsessed for this ice cold hearted woman, which returns nothing. The poem explains why this man can’t get this woman to love him back.
The author uses stylistic devices, theme, and tone to emphasize how he cannot get the woman he deeply loves. The conflict is best represented by the lines, “How comes it then that this her cold so great is not dissolv’d through my so hot desire, But harder grows the more I her entreat? ” (Lines 2-4). Spenser explains that the more the man shows affection and love to the woman, the more the woman loses interest for the man. This Sonnet is full of metaphors, mainly relating and comparing the opposite feeling of the heart the two shows for each other with burning fire for Spencer, and freezing ice for the woman.
As the sonnet depicts her heart growing “colder” for him, as his desires grew “hotter” for her. In the second quatrain, the speaker describes how the man metaphorically asks why his fire-burning love for her is not melting her heart. He cannot understand why his great affection towards such a woman isn’t attracting her. The man is confused by the fact that the more he shows his great love and affection towards the woman, the more she loses interest for him and shows the exact opposite feelings toward him.
The third quatrain, the narrator compares the law of physics to fire and ice. The narrator asks, “Ice which is congealed with senseless cold, Should kindle fire by wonderful device? ” Why isn’t this love working out when it should be? The word “miraculous” in line nine was used to describe the unfortunate realities if their love not working out. Then he explains that in the laws of physics if fire melts ice and ice cools fire, his love should be able to get through to her and she should be able to love her in return as much as he loves her.
Although his firing desire for this woman overwhelms him, her feelings only contradict to what his heart desires. The speaker’s tone changes in the last two lines of the sonnet in the couplet in the poem. It changes from frustration to tranquil. Such tone was so clever, because he writes about a problem that baffles many men, which is woman and love. The analogy only made the sonnet appealing, as a known reaction was related and turned into something unknown as woman’s power over men. The man is more calm because he finally learned to accept the fact that he cannot do anything more to change her mind.
Though he admired her, that does not mean she must do the same and that was seen in “How comes it then that this her cold is so great, is not dissolved through my so hot desire, but harder grows the more I her entreat? “. The final couplet concludes that it is different when it comes to love, “it can alter all the course of kind” he explains. His “Sonnet 30” is written in iambic pentameter with an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme pattern until the last couplet, which is an A-A rhyme scheme, using a curious and confusing tone, which he uses to convey his love for this lady.
Through iambic pentameter his sonnet was written, the curious and confusing tone along with the figurative language attracted readers, and the conveyed love helped relate to the readers. As a man loves a woman, his desires will always cloud his mind. His desire will overpower his common sense to a point where he is blind to see that this woman does not have mutual feelings toward him. His desire to capture her love is huge. Spenser uses figurative language and his metaphors to illustrate this man’s desire. He also uses similes to compare his love to ice as it is to fire.
Only the fire, something strong and illusive, is what was used to illustrate the point of desire. The man in “Sonnet 30” by Edward Spenser was persistent and though failure does not know persistent, this man was denied the love of a woman, as his persistence continued and desires grew, the love of the woman was hidden away behind a cold, artic wall that grew colder along with the desires of the man. The man explains in depth using analogies and metaphors that his affection in life is often mistaken and misleading. Love, although sweet, can burn a hole through ones heart.
That is one of the characteristics of love, it cannot be forced nor can I always go as your heart desires. The nature of love causes us to be misled and has the power to change natural occurrences, such as fire melting frozen ice. Although this man’s love burns with a passion, it is not enough to melt this woman’s ice cold heart. In other words, his desire is not nearly enough to capture the heart of this woman, nor change her affection toward him. Through this poem, we must learn to accept this misfortunate reality of love and simply, move on.