School of Foreign Languages Guizhou Normal University/Yuan Weiwei

Love is always an eternal theme and so are love songs.In the history of English poetry， love is really a big theme all the times.In Renaissance times， they are ever-lasting； Romantic times， romantic， passionate and optimistic； modern times， the poems are writing the true aspects of love， and are kind of pessimistic.

William Shakespeare established his fame as a poet with 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative poems.He is a great humanist， he believes that Beauty， Truth and Kindness existing in our world.He loves nature.He always presents social criticism， Humanistic idealism， human feelings and human caprice in his works.Sonnet 18 is one of his representative works.In this poem， he writes his true feeling towards love affairs as an ordinary man.He compares his lovers beauty to a summers day yet more lovely， long-living and gentle than it as long as the poem is exiting.Summers day is really a fair， but his loves beauty is more a fair.This poem praises that literature will keep transient beauty long live.As for the rhyme scheme， it follows abab cdcd efef gg.Its structure is three quatrains followed by a couplet.

In romantic times， poets write poems with great passion and much imagination.They love nature and create los of pastoral poems.They also love freedom and they write poems with spontaneous expressions.Robert Burns is one of them.His A Red， Red Rose belongs to the period of Romantic times.In this poem， the writer thinks that his love is beautiful in appearance and temperament， he also pledges his eternal faithful love and finally， he vows to his love that he will come again however far he may go.Burns employs many methods to express his love.He compares his love to a rose.There are many images in this poem such as rose， sea， rock and sand.He says that ‘till all the seas gone dry is a hyperbole showing that his faithful love will forever stay.June rhymes with tune， I rhymes with dry.The last two stanzas rhyme as abab cdcd.There are many symbols in this poem.Rose means the writers passionate love； rock， staunch love； sands， eternal love； seas， deep love.

In modern times， poems go into a new stage.Due to a war， there appears a spiritual barren.Everything is lost such as faith and wealth， life is a vacancy.Images in their poems are gloomy， overwhelming and realistic.Poets try to search into the limits of human experiences which provide the readers a new reality of the human mind and emotion.When you are old was written by William Bulter Yeats.The writer writes his faithful love to his lover.He love her for who she is no matter she is old or what， his love will always remain.The poem rhymes as abba cddc effe.Yeats also creates a picture which seemed to be old and clumsy but at the same time fragrant and warm.There are three contrasts in this poem.His love， an attractive young girl versus an old lady.Other peoples love versus his love to his love.Reality versus imagination.Yeats repeats fire again and again to show his warm love yet he felt despaired for his love.Mountain symbolizes his tough love and stars symbolize his love will stay forever.After reading the poem， we can feel his deep love and depressed feeling.

As far as I am concerned， there are wonderful love songs all the times.The love songs express ones true love for the other which is really impressing.Writers employ lots of methods in his poem and the poems follow a certain rhyme.Writers of different times have their own main points as for the same theme.Renaissance poems put great importance on humanism.Romantic poems are passionate and enthusiastic.Modern poems are pessimistic， writers pay more attention on the reality. When reading love poems， I always feel touched， really would like to meet the right one.The writer generally expresses his deep love for his love.In his view， love can stand the test of time——he still loves her when she is old and bad-tempered.endprint