Jordan Reid BerkowSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Personal Response Lambert December 14, 1998 The Love Poems of Rich, Marvell, and Campion: Realism versus Idealization Adrienne Rich's "Twenty-One Love Poems," which explore the nature of lesbian love , differ strikingly from classic love poems written by a man to a woman, such as Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and Thomas Campion's "There Is a Garden in Her Face." Rich's poems focus on the "we" aspect of love, the concept of two strong but flawed women facing all odds together, while love poems written by men are much more respectful, almost venerable towards their subjects. Lesbian poems convey a sense that love is “real,” a connection based on more than physical attraction, while male poems focus on an idealized vision of women: beautiful, pure, distant. The women in Marvell and Campion's poems are pretty facades, storybook characters with no real depth or imperfections. Perhaps lesbian love poems could be considered less eloquent or less perfectly romantic, but the romance within them is found in the authentic nature of love. Rich is undoubtedly writing about the experiences she's had, about the real people she's loved, whereas Marvell and Campion could seemingly write about any beautiful but otherwise characterless woman they have. view. Rich's emphasis on both members of the couple as equals stands in stark contrast to the poems of Marvell and Campion, in which the female subject is placed on a pedestal and kept at a distance. There is little sense of a real relationship between man and woman. The men's poems are simple descriptions of the woman and their love for her, with little discussion of how they interact or what they may feel about her personality. Rich, however, creates an atmosphere of "us against the world", writing "I touch you knowing that we were not born tomorrow, / and one way or another, each of us will help the other to live, / and somewhere each of us must help the other die" (Rich 237). Certainly, this divergence is at least in part a product of the different eras in which the poems were written; Campion and Marvell wrote in the 16th and 19th centuries respectively. 17th centuries, while Rich's "Twenty-one Love Poems" were written in the mid-1970s. Victorian and Elizabethan culture demanded that women be far more removed from the often vile realities of life - revered, but not seen as an equal partner in a relationship. Sexuality would not have been a topic to discuss openly, however, Rich's discussion of the sexual nature of her relationships contributes to a full understanding of the equal partnerships she experiences. “I placed my hand on your thigh / to comfort us both, your hand came to mine, / we remained like that, suffering together” (Rich 243). While it is possible that the difference in focus is due to the era, it is certainly notable that Rich focuses on the romance found in the way the two lovers support each other, helping each other through life, while men's love poems keep the woman at a distance, an idol more than a human. Both Marvell and Campion portray a woman who is charming to a fault. Marvel writes: “[t]here is a garden before his face / where roses and white lilies grow; / A heavenly paradiseis this place" (Kennedy 288) while Campion describes a woman who "[a] hundred years should go to praise / Thy eyes and brow look" (Kennedy 375). Both Marvell's and Campion's poems are flowery descriptions and lyric about the beautiful woman they love, but it is not clear that they love her for any reason other than her beauty. Rich, on the other hand, finds romance in the "reality" of the woman he loves. she likes. “We squatted in the open hatch / vomiting into plastic bags / for three hours between Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. / I Never Love Rich is not idolatry, mere worship of an outward facade. She loves the women in these poems because they are so real, so human, with "traveled thighs" and "generous and delicate mouths / where sorrow and laughter sleep together" that make them imperfect, but perfect in reason of their wholeness as a person. They are not distant, untouchable -. they are very possible, and therefore the love is all the more real and passionate. Rich's poems are romantic because the love expressed in them is so genuine. The reader of Rich's poems gets the feeling that Rich really knew these women, really felt them. powerful emotions. In classic poems there is a distant quality, a feeling of awe or longing that almost anyone could probably imagine, whether or not they have actually experienced it. “If we had enough people and time, / . . “We would sit and think which way / To walk and spend our long day of love” (Kennedy 375). There is a banal and simplistic feeling to the experiences with the woman that Marvell recounts. Rich's poems, however, possess a kind of rawness, a sensuality that is difficult to imagine. “And my incurable anger, my incurable wounds / open wider with tears, I cry helplessly, / and they still control the world, and you are not in my arms” (Rich 238) This powerful and bold emotion reveals Rich's very soul; she is clearly not hiding behind anything. This brings to mind the stereotype that it is much easier for women than men to express their emotions, because men often fear that a display of emotion will make them weak and vulnerable. Neither Marvell nor Campion risks anything in their poems; they are safe and distant. There is little personal information about the poet in either poem, except that each narrator appreciates a woman's beauty (a trait that hardly invites a sense of weakness). risks much more with her poems, by exposing herself, by showing her love for the women to whom she writes poems by opening her soul to the world for them. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers. Get a Custom Essay Of course, which poem is more romantic depends on the matter of personal preference. Which is more romantic: respectful idealization or realistic, imperfect love? Appreciation of a person's physical traits or of the person as a human being as a whole? Personally, I find that Rich's poems describe a much deeper and more real love than Marvell's or Campion's poems. The love that Rich expresses for women in his poems is a love that is complete, deep, and far-reaching; she loves every part of these women, even their imperfections. Marvell and Campion only see one side of the women they “love,” and so I cannot believe that the love they speak of in their poems is deep or lasting. I don't think this discrepancy is entirely because Marvell and Campion wrote heterosexual poems, while Rich is a.