Symptom Recital by Dorthy Graves

In this composition I will be comparing and contrasting two poems from our love poem selections. The two poems I will be using are “Symptom Recital” by Dorothy Parker and “Symptoms of Love” by Robert Graves. These are two of the poems I found most interesting within our selections, because in both “Symptom Recital” and “Symptoms of love” both authors depict the feelings their speakers encounter with love. In these two poems the differences out weight the similarities. The differences in these poems are very noticeable.
In “Symptom recital” Dorothy Parker expresses a woman’s feelings after a bad break up. Parker expresses the anguish and disgust the woman feels about herself, the hatred and the state of mind she is currently in. Parker then uses metaphors’ to express the woman’s thoughts of dismay, such as in line eleven and twelve (I’m disillusioned, empty-breasted/ for what I think I should be arrested). These lines parker expresses that the woman is thinking horrible thoughts of herself and that these thought could be so terrible that if they were brought to the public she would most definitely be arrested.
While in the previous poem we saw that Parker was expressing the ill feelings of a breakup, now in Robert Graves’s poem “Symptoms of Love” is expressing the feelings and emotions someone endures while going through love. Graves depicts the up and down emotions that love gives. The headaches because of how much the speaker cares for the other. How those headaches turn to Jealousy and nightmares. Graves expresses these in metaphors in line one and four through eight. love is a universal migraine/ Symptoms of true love/ are leanness, jealousy/ laggard dawns;/ are omens and nightmares-/ listening for a knock). In these lines Graves shows the emotions of relationships and how they all tie together in one big ball. The similarities both these poems share is the fact that both speakers are showing emotions that come with love. Both the emotions the authors show are turmoil, whether it is while currently in the relationship like “symptom of Love” shows or after the relationship which “Symptom Recital” expresses.

Both of these poems both end in a somewhat happy tune, for example in Symptom recital the whole poem is very upsetting but ends on a positive not that one day the speaker will find love again. While in “Symptoms of love” the speaker tone is of how hard it is to be in love but in the end wouldn’t do it for anyone other than the person he shares his love with. In conclusion both poems were very strong, emotion filled poems of the hardships and enjoyments of love and a relationship.