“The Definition of Love” Summary

“The Definition of Love” Themes

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  The Power and Beauty of Hopeless Love

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Definition of Love”

• Lines 1-4

  My love is of a birth as rare
  As 'tis for object strange and high;
  It was begotten by Despair
  Upon Impossibility.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  Magnanimous Despair alone
  Could show me so divine a thing
  Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown,
  But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  And yet I quickly might arrive
  Where my extended soul is fixt,
  But Fate does iron wedges drive,
  And always crowds itself betwixt.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-16

  For Fate with jealous eye does see
  Two perfect loves, nor lets them close;
  Their union would her ruin be,
  And her tyrannic pow'r depose.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-20

  And therefore her decrees of steel
  Us as the distant poles have plac'd,
  (Though love's whole world on us doth wheel)
  Not by themselves to be embrac'd;

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 21-24

  Unless the giddy heaven fall,
  And earth some new convulsion tear;
  And, us to join, the world should all
  Be cramp'd into a planisphere.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 25-28

  As lines, so loves oblique may well
  Themselves in every angle greet;
  But ours so truly parallel,
  Though infinite, can never meet.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 29-32

  Therefore the love which us doth bind,
  But Fate so enviously debars,
  Is the conjunction of the mind,
  And opposition of the stars.

  

  

  

  

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“The Definition of Love” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Conceit

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Pun

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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“The Definition of Love” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Rare
• Magnanimous
• Its tinsel wing
• Fixt
• Betwixt
• Close
• Giddy
• Convulsion
• Planisphere
• Oblique
• Debars
• Conjunction

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Definition of Love”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Definition of Love” Speaker

“The Definition of Love” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Definition of Love”

More “The Definition of Love” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Marvell's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.

  • Portraits of Marvell — See some portraits of Marvell as a young man via London's National Portrait Gallery.

  • The Poem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.

  • Marvell's Legacy — Read a review of a recent Marvell biography that discusses his literary afterlife.

  • Miscellaneous Poems — Take a look at images from a first edition of Marvell's Miscellaneous Poems—the posthumous poetry a woman who claimed to be his wife (but was likely his housekeeper) salvaged from his papers.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Andrew Marvell

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  • Upon Appleton House (Excerpt)