Love’s Philosophy Summary & Analysis
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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“Love’s Philosophy” is a poem by the British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1819. The poem is a kind of seductive argument, offering proof of a “divine law” that the world is full of interconnectedness—and that therefore the speaker and the person whom the speaker is addressing should become "connected" too. Dominated by its central conceit—that love is a kind of union replicated in the natural and spiritual realms—the poem has more in common with works by 17th century Metaphysical poets such as John Donne ("The Flea") and Andrew Marvell ("To His Coy Mistress") than with works by the Romantic poets of Shelley’s day (and indeed to Shelley's other poems). Through ingeniously constructed images and metaphors, poets like Donne and Marvell sought to make the acceptance of an amorous proposal seem like the only logical response—the same approach adopted by Shelley here.

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