Jordan Earles

Carter
6B
20 March 2015
Eros Poems
In Poem 1, EP, by Robert Bridges and Poem 2, Eros, by Anne Stevenson,
characterizes the Greek god of love in two different forms. Poem 1 describes the youthful want
of love and how Eros is waiting to give that love. Poem 2 explains this idea of losing a love or
having a broken heart and the negative effects that hurt, can have on ones idea of love. The
two poems use diction, punctuation, imagery, and metaphors to convey the two concepts of
Eros, as told in each poem.
Poem 1 uses positive diction to give a youthful yearn for lasting love. For example,
words such as flower (line 4), eternal (line 6), exuberant (line 7), simile (line15), and
innocence (line 18) portray youthful ideas of how love is pictured in a young persons mind. In
contrast, poem 2 uses negative diction to give this perception of an uncaring, heartbroken
character who is about to lose her faith in love. Negative diction like thug (line 3), patchy
wings askew (line 8), brute (line 10), battered visage (line 21), and bruised but hot (line
22), ensinuate hurt, betrayal, and lack of sympathy.
Both poems use punctuation in order to add breaks, stops and thought to each stanza.
Poems 1 and 2 use rhetorical questions to allow for thinking and interpretation. If the stanza
doesnt end with a question, then it ends with a period to break in flowing thought. However,
the dialogue in poem 2 creates the personification of love and the Greek god, Eros so the
women can hear and see what her broken heart and hurt have done to Eros, and in turn,
herself.
Imagery in both poems create what the god looks like and what human desires and
passion, or lack there of can do to Eros. Poem 1 portrays a strong, marble god who is caring and
ready to provide love for those who Hath cared to look upon my face (line 25). Poem 2
personifies Eros as weak and physically hurt by a woman who has a lack of faith in love, but
Eros has an inspirational message of Better my battered visage, bruised but hot, than love
dissolved in loss or left to rot (lines 21-24) hoping her ides of love will change for the better.
Both Bridges and Stevensons poem convey the importance of love and our happiness
that comes from it, but theme in both poems is to keep searching for it, because Eros doesnt
give up easily. Its better to be bruised and battered by love than for love to vanish entirely
from ones life, or to never have known it at all.

Comment [J1]: Rephrased from the Greek god

of love is characterized in two different forms to
characterizes the Greek god of love in two different
forms because it was an awkward phrasing the first
way.
Comment [J2]: Changed want to yearn
because youth yearn for a lasting love, not just a
want of love.
Comment [J3]: Changed yearn to longing
because it would be repetitive to use yearn twice.

Comment [J4]: Deletion of the word passion

because it isnt needed, the word desires was
appropriate.
Comment [J5]: Insert a dash between lack
there of in order to appropriately use the words.

Comment [J6]: Changed to stems from love

because it not only sounds better, but it also takes
possession of the word it so the reader knows as
to what Im referring.