Song (Love What Art Thou? A Vain Thought) Essay Questions

Essay Questions

  1. 1

    How does the title “Love What Art Thou? A Vain Thought” dictate the construal of the poem?

    The title is apportioned into a question (“Love What Art Thou?”) and a corresponding answer “A Vain Thought”). Mary Wroth unambiguously articulates her standpoint on love in the title. The body of the poem delves into the vainness of love. Therefore, while construing the body, a reader underlines the imageries that propose indications of the ineffectuality of love.

  2. 2

    What are the prime symbols in “Love What Art Thou? A Vain Thought”? What is the ramification of the multiple symbols?

    The symbols consist of: ‘net,’ ‘lightness,’ ‘fairness’, ‘coldness,’ ‘a flower,’ ‘dust,’ ‘lour,’ and ‘bubbles.’ The multiplex symbols accentuate the unbounded uselessness of love for they are transient. Love is unequivocally pointless for it may be exterminated sooner than later in the same way as the symbols delineated above. Therefore, love is an unsteady substantiality.

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