Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
Speaker of the poem: someone deeply hurt by being in love, presumably the poet herself; Point of view: first person
Form and Meter
five stanza quintet
Metaphors and Similes
The first four stanzas contain metaphors and similes for love:
-First stanza-love is a wrought net
-Second stanza-love is like a fresh morning and cold evening
-Third stanza-love is a dead sweet flower
-Fourth stanza-love is like a child
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration: "These foul faults thy virtues hide-"
Irony
"But thy law I once obeyed,
Therefore say no more at first."
-This two lines end the poem which criticizes the whole idea of romantic love
Genre
lyric poetry
Setting
Poem is a part of "The Countess of Montgomery's Urania", a prose work by Mary Wroth
Tone
gloomy, hopeless
Protagonist and Antagonist
protagonist is the speaker of the poem; antagonist is the love that he/she was hurt by
Major Conflict
The speaker of the poem got deeply hurt by love therefore he/she questions it in a cynical way.
Climax
The speaker of the poem realizes that he/she shouldn't be talking about love in that way because he/she was once a follower of its rules.
Foreshadowing
"Yet alas these not the worst:
Much more of thee may be said."
-foreshadows the end of comparing love to everything that is negative
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"But thy law I once obeyed"-the word "law" is used as metonymy for being in love
Personification
Personification of love
Hyperbole
The effect of pain caused by love is exaggerated throughout the poem: "Love what art thou? Causeless, cursed"
Onomatopoeia
N/A
