Taylor Svete

Mrs. Smith/ AP British Literature

Part 3: Question 2

10/8/09

When Love is Pain (Spenser’s Sonnet 35)

Romantic desire is like a hunger or need when “hungry eyes through greedy covetize/

Still to behold the object of their pain” (line 1-2). The object of one’s pain is more likely to be

the one they love and cannot have, rather than someone they do not care for, or even someone

who they despise. To look at unattainable love is like having air within arms reach, but not being

able to grasp enough to keep breathing; it makes your body burn with need, just as love makes

your heart burn with desire. When cupid’s arrow strikes, there is no turning back, even if the love

felt may very well kill you in the end “like Narcissus vain” (7) Love may hurt but it is impossible

to give up on love because “For lacking it they cannot life sustain” (5). Nothing can fill the hole

the rejection of an offered heart leaves. Everything else is meaningless compared to the one you

love. “All this world’s glory seemeth vain” (13) because nothing else can amount to the beauty

you see in them. The beauty is so immense that gazing upon them hurts your eyes but you cannot

look away because no matter how much it hurts, you need this more than anything else and to

look away would be to give up on your entire life. The hunger of true love tears at your soul, but

when satisfied, fills it with light and bliss that is well worth the pain, so the great paradox of love

always continues.