How does Emily Brontë make her message clear in Love and Friendship?

In her poem Love and Friendship, Brontë compares and muses over platonic and
romantic forms of love, declaring friendship more constant than romance. Throughout
the poem, she makes use of an extended metaphor, which likens friendship to an
evergreen “holly-tree” and romance to a short-lived “rose-briar”. Despite the “dark”
holly being overshadowed by the beautiful rose during the warmer months, come
Winter the rose will have wilted, whilst the holly maintains its “sheen” and comes to
the forefront of the season with its place in the Christmas wreath. Similarly, love is
initially invigorating and beautiful, but is transient and quickly fades once
circumstances toughen, whereas friendship will last throughout the years.
The theme of love is explored through the symbol of a “wild rose-briar”; it is
exciting and alluring, but fleeting. Brontë refers to ludus, an immature, superficial
love, in her comparison; Greek philosophers considered ludus the type of ‘playful’
love often seen amongst young lovers, which has a certain thrill about it but is quick
to lose its appeal. The use of the adjective “wild” suggests that love cannot be tamed
and that its transience is a basic, eternal part of its nature. Brontë acknowledges the
delight which love brings, yet warns the reader of its inability to last. Beneath the
rose’s blooming flower, there are thorns, which are the only part left once the petals
have fallen and “winter [has] come... again.” Without its bright petals, the rose cannot
be considered “fair” and similarly, once the most appealing aspects of romance have
faded into normality, the lovers are quick to leave one another.
Conversely, the theme of friendship is explored in quite a different manner.
Compared to the “holly-tree”, friendship－or philia, a deep platonic attachment
valued above any kind of romance; a relationship between two equals who have
supported one another throughout life’s struggles－is not without its own prickly
spines and disputes, but has a constancy which romance often lacks. Despite seeming
insignificant “when the rose-briar blooms”, it possesses an eternal “sheen” which is
able to steadfastly sustain all difficulties.
Brontë uses the seasons to represent time and the struggles which every
relationship suffers. She recognises that the “wild rose-briar is sweet in spring”, and
the use of sibilance here conveys love’s tenderness during the pleasant times; initially,
love is easy and sweet to maintain, and its “summer blossoms scent the air”. Its appeal
quickly eclipses friendship’s fidelity, and yet it vanishes just as quickly once the days
shorten and the air cools; “wait till winter comes again,” Brontë warns the reader.
“Who will call the wild-briar fair?” In the harsher seasons, which represent life’s
challenging experiences, love will not last as friendship will.
Love and Friendship is written in three quatrains; a simple and traditional form of
poetry which would be, and still is, familiar to its readers. Through the three stanzas,
there is a shift in tone and rhyme scheme which mirrors Brontë’s views and
intentions. The first two stanzas have an irregular rhythm and relatively
unconventional ABCB rhyme scheme, which reflect the novel and exciting giddiness
of new love. The musing tone is emphasised by Brontë’s posed questions which end
the first two stanzas; she has not yet made up her mind and is merely discussing her
comparison of the two subjects. The second question, “And who will call the wild-
briar fair?” marks a turning point in the poem; from this point onwards, Brontë draws
the poem to its conclusion and ends in favour of friendship. The half-rhyme in the
second stanza－“spring/again”－emphasises the frivolity of young love and shows
that immature lovers are quick to dismiss the flaws in their relationship, which only
rise again during a struggle.
By the third stanza, Brontë has come to a decision and definitively answered her
own questions. She has shifted to a more conservative ABAB rhyme scheme and a
regular rhythm, which symbolise the fading of exotic new passion to something
unremarkable and rather tiresome. The appeal of the “rose-briar”, initially so strong
and all-encompassing, has waned into insignificance; it is the holly’s turn to shine.
The lack of question at the end of the stanza stresses her point and convinces the
reader that friendship is indeed the more faithful quality－her alliteration of the
voiced velar stop in “garland green” emphasises that she has come to a stop and put
forward a conclusive argument.
Brontë’s lexis in Love and Friendship is simple and generally monosyllabic;
much like the structure of the poem, it is uncomplicated and familiar to its readers.
The superficially straightforward form of the poem suggests that basic, almost
primitive needs and aspects of human nature are being handled－conversely, Brontë
uses an extended metaphor to discuss love; this was typical of florid Baroque and
Rococo poets such as John Donne and Francisco de Quevedo. By using plain
language to explore an elaborate and Romantic concept, Brontë conveys her message
to readers of the era. Furthermore, the literary devices employed give depth and
poignancy to a supposedly quotidian work, whilst maintaining a form of language
easily interpreted by a contemporary audience. The poem opens with two near-
identical similes, comparing love and friendship to a “rose-briar” and “holly-tree”
respectively. This open comparison immediately explains the subject of the poem to
the reader and sparks the unsophisticated techniques to follow. Friendship, unlike
love, is personified as “he”; this supports the familiarity and favour towards it, and
perhaps alludes to a particular male friend whom Brontë has in mind.
The use of sibilance throughout the poem－“sweet in spring” and “scorn the
silly rose-wreath”－is used in two ways; initially, it emphasises the sweet
sentimentality of new love, but as the poem progresses, much like the shifting rhyme
scheme, the technique reflects Brontë’s contempt and rejection of romance in favour
of strong friendships. She addresses the reader directly, warning them of love’s fickle
nature, with the now-archaic second-person pronoun ‘thou’－“deck thee… thy
brow”. This was the singular form of the pronoun “you”, and gives the poem a frank
and personal tone as Brontë directs her warning towards the singular reader in
particular. In addition, ‘thou’ was used for intimacy and familiarity, particularly
between friends, and as such both reflects the theme of friendship and the basic
concepts of the poem.
Whether Brontë is scorning or celebrating romantic love is open to interpretation.
The beauty and appeal of romance are acknowledged, and in the first two stanzas she
seems to be comparing the two without any particular favour; she is merely
commenting on the fidelity of friendship as opposed to the fleeting nature of romance.
Yet by the turning point of the poem, with the posed question finishing the second
stanza, her tone shifts from neutral to openly biased towards friendship. “Then scorn
the silly rose-wreath now,” she spits, and with her reference to “December”, the
reader has only a Christmas wreath in mind. Of course, a rose in such a display would
indeed look “silly”, not least because the rose lost its petals some months previously.
Despite two out of the three stanzas seeming relatively mild and musing, Brontë’s
decisive and emphatic alliteration in the last line of the poem convinces the reader of
her preference for philia, and she has quite rejected romantic love in the process of
her decision.
Much like Brontë, Alexander S. Pushkin openly compares love and friendship in
Stanza XXXVI of Eugene Onegin and ends on a vow to value friendship over any
romance. Pushkin repeatedly uses adjectives and tricolon－“seductive, animated,
bright/But wilful, frivolous, and light”－to compare the two concepts, and, as in Love
and Friendship, ends on an emphatic and conclusive last line which clearly favours
platonic camaraderie: “All hail! My good old friend Bordeaux!” Similarly, the
exploration of comradeship as the source of happiness is seen in stanzas 47-50 of the
Hávamál; “man is the joy of man”. However, views of love differ to those of Brontë
and Pushkin, since a romantic partner is seen as a necessity; stanza 50, much like the
first two stanzas of Love and Friendship, ends on an eternal question: “such is the
man whom none doth love/For what should he longer live?” However, this concept of
love could be interpreted again as philia, which supports Brontë’s argument－the
comradery discussed is the male counterpart to Brontë’s close female friendships
which were so common in the Victorian era. The strong relationship between men is
frequently depicted in various ancient texts; storge, a familial love even stronger than
philia, is explored by Catullus in his 72nd poem. The similes used to compare passion
and storge echo the initial lines of Brontë’s work－“I loved you not so much as the
mob does a harlot/but as a father loves his children and sons-in-law”－and again
romance and carnal desires are cast aside in favour of the deep constancy of family
and friendship.
However, romance is not so easily tossed aside in more contemporary works,
such as Vladimir V. Nabokov’s poem For Happiness the Lover Cannot Sleep, which
idealistically depicts love as the beautiful source of the narrator’s happy romanticism.
Like Brontë, Nabokov makes repeated use of sibilance throughout his work－“a
silhouetted crane… slowly sinking”－but maintains a sweet and affectionate tone.
However, even for Nabokov, love is not without its ‘thorns’ and is shown to “haunt…
[him] incessantly, torment.. and claim.. [him]”, denying him, as the title and opening
line suggest, sleep, as well as rendering him too distracted to “finish writing”.
In Love and Friendship, Brontë warns the reader about romance’s fickle nature
but also celebrates its wild, untamed beauty. Her message regarding friendship’s
evergreen steadfastness has rung true since the time of ancient civilisations, and the
unsophisticated yet poignant language used makes the poem and its values accessible
for every reader.