Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894 / Edinburgh / Scotland)

Good poetic definition of life & love. Nice art by louis

Love and life are one- fleeting, arduous.

Robert Louis Stevenson died when he was 44. I find this poem to be a brilliant composition. I find this poem to be dwelling on one specific aspect of realisation of love. It may not be the road for all. Few can walk this road, and no one chooses this fork in the T of their lives. But the fortunate few who are blessed to walk it see a dimension of love which is quite unique. Robert Louis Stevensen after reading this poem of his, leaves my mind with no doubt was one such fortunate individual. Look at the choice of words. Great heart. The word great is a sublime word, and is used with exquisite sensitivity. So is the word Ache. To the English speaking world especially whose mother tounges happen to be English, this should strike first shot, he did not use the word pain. Its Ache. Its Hindi equivalent would be Tees. The hands are wrung, the word wrung has a visual stringing appeal to it. Love comes and love departs. He hasn't used the word goes. Depart is a deep word. Souls depart. People come, people leave, greatness comes and greatness departs. You stand immersed, yet helpless, as a passenger on a platform, seeing whom you distance into infinity, not necessarily death. Love remains, but the whole experience of understanding its roots and its fabric, brings forth the title of the poem, What is Love. Quad Erat Demonstratum.

Is it love or an affair? Robert, You had written a short poem to show the love derived through an affair is always short.

Is it love or an affair! ! Robert of Edinburgh, You lived in a castle city and your city was mesmeric to me, when I stood in front of the kilometer long artistic caste! Whether I like your wrong definition of love or not, I like and hate Edinburgh for some personal reason..May your soul find the true love, as we, Indians have found in every other relationships, not only conjugally..

Robert,
Short and to the point.

Thanks for shareing

Love is a very complicated word to define its real meaning, physical and metaphysical. Rather passion is very clear to expose. But LOVE...very much hard to break its riddling code. If we try to illustrate its meaning by a different way, we will see, love demands the offering, it can't bear the exchange. If you are ready to unconditionally offer yourself, you will get the meaning but if you expect something you will be in dark, will defeat as poet says shamelessly a long despair which is supported by the last line. In one sense, poet is correct because man can not give anything without expecting the exchange, if not loudly, at least in subconscious. And here despair spreads its web to make one dull.....So honest the confession poet tried to keep in words.

I agree with Mr Pruchnicki. I don't think this was how he RLS felt at that moment. However he does express the eternal truth that love is not always easy, it can be bleak and painful.

Robert Louis Stevenson asks ‘LOVE - what is love? ’ and the immediacy of his definite answer ‘A great and aching heart; /Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair’ tells us that in this poem, he is concerned only with despair, an unrequited, despondent or lost love. This image is reinforced with ‘Upon a moorland bare’, definitely a broken landscape of love.
Personal experience must be part of the poem or story, if the poet or writer is writing about subject matter of which they know, yet personal heartbreak is not necessary at the moment of writing, although knowledge of heartbreak would be necessary to create realism in writing referencing this emotion. Stevenson’s words indicate such knowledge and if writing Bio or Confessional Poetry artistic experience is central.
Not all poems by RLS or Shakespeare can be described as a clever trick of arbitrary whim, written by magicians of illusion; many can be traced to proven historical events which occured in their lives. And good criticism will progress from an introductory How into what a poem means, based upon insightful and plausible readings, with appropriate quotes to sustain the argument chosen.

I like the fact that 4 short lines of poetry can provoke such dissent! Even love that lasts a lifetime departs eventually with life itself. Love as it described here is painful and hurts and yet once it is gone, it leaves a lonely figure on a barren landscape.