Greater Love Analysis

Red lips are not so red
   As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
   When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
   Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce Love they bear
   Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft, --
   Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft, --
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear
   Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot,
   Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot;
And though your hand be pale,
Paler are all which trail
Your cross through flame and hail:
   Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

.: :.

Greater Love is a poem in which Wilfred Owen uses to bring forth his admiration of brotherly love. Soldiers' love is repeatedly glorified with honorifc words like "fierce","pure", "exquitsite" who evidently suffered and sacrificed their lives for their countrymen. Yet, WO criticised the countrymen for their disability to understand this kind of sacrificial love and "touch them not". Due to their lack of experience and exposure, society will never understand by just knowing and reading about soldiers' love.
the soldiers' love is seen to be "greater" than erotic love. the soldiers' love, in fact, is compared to Christ's agape love for sinners. similarly, soldiers sacrificed their lives for ignorant society. Hence, compared to erotic love, brotherly love suffered more killings and injuries like "knife-skewed" and "stained stones". Yet, the conflict and sacrifices faced by soldiers made their love more "greater" in beauty and more real. even erotic love "seems shame to their love pure". Ironically, even if erotic love is more gentle and "dear", violence, fighting and killing invited by soldiers' love - still raised WO's qualification of this love as "greater". Irony is that violence could be the strong bond of sufferings shared by soldiers and thus, made this love "greater".
Since brotherly love carries violence, their love is seen to be ugly and gruelsome. yet, despite the overwhelming beauty and exquisitness of erotic love, brotherly love is honored by WO as more "greater". this is because erotic love only brings pleasure and hopes for return ["lips" needs another to kiss] but brotherly love sacrificed their lives without question for countrymen. worse still, for people who are ignorant.
There are several comparison made by WO between erotic love and brotherly love. the differences which set these two kinds of love apart is attraction/lure [verse1], physical connection [verse2], sounds [verse3], sincerity [verse4] the compare and contrast brings forth the question of the permanance and sincerity of erotic love. to emphasize that, WO introduces eortic love as weak and temporary with feminine words, in contrast to brotherly love which is portrayed as strong ad everlasting with masculine words. Thus, brotherly love is seen to be more superior than erotic love, even if erotic love is more accepted by society [biblical reference, Adam and Eve]
Lastly, despite soldiers' love being more "greater" and beautiful, WO criticises society for not being to understand. Society not only do not care, they failed to experience and be exposed to the same sufferings of war which formed the agape love of soldiers for their countrymen, for their comrades and for their country. "Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not" is like the mockery of WO.
WO brings readers to understand that even if they were to read the poem and know about the sacrificial love of soldiers, they'll not truly understand. it is not sufficient to just know about their plight but also to experience and share their sufferings to truly understand. in addition, by saying so, WO reveals that brotherly love is so great that it couldn't be truly expressed in just printed words.

| Posted on 2008-07-27 | by a guest