SPRING -QUESTION- UNREQUITED LOVE

INTRO
Thomas Carew's lyrical poem Spring exults in the onset of spring but bemoans the
continuing winter in his beloveds heart. While spring breathes life into everything around
him, his beloved’s heart remains untouched, retaining a chill that is as unyielding as it is
beautiful. Through this, Carew captures the paradox of unrequited love: the speaker is
surrounded by growth and renewal, yet his emotional world remains frozen, locked in the
grip of unreturned affection.
OR
The speaker takes on the persona of a dissatisfied lover, meaning that the poem is a form of
lover’s complaint type poetry, where the speaker is unhappy with his relationship. The main
conceit in the poem is that the natural rhythms of the Earth have turned away from Winter,
a time of hardship and death, into Spring, a time of new life and new growth - yet the
speaker’s love refuses to follow suit, and remains in a state of coldness and disaffection.
OR
Thomas Carew's masterful poem delicately weaves the evergreen human experience of
unfulfilled affection with the vibrant tapestry of the natural world's perpetual
transformation, drawing a connection between the unchanging emotions of the heart and
the ever-evolving beauty of the environment.

TOPIC SEN/POINT
Carew's poem skilfully illustrates the unchanging, unreciprocated love of the speaker in the
face of nature's transformative shifts, creating a poignant contrast that highlights the
unyielding nature of love against the backdrop of ever-evolving seasons.
OR
The poem is told from the perspective of an unhappy lover, and forms a single stanza of
speech as the speaker recounts the turn of the season, and the sadness of his own personal
love for a woman who seems out of touch with the natural environment.

1]ETE
The speaker laments that while everything else smiles with spring’s delights, his beloved
continues to “lour” The liquid /l/ sounds of "love doth lour" highlight the woman's
disinterest. The volta in line 13, reveals that there is a dissonance between the speaker’s
lover, the true subject of the poem, and the rest of the natural world. He emotes his
despondency as he wails that even the hot “noonday sun” can’t “melt” the “marble ice” that
grips her heart, turning even her “pity cold.” In other words, she has no sympathy for the
speaker whatsoever; she is unmoved by his desire for her further emphasizing this woman's
complete lack of softness toward the speaker. The dismayed lover believes that her heart is
"congeal'd," or frozen solid, stuck in metaphorical winter while the rest of the world moves
on. The huffing /h/ sounds of "hold / Her heart" help to convey the speaker's exasperation.

2 ETE]The speaker alludes to the lovers "Amyntas" and "Chloris," who now rest "Under a
sycamore" tree. Chloris was the Greek goddess of spring, flowers, and new growth.
"Amyntas" was the lovesick who was hopelessly in love with Chloris. Often pastoral style in
poems portray lovers in the natural environment, featuring figures such as maids and
shepherds who live a simplistic yet perfect existence, in harmony with their world. The
speaker in the poem appears to express a wish to be like these kinds of lovers, yet his love
blocks him from doing so as she is out of touch with the spring season and the natural
world. The allusion emphasizes the speaker's bad luck as even Amyntas has acquired his
heart's content with Chloris, yet the speaker has not managed to woo the woman he loves.

3ETE The poem ends with the alliterative phrase June in her eyes, in her heart January.’
which begins and ends with two opposing months - June and January. The juxtaposition of
‘eyes’ and ‘heart’ is also significant - as it suggests a disconnection between her soul and
mind. Finally, the alliteration of "June" and "January" hammers home the juxtaposition
between the world this woman sees and what she feels inside. It might be warming up all
around her, but her heart remains trapped in ice.
A03
The Spring" is arranged into 12 heroic couplets. As such, it also follows a very simple rhyme
scheme: AABBCCDD. This tightly wound rhyme scheme fills the poem with quick, steady
music. It also subtly hints at the speaker's solitude: these are all rhymed pairs, meaning each
sound has a partner. The speaker, by contrast, does not; his beloved continues to reject him.

2 PETER
TOPIC SEN/POINT

Although “The Spring” ends with the speaker feeling as hopeless as ever about his
unrequited love, it also simply celebrates the beauty and delights of the natural world.
Nature, in this poem, is lovely and deeply connected, bound to predictable and comforting
rhythms. But even as the world around him softens and transforms, the woman the speaker
longs for remains as frigid as “January” itself. Love isn’t bound by the rhythms of the
seasons, the poem implies, and not even the tender beauty of spring can melt an icy heart.

1.ETE
The speaker particularly savours the fresh warmth of spring, but he also recognizes that
winter isn’t without its charms. The image of winter as a woman in “snow-white robes”
seems elegant and maybe even cozy. There is something Romantic and fairytale- esque
about this image, as if the earth is a fair lady who wears the snow in wintertime.
The speaker also says that the frost “Candies the grass,” as though coating it in a layer of
sweet, shiny sugar syrup. The image of a layer of “icy cream” atop the “silver lake” and
“crystal stream” further conveys the unique loveliness of the season, presenting it as a time
of delicate, glimmering sweetness and beauty. Again, the imagery speaks to both winter's
quiet cold and surreal beauty: until recently, the world was coated in a layer of creamy
white, and the icy waters of the lake and stream sparkled. The world in winter seems
pristine and elegant but also stiff and unfeeling—and spring's warmth loosens everything up.
The delicate sounds of these lines bring their imagery to life. Crisp alliteration ("Candies,"
"casts," "cream," "crystal") and consonance ("lake," "lost," "frost," "casts," "crystal stream")
add to the feeling of a sharp, fragile world covered in glittering ice and snow. Sibilance
evokes winter's stillness and quiet:

2ETE
The snow and frost have all disappeared, and "the warm sun" is thawing "the benumbed
earth." The word "benumbed" suggests not just that the earth was frozen, but also
unfeeling; the sun's warmth now "makes it tender"—literally softer and metaphorically
sweeter, more sensitive and emotional. This tenderness will contrast with the icy lack of pity
displayed by the speaker's beloved later in the poem. Furthermore, the sun is personified as
a female figure, able to give "sacred birth / To the dead swallow" where the sun's warmth
nudges creatures out of hibernation. This line seems paradoxical, as a swallow that is ‘dead’
seems to be reborn. It’s a "sacred birth" because the sun is like God possessing the ability to
raise the bird from the "dead." Again, this image makes the speaker's beloved seem all the
more cold and even inhuman later in the poem; not even this God-like sun can get her heart
pounding. All these references to female figures reflect the fact that unrequited love is on
the speaker's mind: the speaker wishes the woman that he loves would behave more like
the earth and let the sun thaw her icy heart

3ETE The speaker employs a Tripartite structure to elucidate that ‘The valleys, hills, and
woods’ all parts of the natural landscape respond in unison to the coming of spring. He
personifies nature celebratiting the “long’d for May”; they can’t wait for spring, which might
even seem even more special coming on the heels of winter’s cold. Indeed, the poem
suggests that part of the beauty of the seasons is their predictability. The seasons happen in
the same order every year, and there’s comfort in knowing what to look forward to. While
the speaker’s love is hopeless, winter always contains within it the promise of spring.

4 ETE- Spring is symbolised as a time for life and new growth, a miraculous time, when all
that seemed dead is renewed and comes back to life. There is something beautiful and
‘tender’ about this time of year, which is reflected in the behaviour of plants and animals in
the natural world. The poet demonstrates that the natural world is richly beautiful, full of
infinite variety and potential. [+ any imagery of spring] in contrast to this portrayal, the
unrequited love between the speaker and his lover places the couple into a state of
perpetual winter;

AO3 -The poem is written in iambic pentameter: lines of five iambs, poetic feet that follow
an unstressed-stressed rhythm (da-DUM). Those pounding iambs echo a beating heart,
evoking the way life surges forth in the spring.