Track one

I loved you first... (from Monna Innominata)

The poem, “I loved you first..”, is about a couple who is in love. I feel that I boy said ‘I love you’ first but then he says that after that she loved him more. Just because you love them longer doesn’t mean you love them more than the other person. Love does not know mine or yours, it knows ours. You love me for what I am and what you think I am, you don’t judge me by what everyone else thinks. Because we love each other that makes us one.

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The message is that you may love somebody first but that doesn’t always mean that you love them more. I think the author wrote this poem because she just wants everyone to know that there is someone out there for them they just have to find them and you may not know it yet but it could be someone you know. Another reason I think she wrote it is because she was engaged early in her life but she didn’t get married to him because he converted to Roman Catholicism. Then she fell in love again with another man but didn’t marry him either because he was not a Christian. Some people also say she wrote her love poems because she also loved a painter named, William Bell Scott. I think she wrote it because she never got married but she always fell in love and wants everyone to know that there is someone special out there for everyone.

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This poem makes me think of “The Notebook”. It reminds me of how Allie and Noah fell in love. Noah loved Allie first but after a while it began to seem like Allie loved him more because she was willing to stay after her parents told her that they were moving. She did not stay because she obeyed her mother. She came back later when she realized she could not live without Noah. Rossetti’s statement of “Which owes the other most? My love was long, and yours one moment seemed to wax more strong” shows how true love between two people can continue because of the strength one person may have during the course of the relationship. I could also see where Noah still loved her more even though she could not remember that they were married because of her memory loss. While she is in the nursing home he came and read to her their life story everyday in an attempt to get her to remember their true love.

This poem reminds me of people getting married. They always look so happy the day they are getting married but you never know who loved who first and who loves who more. This is expressed when Rossetti said

“for verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine’; with separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done, for one is both and both are one in love. Rich love knows nought of ‘thine’ that is not mine; Both have the strength and both the length thereof; Both of us, of the love which makes us one.”

Every time I go to a wedding I always wonder how they met and how they fell in love.

Christina Rossetti was a very important poet in nineteenth century England . In her younger years she was very beautiful. In 1848, she became engaged to James Collinson, one of the minor Pre-Raphaelite brethren, but the engagement ended after he reverted to Roman Catholicism. Then in the early 1860’s she fell in love with Charles Cayley, but she didn’t marry him either because he was not a Christian. After that some people say that she fell in love with the painter, William Bell Scott, but we have nothing to prove this. After she rejected Charles Cayley she became an old spinster and even though she did not find a long lasting love her poems represent her pursuit of a true love. “I loved and guessed at you” means that she wanted to marry them but she did not because of religious reasons. The last twelve years of her life were quiet ones. She died in 1894 of cancer.

This poem does not really have any shifts but they talk about different things of love. The first section is how I loved you first but then afterward it seemed like you loved me more. The second is how I loved you longer than anyone can imagine then out of nowhere you seemed to have loved the longest and strongest. The third is I guessed at you but you loved me for who I am and what I am even though I might or might not be that. Weights and measures just tear everything apart but you don’t judge me for what everyone else thinks I am, you judge me for who you think I am. The fourth is love does not know mine or yours, love makes us one and for that one is both and both are one in love. The fifth is rich love does not know mine or yours but both have the strength and length of the love we need to make us one.