Modern Love (poetry collection)
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Modern Love (1862) by George Meredith is a collection of 50 16-line sonnets about the failure of his first marriage. He reflects his own disillusionment after his wife Mary Ellen, the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, left him for the painter Henry Wallis. It is often thought of as one of the first psychological poems.
The poems consist of four characters, a husband, wife, another man and another woman. His wife left him and eloped with another man and for that he never forgave her, but at the same time he talked about her tears (as they were not happy with one another, maybe financial crisis was one of the reasons) in the very first line as he said "Wept With Waking Eyes".
Resources
Ostrom, Hans. "The Disappearance of Tragedy in Meredith's Modern Love. Victorian Newsletter 63 (Spring 1983): 26-30.
Themes
- unhappy marriage
- feminism (talked for the equal rights of women, if men can have an extra marital affairs then why not women)
- extra-marital affair