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Review of Lovesong
“Lovesong” presents love not as something peaceful and idealized, but as a passionate force that can become obsession, possession and destruction. From the beginning, the two lovers seem to want to consume each other, both literally and metaphorically. Images such as biting, chewing and sucking transform love into an act of physical absorption.
The central paradox of the poem is that the lovers want to make their love eternal, yet their attempt to possess each other produces violence. They want to stop time, hold each other forever and prevent life from separating them. Love therefore becomes an attempt to possess the other person completely.
As the poem progresses, Hughes’s language becomes increasingly dark. Romantic images are transformed into images of war, crime, torture and death: an occupying army, an attempted murder, a revenge dagger, a whip and leather boot, a skull, formaldehyde and hostages.