Mother Love (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Rita Dove
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry, Sonnet
- Subjects: Girls, Mothers, Parents and children, Mythology or myths, Betrayal, Rape, Women, Gods or goddesses, Kidnapping, Greece or Greek people
Published during Rita Dove's tenure as poet laureate, Mother Love shows her grace and skill as a poet. The title announces the subject clearly, but the poems have a range of emotion and observation that surprises the reader continually. The figures behind the poems are Persephone and Demeter, a daughter and mother who learn to be together and apart. Real places and other mothers and daughters blend with the mythic. Stylistically, the poems have a range, but most of them are sonnets—not traditional sonnets, but sonnets nevertheless—and the concluding section is a crown of...
[The entire page is 1097 words long]
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