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What does Walter Raleigh aim to convey in "A Farewell to False Love"?
Quick answer:
Walter Raleigh's "A Farewell to False Love" conveys the speaker's rejection of deceptive relationships, using metaphors to emphasize false love's hidden dangers. He compares it to a "poisoned serpent covered all with flowers" and a "gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait," highlighting how appearances can deceive. Raleigh concludes that self-deception must be eradicated, as false love stems from a "dead root." The poem warns of the futility in pursuing insincere love.
In this poem, the speaker is saying goodbye to women who offer him false love. By this, he presumably means he is giving up on lovers with "beauty" who only pretend to love him back.
Raleigh uses a series of metaphors to express the idea that false love is a form of torment that disguises itself as something else. Metaphors are comparisons that do not use the words like or as. For instance, his speaker likens false love to
A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers.
We can easily picture this image of a snake covered lovely flowers. You might be attracted by the beauty of the flowers and their scent, and, without knowing it until too late, encounter a biting snake. The speaker also likens false love to
A gilded hook that holds a poisoned bait
Once again, you might think you have "hooked" or found a relationship with someone good, only to find you have been deceived.
In the final stanza, the speaker says he can give up on false love because he has killed the root of self-deception inside himself.
Sir Walter Raleigh's poem "A Farewell To False Love" is an extended metaphor poem. Raleigh is simply comparing false love to many different things he feels he can compare fraudulent love to.
IN the end, Raleigh declares that any love which one deems false is "a dead root where all these fancies grew." By saying this, Raleigh is admitting that some, including himself, may try to make love into something is can never be. If the root of the love is poisoned, it cannot survive.
Basically, Raleigh is giving the reader multiple images to which they can associate a false love to. I believe that he does this so as to relate it to as many people as he possibly can. He wants to warn people about the problems associated with love gone bad.
This being said, the most important part of the poem would seem to be the title. Raleigh is admitting that one must say goodbye to a love that is poisoned or wrong. The love will never be able to change from what it is given the root of the love is dead. The love will always be dead given a healthy root, or base, is absent.
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