Venera Kameri

“Law Like Love”

"Law Like Love" is a poem published by Poet W. H. Auden in 1939. "Law Like Love" was later republished
in Auden's 1940 collection, “Another Time”. “In Law Like Love” Law means different things to everyone
based on their life experiences. The poem is written in blank verse with an irregular rhyme scheme with
11 stanzas each of them containing different line numbers. The main themes in "Law Like Love" are
individual experiences define personal reality and the limitations of humanity, complexity of law and
love. The main poetic devices in "Law Like Love" are: metaphor, repetition, simile, anaphora, and
alliteration. In this essay I will be elaborating the variety definitions of law portrayed by the use of
literary devices.

The first stanza the usage of metaphor “Law, say the gardeners, is the sun/Law is the one/All gardeners
obey/Tomorrow, yesterday, today." (l.1-4) Gardeners depend on the sun for their plants to grow, the sun
is their interpretation of law, un-splash. In this stanza, law is depicted as the law of nature. As the
ultimate source of energy and light, the gardeners live and livelihoods depend upon the sun. Their days
are defined by the authority of the sun, which ultimately creates law, telling them what to do and how
to do it. In the next stanza, law shifts with a new metaphor: “Law is the wisdom of the old/The impotent
grandfathers feebly scold/The grandchildren put out a treble tongue/Law is the senses of the young" (l.5-
8). Now law is dictated by differences in perception. To the old, it is their wisdom and their customs. To
the young, it is their sensitivity to changes in their world and their ability to adapt. The metaphors
continually shift, attempting to define law but showing how it is influenced by personal experiences and
can even be contradictory at times. In the third stanza the speaker employs repetition to stress certain
characteristics of humanity. For example, he stresses the word "priest(ly): Law, says the priest with a
priestly look/Expounding to an unpriestly people/Law is the words in my priestly book" (l.9-11) The
speaker stresses the word "priest" and religion's impact on law, un-splash. With this repetition, he is
showing that even the most religious of people use the laws for their own means and to set themselves
apart from others. The priest presents his interpretation of the law to people and expects them to take
his sermon as absolute truth. Instead of it giving an objective account of God, the priest is self-centered,
noting how his people are "unpriestly" and how the book is "my priestly book”. In lines: “Law, says the
judge as he looks down his nose/Speaking clearly and most severely/Law is as I've told you before/Law is
but let me explain it once more/Law is The Law” (l.12-18) Auden even offers the judge’s meandering
answer clearly and saying law is something that we as readers are supposed to know that “law is the
law.”

In fourth stanza metaphor is apparent in lines: “Yet law-abiding scholars write/Law is neither wrong nor
right/Law is only crimes/Punished by places and by times/Law is the clothes men wear/Anytime,
anwhere/Law is Good-morning and Good-night”. Here we see a definition of law given by scholars that
the law is not wrong or right but its punished by time and place, meaning law exist all the time and
everywhere (l.19- 25). In the fifth stanza the speaker also shows just how abundant and varied humanity
and is with the repetition of the word "others”: “Others say, Law is our Fate/Others say, Law is our
State/Others say, others say" (l.26-28). The quick repetition of others shows the diversity of human
identity, experiences, and opinions. The speaker also repeats the words "loud," "angry," "soft," "know,"
"should," and "timid." The repetition stresses those qualities in humanity and implies that they get in the
way of truly understanding a universal law. In lines: “Law is no more/Law has gone away” the speaker
here indicates that law for others is gone, in other words it is not in the position and respected as it was
before (l.29-30). In the sixth stanza in lines: “And always the loud angry crowd/Very angry and very
loud/Law is We/And always the soft idiot softly Me” the angry crowd saying that law is we which is
ironically put which additionally put also the foulest saying the law is me. It may indicate the power
other have on law, in changing the enforcement of it. (l.31-34)

In the seventh stanza by the usage of alliteration in lines: “If we, dear, know we know no more……To
identify Law with some other word”, the speaker indicates that law is difficult to be defined, the law is
confusing, misleading, and hard to be explained since law means different things (l.35-44). The subject
interpretation of law is ultimately a weakness because people don't adhere to an objective morality.
Instead, they allow their own prejudices, as presented in the metaphors, guide their lives. If no one can
agree on the law as an ultimate morality, what good does the law do? The speaker says, "Unlike so
many men / I cannot say Law is again" (l.45-46). He is aware of the selfishness when it comes to the law,
and he says that it can no longer happen. He stops using the metaphor "Law is..." because he realizes
that it is not an objective presentation of law and morality but a superficial one. In eighth stanza by the
suage of alliteration in lines: “No more than they can we suppress/…. To stating timidly/A timid
similarity” the speaker expressed that law nothing more than we suppresses and wishes and sometimes
found in different conditions. (l.47-54). The final two stanzas that we see the simile realized as the
speaker explains how law and love are the same. The final stanza is also the most apparent use of
anaphora: “Like Love I say/Like love we don't know where or why/Like love we can't compel or fly/Like
love we often weep/Like love we seldom keep." (l.56-60) The anaphora is stressing the connection
between law and love. Interestingly, the speaker doesn't note the diversity inherent in the different
types of love. Instead, love is seen as a connecting force that links all human life and the laws by which
we live it together. It is also important to note that the similes stress the limitations and fallibility of
human beings in love and in law: we don't fully understand it, we can't control it, we cry about it, and,
often, we are unable to maintain our commitments to it. The speaker states that humans are flawed and
imperfect. And, naturally, because most laws are human-made, the laws themselves are imperfect too.
The speaker is implying that because humans are flawed the law cannot be one set ideal. It must be an
objective understanding of morality that continues growing and evolving over time.

For seven stanzas the poem attempts to complete the infinitive “law is.” The poem with the usage of
metaphor recites a series of conventional answers, from the laws of nature (the gardener’s sun) to
religion (“the priestly book”) and tradition (“Law is the wisdom of the old/ the impotent grandfathers
feebly scold”). Auden even offers the tautologies of positive law: the judge’s meandering answer in the
fourth stanza ends with the dictum “law is the law.” After all this speculation, the poet in the eighth and
longest stanza of the poem finds himself unable “To identify Law with some other word, / unlike so
many men/ I cannot say Law is again.” This exhaustion prompts the “timid similarity” of the comparison
to love, which in turn allows the poem to conclude with a striking anaphora. In my opinion, the poem
instructs to consider law as we would love, and this is already a departure from a conventional wisdom
that would place law as public, cold and impersonal and love as its putative antidote but instead the
poet brings two abstract things together the multi definable law and undefinable love and by this makes
the law complicated as love is.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360296952_In_Search_of_the_Truly_Human_W_H_Auden
%27s_Law_Like_Love
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346058474_LAW_LIKE_LOVE_-_W_H_AUDEN

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346057431_LAW_LIKE_LOVE_-_W_H_AUDEN