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Home  Ralph Waldo Emerson  Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Give All to Love by Ralph

Poem
Waldo Emerson Analysis Pick
of Poetry

In ‘Give All to Love’ Emerson addresses themes of love, The Current

relationships, eternity, and transcendence. This piece is one Isolationism
of the best representatives of Emerson’s transcendental by Camille
Rankine
beliefs. In poetry specifically, transcendentalism is
connected to the transcendence of the poet and the reader’s
spirit.
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 The Mountain
And The
Squirrel by
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This is accomplished through the poet’s voice which usually Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo
asserts a love for expression and self-realization, as Emerson
discovered through a natural landscape. Personal freedom
was also crucial to this set of spiritual beliefs. All of these Biography of
Ralph Waldo
beliefs can be taken from ‘Give All to Love’.
Emerson

Explore Give All to Love

1 Summary of Give All to Love

2 Structure of Give All to Love

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Analysed
3 Poetic Techniques in Give All to Love

4 Analysis of Give All to Love Select Cate

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Summary of Give All to Love Search for a poem

‘Give All to Love’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a

concise, passionate poem that speaks on the
transcendent power of love.
The speaker addresses the reader, asking them to consider
their life and give everything they have physically and
mentally, over to love. This is the only pursuit worth
anything, they say. As the poem develops it is made clear
that the speaker believes by doing this one will reach a
heightened spiritual plane. They will touch the eternal and
live in a way that others are unable.

Structure of Give All to Love

‘Give All to Love’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a six stanza
poem that’s separated into uneven sets of lines. The first
stanza contains six, the second: eleven, the third and fourth:
eight, the fifth: nine, and the sixth has seven. Emerson did
not choose to structure this poem with a specific rhyme
scheme.

Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism focused on the internal spirit and the
importance of intuition as a source of knowledge, in this
case, the importance of love. This was made all the more
necessary as it pushed back against a rise in dependence
on logic and black-and-white morality. These ideas came to
be a spiritual way of understanding and relating to one’s life.
Perhaps the most important aspect of Transcendentalism is
the focus on nature. The participants in the movement were
opposed to industrialism as it was a distraction from the
pleasure an individual can receive from nature. They
believed that nature was the only place in which they could
learn who they were at the deepest level. Transcendentalists
believed that the institutions of society corrupted this pure
self.

Poetic Techniques in Give All

to Love
Within ‘Give all to Love’ Emerson makes use of several
poetic techniques. These include alliteration,
personification, and enjambment. The first, alliteration,
occurs when words are used in succession, or at least
appear close together, and begin with the same letter. For
instance, “high” and “hope” in stanza two and “reward” and
“return” in stanza three.

Personification occurs when a poet imbues a non-human

creature or object with human characteristics. Love is
immediately personified in the second stanza of ‘Give All to
Love’. Emerson’s speaker refers to was a “brave master” that
should be allowed enough room to flourish. It should also be
followed “utterly”.
Another important technique commonly used in poetry is
enjambment. It occurs when a line is cut off before its
natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader down to
the next line, and the next, quickly. One has to move forward
in order to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. For
example, the transitions between lines five and six in the
second stanza and lines six and seven in the third stanza.

Analysis of Give All to Love

Stanza One
 Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
 Plans, credit and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse.

In the first stanza of ‘Give All to Love,’ the speaker begins by

making use of the line that later came to be used as the title
of the poem. He tells the reader very directly that they need
to “Give all to love”. The “all” in this statement is outlined in
the rest of the stanza. It includes “thy heart” and all parts of
one’s personal life. Friends, memories, one’s money and
belongings, “good-fame” as well as plans and credit. They
should all be sacrificed, if need be, for love. “Nothing” should
one refuse to give to “love”.

Stanza Two
 ’T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent:
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

The second stanza makes use of personification in order to

cast “love” as a benevolent master that always knows best.
One should follow this master wherever it goes. It is later
compared to some kind of flying creature, a god that “knows
its own path / and the outlet of the sky”. It should “have
scope” over one’s life or control.

From these lines of ‘Give All to Love,’ the speaker’s opinion

about love, its goodness and the power one should allow it
to exert over one’s life are made very clear. These thoughts
connect directly to the transcendental belief system.

Stanza Three
 It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
 They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

The third stanza of ‘Give All to Love’ is a bit shorter at only

eight lines. Here, the speaker adds that the only souls that
are going to be able to follow this kind of master are those
that are courageous. It requires a sacrifice that many are
going to be unable to make. One’s valour must be
“unbending”. This is the only way one will be led to “reward”.

If one does everything the speaker as so far set out, and

they follow love unquestioningly, they will “return” from the
journey “More than they were, / And ever ascending”. One
will transcend the normal bounds of mundane life and
become spiritual more than their counterparts.

Stanza Four
 Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
Keep thee to-day,
 To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

The first line of the fourth stanza is a rephrasing of the title.

Here, he suggests that one should “Leave all for love”. But,
there is also a reminder of caution that one must be firm in
their endeavour to give themselves over to love. It is not to
one beloved that one should tie themselves but to “Love”
itself. One should remain “free as an Arab,” an autonomous
individual.

Stanza Five
 Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
In the fifth stanza of ‘Give All to Love,’ the speaker adds that
with this love one should feel strongly and purely, but not to
do anything to keep the maiden from being “fancy-free”. She
is free, as the intended listener of the poem is free. One
shouldn’t try to “detain her vesture’s hem,” or hang onto her
by the edge of her clothes.

Stanza Six
 Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

There is a chance, the speaker adds in the sixth stanza, that

one will be separated from the person they love. She may
“part” from you. But, one should remember that it is the
experience of transcendence, the purity of love and the joy
that brings that is the source of one’s happiness. This will
lead one to a higher spiritual plane and bring one closer to a
divine force or presence.

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About The Author

Emma Baldwin

Emma
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graduated
from East Carolina University with a
BA in English, minor in Creative Writing, BFA in Fine Art,
and BA in Art Histories. Literature is one of her greatest
passions which she pursues through analysing poetry on
Poem Analysis.

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