Love and loss
A central literary theme exploring how love necessarily involves vulnerability to loss, and how loss of love involves grief. Love and loss appear together in elegies, romantic tragedy, and many love narratives.
Real World
Tennyson's 'In Memoriam A.H.H.' was written across 17 years following the sudden death of his closest friend Arthur Hallam — the poem became one of literature's most celebrated explorations of grief precisely because love made the loss devastating.
Exam Focus
When analysing love and loss, link the emotional register of language choices to the specific stage of grief the speaker experiences.
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