Angel Lovemore ENG-204 6/6/2026 Persistent Motifs in British Literature Are there recurring patterns across British literature? To answer this question, I reviewed British literature like Canterbury Tales, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, “Paradise Lost” by John Milton, and The Wife’s Lament. To narrow my goal, I chose to focus only on a specific theme. The theme that I chose is death, defined as whenever a character is confronted with death abstractly or literally. I found interesting patterns on the theme of death which I call motifs. The motifs include romance and exile. Readers should identify the motifs of romance and exile when analyzing death in British literature. The aforementioned texts are quite different in their background. The Wife’s Lament is found in the Exeter book which dates back to 960 CE or 10th century, though The Wife’s Lament is likely older than the Exeter Book. The second oldest text is Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. The separation between The Wife’s Lament and Canterbury Tales is significant with a difference of 300 to 400 years – that’s 16 generations! John Milton and Andrew Marvell are closest in time period, having written Paradise Lost and To his Coy Mistress in the mid-17th century. Considering this timeline, Milton and Marvell are likely influenced by earlier works like Canterbury Tales and Exeter Book, while the inverse is not true. The difference in history of these works are important to consider. One motif that is found in these texts is romance. For example, The Knights Tale in Canterbury Tales is a story of two knights fighting to the death to marry their romantic interest. Similarly, the speaker in To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell attempts to persuade a mistress into maximal hedonism by reminding her of death. These two writings are similar in that both death and romance are mentioned. However, they differ with respect to death’s subject. In The Knight’s Tale, the male characters are subject to death. In Marvell’s poem, the female character is subject to death. The difference is that the female character is urged to act hastily, while the Knights prepare and plan for a grand gladiator-style final battle. An important difference is that the male characters would rather die than miss a chance for love, while the female character would rather settle for sex or love than to die. The mood and motivation is different for male and female characters. The knights have a sense of stoic honor in the face of death, while the mistress has a sense of urgency and anxiety in the face of death. Rather than giving into pleasure, the knights work tirelessly to prepare themselves for the battle. Inversely, the mistress is encouraged to do the opposite by passively succumbing into maximal pleasure. One final perspective is that the Knight’s tale is one where the power of love is stronger than the fear of death, whereas the To His Coy Mistress is a poem where the fear of death is stronger than the power of love. Romance and death are deeply intertwined in British Literature. Another motif is exile. It follows that exile fits the definition of social death because social death is defined as “a group behavior that ignores the existence of a person within the group” (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2023). Therefore, exile is properly categorized under the theme of death as social death. The poems The Wife’s Lament and John Milton’s Paradise Lost speak of a forced exile. One similarity between both poems is the mentioning of a powerful and commanding male figure: God in Paradise Lost and Lord in The Wife’s Lament. Another similarity is that The Wife and Lucifer both ruminate as a result of their exile. They both experience negative emotion: grief for The Wife and bitter resentment for Lucifer. Another relevant similarity is the unpleasant and uncomfortable space or environment that they both occupy: hell for lucifer and “gloomy valley, treacherous hills, bitter hedges” and a “house without joy” for The Wife (Unknown, 2022). Important differences between the two characters is that Lucifer has a hoard of followers, while The Wife has no friends. Social exclusion is strongly associated with the conception of death in British literature. British writers associate death with exclusion and romanticism. This romance-exile-death pattern is relevant today in modern culture as well. For example, the romance-exile-death pattern perfectly maps onto the character of Professor Snape in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Professor Snape is a social pariah with little to no friends; in other words, he is exiled. In addition, Snape’s motives of secretly protecting Harry Potter were fueled by his romance for Harry’s mother, Lily Potter. Importantly, Snape’s true character wasn’t revealed to the audience until after his death. Indeed, the unconscious association between death, exile, and romance is still alive in modern British literature as it is in classic British literature. The romance-exile-death pattern is relevant and important for understanding British literature across generations including modern day.
Works Cited APA Dictionary of Psychology, “Social Death,” American Psychological Association, November 15th, 2023, retrieved on June 5th, 2026 from https://dictionary.apa.org/social-death Unknown, The Wife’s Lament, Poetry Foundation, translated By André Babyn, May 2022, retrieved on June 5th, 2026 from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/157730/the-wifes-lament
Reflection As a writer and student undergoing the writing process, I learned to provide background information. Also, I learned to focus my paragraphs with topic & conclusion sentences. Finally, I learned that literature can be compared and contrasted for better understanding. After revision, the essay is better now because it includes a modern example. Also, I added a paragraph for background and context. I revised the essay to hone the focus on the paragraphs. After reflection on my work, I learned that I can identify patterns in texts. Now, I can see myself contributing to the study of literature by comparing and contrasting different works. To be credible, I need to include specific quotations that support the pattern so that the inferences are directly related instead of tangential and unrelated. Also, I need to be mindful of the author, time period, and general background to avoid making superficial connections across texts. I’m excited at the prospect of reviewing literature, perhaps even scientific or medical literature. I like the idea of reviewing medical literature as I want to focus my career in healthcare.