Love is Best

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's Love is Best

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s Love is Best is a passionate exhortation to embrace love as the supreme guiding force in life, transcending fate, time, and worldly suffering. Written in the late 19th or early 20th century, the poem reflects Blunt’s Romantic sensibilities, his defiance of conventional morality, and his belief in love as a redemptive and sovereign power. This essay will explore the poem’s thematic preoccupations, its historical and biographical context, its use of literary devices, and its emotional resonance. By situating the poem within Blunt’s broader oeuvre and the literary movements of his time, we can better appreciate its philosophical underpinnings and its enduring appeal.

Historical and Biographical Context

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922) was a British poet, diplomat, and anti-imperialist activist whose work often defied the moral and political orthodoxies of Victorian England. His personal life was marked by tumultuous love affairs, most notably with Lady Anne Noel (Byron’s granddaughter), whom he married, and later with the celebrated poet Jane Morris, wife of William Morris. Blunt’s poetry frequently grapples with themes of love, rebellion, and existential defiance, reflecting his own unorthodox lifestyle.

Love is Best emerges from this context, embodying Blunt’s belief in love as an almost sacred force that supersedes societal constraints. The late Victorian period, with its rigid moral codes and increasing secularization, saw many poets—including the Pre-Raphaelites and the Decadents—turn to love and beauty as transcendent ideals. Blunt’s poem aligns with this tradition, though his tone is more assertive, even militant, in its advocacy of love as an active, almost combative force.

Thematic Analysis: Love as Defiance and Redemption

The central theme of Love is Best is the supremacy of love over fate, time, and suffering. The poem opens with a bold imperative:

Dare all things for Love’s sake, since love is best.

This line establishes love not merely as an emotion but as a principle worth risking everything for. The verb "dare" suggests courage and defiance, framing love as an act of rebellion against life’s adversities. Blunt’s rejection of fate—"Of Fate ask nothing"—echoes classical and Romantic traditions where love is often pitted against destiny (as in Greek tragedy or Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound). However, Blunt goes further by advocating an active resistance:

rather by your deeds
Rebuke it for its niggard ways unblest,

Here, fate is personified as miserly ("niggard") and cursed ("unblest"), a force to be challenged rather than passively accepted. This aligns with Blunt’s broader worldview, which rejected determinism in favor of individual agency.

The second stanza introduces the idea of memory as selective—only what love has given should be retained:

Remember in the shade of the new years
Only what Love has given.

This selective remembrance acts as a "safeguard from tears," suggesting that love’s gifts are the only enduring truths in a world of "change and Time’s inconstancy." The poem thus presents love as both a shield and a weapon against life’s transience.

Literary Devices and Rhetorical Structure

Blunt employs a series of imperatives—"Dare," "Rebuke," "Remember," "Knock," "Offer," "Watch," "Seek"—creating a tone of urgent exhortation. The poem reads like a sermon on love, blending religious and militant imagery. The phrase "Do worship for his sake" elevates love to a deity, reinforcing its sacred status.

The imagery of roses and June (traditionally associated with romance and vitality) reinforces love’s vitality:

Offer him roses. 'Tis his month of June.

This line evokes both the fleeting beauty of summer and the cyclical nature of love, suggesting renewal despite time’s passage.

The final couplet serves as a triumphant conclusion:

Know this of Love, who fears not Fate’s disaster
Answers for both and is of Time the master.

Here, love is anthropomorphized as fearless and sovereign, capable of overcoming fate and mastering time—a sentiment reminiscent of Shakespeare’s sonnets, where love defies mortality. The parallelism in "Answers for both and is of Time the master" gives the ending a proverbial quality, as if distilling eternal wisdom.

Philosophical and Comparative Readings

Blunt’s poem resonates with several philosophical traditions. The idea of love as a counterforce to fate recalls Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati (love of fate), though Blunt’s stance is more oppositional—rather than embracing fate, he urges defiance. The poem also aligns with Romantic individualism, particularly Byron’s defiance of cosmic order (a fitting connection, given Blunt’s marriage to Byron’s granddaughter).

Comparatively, Love is Best shares thematic ground with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways"), which similarly elevates love to a spiritual plane. However, Blunt’s tone is more martial, less introspective. Another apt comparison is Yeats’ When You Are Old, where love is framed as eternal despite time’s ravages—though Yeats’ treatment is melancholic, whereas Blunt’s is triumphant.

Emotional Impact and Contemporary Relevance

The poem’s emotional power lies in its unwavering conviction. In an age of doubt and existential anxiety (both in Blunt’s time and ours), the poem’s assertion that love is the ultimate answer carries a comforting, almost heroic resonance. Its imperatives ("Dare all things," "Knock loudly") invite the reader not just to admire love but to actively pursue it.

Today, Love is Best speaks to readers navigating uncertainty, offering love as both solace and rebellion. Its message—that love transcends time and fate—remains perennially compelling, whether read as romantic, spiritual, or existential doctrine.

Conclusion

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s Love is Best is a fervent manifesto on love’s supremacy, blending Romantic idealism with a defiant individualism. Through its urgent imperatives, vivid imagery, and philosophical assertions, the poem presents love not as passive sentiment but as an active, redemptive force. Situating the poem within Blunt’s biography and literary context enriches our understanding of its rebellious spirit, while its thematic depth ensures its continued relevance. Ultimately, Love is Best is more than a celebration of love—it is a call to arms, urging readers to defy fate, master time, and live boldly in love’s name.

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