AQA Love and Relationships

Memory in Love and Relationships10 key quotes across the anthology.

How love is preserved, idealised and revisited through memory.

All Memory Quotes

“If I should meet thee after long years, how should I greet thee? With silence and tears”
When We Two Parted — Lord Byron
Loss and AbsenceMemory

Context: The final lines imagine a future reunion.

Analysis

The repetition of "silence and tears" from the opening creates a cyclical structure, implying the speaker is emotionally trapped in his grief. The hypothetical reunion offers no resolution — only the same sorrow. Byron suggests some heartbreak never heals.

Language Techniques:

Cyclical structureRepetitionHypothetical scenario

Exam Tip

A strong closing quote on unresolved grief. The return to the opening words shows the speaker cannot move on.

“Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove over tedious riddles of years ago”
Neutral Tones — Thomas Hardy
Loss and AbsenceMemory

Context: The speaker recalls his lover's indifferent gaze.

Analysis

The simile comparing her gaze to puzzling over "tedious riddles" conveys boredom and emotional disconnection. Love has become a wearisome problem rather than a passion. Hardy captures the deadening of feeling at a relationship's end.

Language Techniques:

SimileTone of weariness

Exam Tip

Use for emotional distance within a relationship. The lover's eyes show indifference, not love.

“the God-curst sun, and a tree, and a pond edged with grayish leaves”
Neutral Tones — Thomas Hardy
Loss and AbsenceMemory

Context: The final lines, recalling the scene that now symbolises love's betrayal.

Analysis

The bleak image returns at the end as a fixed memory that has come to define love's deception for the speaker. "God-curst" intensifies the earlier "chidden of God", showing deepened bitterness. The cyclical structure traps the speaker in this defining moment of disillusionment.

Language Techniques:

Cyclical structureBleak imageryColour symbolism

Exam Tip

Closing quote on how a single scene becomes a lasting symbol of heartbreak. Note the intensified diction by the end.

“the touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play your first game of football”
Walking Away — Cecil Day-Lewis
MemoryFamilial Love

Context: The father recalls the specific day, eighteen years ago.

Analysis

The precise, vivid memory of "new-ruled" touch-lines shows how clearly the father has preserved this formative moment. The football setting roots a profound emotion in an ordinary event. Day-Lewis presents parental love as bound up with watching a child step into independence.

Language Techniques:

Specific imageryNostalgic tone

Exam Tip

Use for how parents hold onto formative memories. The precise detail shows the lasting emotional impact.

“My father, twenty-five, in the same suit of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack still two years old and trembling at his feet”
Eden Rock — Charles Causley
MemoryFamilial Love

Context: The speaker pictures his parents frozen in youth.

Analysis

The precise, nostalgic details ("Genuine Irish Tweed", the dog "Jack") preserve his parents in idealised youth, untouched by time. The frozen image reflects how memory keeps loved ones alive. Causley's tender specificity conveys deep familial affection.

Language Techniques:

Specific detailNostalgic imageryPresent tense

Exam Tip

Use for idealised memory of parents. The vivid details show how love preserves people in the mind.

“His shoulders globed like a full sail strung between the shafts and the furrow”
Follower — Seamus Heaney
Familial LoveMemory

Context: The son admiringly describes his father ploughing.

Analysis

The simile "globed like a full sail" presents the father as powerful, skilful and almost heroic in the child's eyes. The nautical imagery makes ploughing seem like masterful navigation. Heaney conveys a son's deep admiration for his father's expertise.

Language Techniques:

SimileNautical imageryEnjambment

Exam Tip

Use for childhood admiration of a parent. Compare the idolised father with the later reversal at the poem's end.

“I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes”
Before You Were Mine — Carol Ann Duffy
Familial LoveMemory

Context: The speaker imagines her mother's glamorous youth before the speaker was born.

Analysis

The speaker pictures a carefree mother whose life did not yet involve her ("I'm not here yet"), capturing both admiration and a hint of guilt at "tying her down". The "thousand eyes" of the ballroom evoke glamour and attention. Duffy lovingly reconstructs her mother's lost freedom.

Language Techniques:

Imagery of glamourHyperboleNostalgic tone

Exam Tip

Use for a child's view of a parent's past. The playful, possessive title sets up the central tension.

“Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.”
Before You Were Mine — Carol Ann Duffy
MemoryFamilial Love

Context: The speaker imagines her mother as a glamorous young woman.

Analysis

The single-word sentence "Marilyn" compares the mother to Marilyn Monroe, idealising her youthful glamour and freedom. The vivid "polka-dot dress" makes the imagined memory cinematic and alive. Duffy celebrates her mother as a vibrant individual before motherhood.

Language Techniques:

AllusionMinor sentenceVisual imagery

Exam Tip

Use for the idealisation of a parent's youth. The Marilyn allusion captures glamour and lost freedom.

“I decide to do it free, without a rope or net”
Climbing My Grandfather — Andrew Waterhouse
Familial LoveMemory

Context: The opening introduces the extended metaphor of climbing the grandfather like a mountain.

Analysis

The climbing metaphor ("free, without a rope or net") suggests complete trust and intimacy between grandchild and grandfather. It also conveys the child's view of the grandfather as vast and impressive, like a mountain. Waterhouse establishes admiration and closeness from the first line.

Language Techniques:

Extended metaphorClimbing semantic fieldFirst person

Exam Tip

Use for intimacy and trust in family love. The whole poem is one extended metaphor — track the climbing imagery.

“to his thick hair (soft and white at this altitude), reaching for the summit”
Climbing My Grandfather — Andrew Waterhouse
Familial LoveMemory

Context: The climb reaches the grandfather's head.

Analysis

The grandfather's head as a "summit" at "altitude" conveys the child's sense of his grandfather's greatness and the achievement of reaching closeness. "Soft and white" hair gently signals the grandfather's age and tenderness. Waterhouse captures awe and affection.

Language Techniques:

Extended metaphorMountain imageryParenthesis

Exam Tip

Use for a child's awe of an elder. The "summit" shows the grandfather is admired as something vast and impressive.

Explore More Love and Relationships Themes

Browse quotes by theme across all 15 poems, or view the full anthology.

Romantic LoveFamilial LoveLoss and AbsenceDistance and SeparationPower and ControlLonging and DesireNature
All Love and Relationships QuotesPractice with English Genie