Modern Love (poetry collection)


Modern Love by George Meredith is a collection of 50 16-line sonnets about the failure of his first marriage. He reflects his own disillusionment after his wife Mary Ellen, the daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, left him for the painter Henry Wallis.
The poems consist of four characters, a husband, wife, another man and another woman. His wife left him and eloped with another man and for that he never forgave her, but at the same time he talked about her tears in the very first line as he said "Wept With Waking Eyes".

Themes

Ostrom, Hans. "The Disappearance of Tragedy in Meredith's Modern Love. Victorian Newsletter 63 : 26-30.