Point of View

There are two unique features of Lovelace’s use of point-of-view in this poem. One regards perspective, and the other tense.

The poem’s perspective is notable because it remains in first-person throughout. The reason this is surprising is because the poem is titled “To Althea,” suggesting that it should be seen as a direct address to the woman the speaker loves. One might expect to find at least some interpolation of the second-person forms of address (“you” or “thou”), as is common in love poetry. The absence of these shifts in perspective underlines a key facet of the poem: the fact that Althea is not particularly significant to the poem’s meaning. Her relationship with the speaker seems to serve only as a device for creating the poem. She is barely characterized, and not spoken to directly at all.

The other notable shift in...