Joy and Pain in Denise Levertov's Poetry

The primary aim of this study is to show the presence of a peculiar mixture of joy and pain in Denise Levertov's poetry. It is asserted that these two, apparently opposite, experiences exist in most of her poems simultaneously and not by turns. The same image or the same scene of human life generates for her the duality of joy and pain, and she is finally able to resolve this paradox only by referring to the life of Jesus Christ, which is at once a source of relief and compunction for most Christians. To support this position, several poems written at the various periods of her poetic development are closely examined and the persistence of the duality of joy and pain is firmly established. In this process, a secondary or rather ancillary objective of this study—i.e., determining her status as a poet—is also achieved. Through comparative analysis of her development at different periods, it is suggested that Denise Levertov is a very important American poet of the late twentieth century, for she has maintained the traditional and the temporal realities of poetic thought.