love through the ages: history & time

point 1 - TGG: inescapable past n doomed romantic idealism

Gatsby’s love for Daisy is an attempt to rewrite history

point 1 quotation - TGG: Gatsby’s delusion

“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”

point 1 quotation - TGG: Gatsby seeking to erase Daisy’s past

“He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’”

point 1 quotation - TGG: closing line » futility of trying to reclaim the past

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

point 1 quotation - TGG: Gatsby’s dream is already lost, swallowed by time

“It was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”

point 1 AO3 - TGG: American Dream nostalgic illusion

The American Dream—like Gatsby’s love for Daisy—was often built on false nostalgia and the illusion that one could restore a past golden age

point 1 AO4 - TGG: compare to Who so list » love shaped by historical constraints rather than desires

• Both texts critique power and social status in love—Daisy is tied to Tom due to money and stability, just as Anne Boleyn is bound by political power

• However, while Gatsby remains idealistic, Wyatt’s speaker acknowledges defeat, reflecting a more cynical historical perspective on love

point 1 AO5 - TGG: psychoanalytic criticism: Freudian repetition compulsion

Psychoanalytic critics argue Gatsby’s obsession with the past reflects Freudian repetition compulsion, where he tries to relive his happiest moments

point 2 - who so list to hount, i knowe where is an hynde » love is a lost cause due to historical power structures

love is controlled by power and time, making it unattainable

point 2 quotation - WSL: speaker recognises futility in pursuing love

“I knowe where is an hynde, / But as for me, helas, I may no more.”p

point 2 quotation - WSL: Anne claimed by Henry = love shaped by power n history

“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, / And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”

point 2 quotation - WSL: love depicted as an unattainable pursuity

“Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, / Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.”

point 2 quotation - WSL: exhaustion of love pursuit, mirroring Gatsby’s decline

“The vayne travaill hath weried me so sore.”

point 2 AO3 - WSL: Anne Boleyn’s 1536 execution

Anne Boleyn’s execution (1536) symbolised the instability of romantic ambition in a world governed by absolute monarchy

point 2 AO4 - WSL: compare to TGG » dreaming speakers

Gatsby and Wyatt’s speaker are both dreamers, yet they ultimately fail because history does not allow love to overcome power structures

point 2 AO5 - WSL: Marxist criticism: secondary prioritisation of love

Marxist critics argue that both texts show love is secondary to wealth and status—Daisy and Anne’s fates are dictated by powerful men

point 3 - TGG: time as a corrupting force in love

love fades over time, despite romantic illusions

point 3 quotation - TGG: commodification of love

“Her voice is full of money.”

point 3 quotation - TGG: Gatsby’s inability to accept temporal shifts in love

What’s the matter, Daisy? Did I say something wrong?”

point 3 quotation - TGG: love depicted as transactional » corrupting influence of time

“It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.”

point 3 quotation - TGG: time erodes love’s idealism

“Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.”

point 3 AO4 - TGG: compare to Sonnet 116 » Love’s impenetrability

Shakespeare presents love, in comparison, as an emotion that is even left unaffected by something as profound in construct as time

point 3 AO5 - TGG: postmodernist criticism: love, the social construct

Postmodernist critics suggest Gatsby’s love is a social construct, influenced by time and wealth rather than genuine emotion

point 4 - Sonnet 116: love’s eternality

love is eternal n unchanging despite the passage of timepo

point 4 quotation - S116: love remains untouched by time’s power

“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle’s compass come.”

point 4 quotation - S116: love’s stability n permanence

“It is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”po

point 4 quotation - S116: real love is eternal

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

point 4 quotation - S116: bold trust in love’s endurance

“If this be error and upon me proved, / I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

point 4 AO3 - S116: Renaissance romanticisation of love

• The Renaissance era often romanticised ideal, spiritual love, influenced by Petrarchan ideals and Christian theology, which emphasised love’s eternal nature

• The Elizabethan concept of time was intertwined with the idea of mortality, yet Shakespeare rebels against this by claiming love outlasts even death

point 4 AO4 - S116: compare to TGG: love’s distortion by time

• While Sonnet 116 insists love is unchanging, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is distorted by time—he believes he can recreate the past, but love in The Great Gatsby is ultimately corruptible and fragile

• The green light serves as Gatsby’s version of an "ever-fixed mark," but unlike Shakespeare’s unchanging love, Gatsby’s is an illusion, built on nostalgia rather than truth

point 4 AO5 - S116: psychoanalytic criticism: Shakespeare’s unattainable notions

Psychoanalytic critics could interpret the poem as a form of denial, suggesting Shakespeare projects an unattainable ideal to counteract the reality of love’s impermanence