A Red, Red Rose

The first-person speaker (who, given the poem’s historical context, readers can assume is male) opens the poem by comparing his love to various objects. At first, the speaker uses a simile to compare his “Luve” to “a red, red rose” (Line 1). Roses, especially red roses, have been long associated with love. Various Greek myths featuring gods and goddesses such as Eros and Aphrodite associate the flower with devotion and love. The red rose was also the symbol for the House of Lancaster, the Tudors. Since the War of the Roses, the civil war between the House of Lancaster and the House of York, “the term ‘English rose’ [is] commonly used to describe a naturally pretty brunette with porcelain-like fair skin, flushed cheeks and pink lips” (“How the Red Rose Became the Ultimate Symbol of Love.” Appleyard London, 2022). Shakespeare also often used the rose as a symbol or means of description in his writing. In Burns’s poem, the rose also symbolizes youth. The speaker specifically compares his love to a red rose “newly sprung in June” (Line 2). He associates these feelings of love with new life and novelty.