Comparison between Archilochus and Adele

Excerpt from Adele’s “Someone Like You”

“I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited.
But I couldn't stay away; I couldn't fight it.
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded
that for me it isn't over.”

Excerpt from Archilochus

35. (Fr. 191) 

“For such was the passion of love that coiled itself beneath my heart and poured thick mist across my eyes, robbing me of my tender senses.”

            The excerpt from Adele’s song called “Someone Like You” shows a devastated situation of a broken-hearted woman. When the author says “out of the blue uninvited” and repeats the phrase “couldn’t”, she describes the inevitable sadness caused by the separation with her lover. In addition, Adele writes, “I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded that for me it isn’t over” to emphasize that she is not able to move on because her heart still stays with him.

The excerpt from Archilochus (Fr.191) describes a sorrowful state of a betrayed man. He writes, “For such was the passion of love that coiled itself beneath my heart” to express his genuine feelings towards his lover that had settled in his mind. Then, Archilochus was able to underline his sadness through mentioning his tears by saying he “poured thick mist across my eyes, robbing me of my tender sense.”

Even though Archilochus and Adele lived in such different time periods, some similarities and differences could be found between these two artists in terms of lyric poetry. Like the majority of modern day lyrics, Adele uses rhyming pattern for the first two lines of the excerpt. However, Archilochus uses a type of iambic style called “epodic” verse, which uses various lengths of iambic and dactylic meter. Although the structure and the poetry writing tactics might vary from each other, the general messages that these excerpts try to deliver are almost identical. Both Archilochus and Adele are heartbroken from the people that they once called lovers. Adele’s “uninvited blue”, which she could not help to “stay away” or “fight” can be compared to Archilochus’ inability to control his sorrow that his tear drops would fall across his eyes. Also, Adele wishing her love to be “reminded that for me it isn’t over” can be addressed to Archilochus’ “passion of love that coiled itself beneath his heart” because the emotions of these two poets still remain that the broken hearts still prolong.