An Aborted Love:

Literary Interpretation of Love poems (on the poetry collection of Mengistu Lemma)

Abstract

This study was conducted on the poetry collection in our country where love poems were published and presented "for the first time". The poems were written by the renowned literary figure Mengistu Lemma, and the collection, titled ("The Assembly of Poems"), was first published in 1950 E.C. The main objective of this study is to conduct a poetic analysis and interpretation to examine whether a coherent love story is narrated within the collection. To achieve this objective, the study followed a research methodological design called "interpretative". By employing this design, it examined the poems included in the collection through poetic criticism. Accordingly, the study found that out of the 26 poems included in the collection, a portion, specifically 12, are love poems. Among these 12, a strong interconnectedness and relationship were found in 9 love poems. Among the 9 interconnected poems, a coherent love story was found to be narrated in 6 of them. The study has shown that this love story, which begins with praise, progresses through anticipation, and concludes with farewell, can be divided into 3 chapters. It is also estimated that the love story presented in the poems spans from childhood to adulthood. The study confirms that although this long-lasting love story is narrated in the poems, it is an unsuccessful love that was aborted at its nascent stage, left incomplete, and did not succeed.