The theme around these poems is how poets expressed their ideas of love as well as the type of language used to convey said love through poetry; it also indirectly highlights how society may perceive love based on how those poets' values may have aligned with/against society during their era. All the poems revolve around a discussion of love through the language they used to describe their feelings of love as well as the images they paint through said language (whether it be expressed through older iterations of the English language or through more modern forms of the language, hence the year differences among each poet selected).