As we have seen, the ode, elegy, and ballad have distinct formal and stylistic features; moreover, they are associated with specific literary-historical movements. The love poem, in contrast, can be found in almost every age and with great stylistic variety. What are the prime markers of this genre? The most obvious is its theme: love. But it is a peculiarity of the truly powerful, affirmative human gestures – laughter, pleasure, love – that they can be diminished by introspection and analysis. Relatively few love poems celebrate a love that actually exists. Instead, poets tend either to anticipate it or to look nostalgically (sometimes painfully) back to it. Love poems are dynamic, marked by sudden shifts in emotion and perspective. They prefer the past or future to the present tense. This is poetry that thrives on absence, on temporal and spatial displacement.

The cast of characters in love poetry rarely varies. These poems concern the poet and his/her beloved, with the former addressing the latter. Accordingly, the standard configuration of pronouns is that of “I” and “you”.