Duffy Presentation of Love and Romance in ' Valentine '

Since the beginning of human existence love has earned a meaning of pure bliss and wild passion between two people that cannot be broken. Through out time the meaning of love has had its slight shifts but for the most part, maintains a positive value. In the poem “Love Should Grow Up Like a Wild Iris in the Fields,” the author, Susan Griffin expresses that this long lost concept of love is often concealed by the madness of everyday life and reality. In the poem, Griffin uses many literary elements to help convey the importance of true love. The usage of imagery, symbolism, and other literary techniques really help communicate Griffins’ meaning

Throughout “Love Should Grow up Like an Wild Iris in the Fields” Susan Griffin provokes the readers to think twice about why they consistently enslave themselves with the burden of daily monotony, instead of enjoying the simplicity of love. Griffin uses two metaphors in her poem when describing love, as a flower, as well as the iris of an eye. Her comparisons are both interesting as well as accurate.

How do the Poets James Fenton and Carol Ann Duffy Present the Pain of Love in their Poems ‘In Paris with You’ and ‘Quickdraw’?

“Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims is an excellent of example of an author using many types of literary terms to emphasize his theme of a love that is imperfect yet filled with acceptance. In, this poem Nims uses assonance, metaphor, and imagery to support his theme of “Imperfect, yet realistic love”.

Eventually, after their companionship has developed for some time, Mr. Duffy abruptly decides to sever the connection completely. Though the true motive for this choice is unclear, the decision is definitely rooted in the dominant status in the relationship

The poem “Chevrefoil (The Honeysuckle)” by Marie De France gladly spoke about lovers whose love was “so true, so pure” that it caused them to suffer and die on the same day (De France 167). This lay explores the themes of inseparable love, while keeping true to the underlying meaning of the hazel tree and the honeysuckle, while the speaker of the poem carries a jovial yet melancholy tone throughout the lay.

At this point in the poem, the speaker takes a moment to explain that, beauty and the ability to enjoy life to the fullest fades with time, and that the two of them should show off or 'sport'; their love and beauty before time passes by and they loose there chance.

At first glance the reader can become easily overwhelmed with the amount of vivid descriptions used by Matthews in his poem. In the first stanza alone, the reader can imagine a big glob of butter hitting a sauté pan and being swirled around to create a nice, even coating of grease. This image is brought on by merely reading the first six lines once. Upon closer inspection of the poem though, a new connection materialized to this reader. This connection is between the images of cooking with an onion and about life, specifically happiness and its inescapable presence in life. Within the first line Matthews wrote, “How easily happiness begins by dicing onions” (Matthews). This connection continues throughout the entire poem.

Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.

In the first stanza Duffy uses the technique of asyndetic listing of all the potential suitors that the monarch could have married like the "lord, the baronet, the count", instead she has accepted "Time for a husband". Duffy personifies "Time" as she gives it a capital letter resembling a name, it also embodies how the queen left it too late to marry, instead married her people and gave up seeking to find a husband. Another interpretation could be the historical context of the poem which could be an allusion to Queen Elizabeth the 1st This is evident in the name of the poem "the long queen" as queen Elizabeth is notorious for possessing a "Long" reign. She was perceived to be the 'virgin queen ' and was to have not married because of infertility. This suffering is a central aspect of some female lives and could be empathised by Duffy to make it universal. In 'the map women ' relationships inevitably fail because of her "map" signifying her past. when the women do have a relationship the lover 's maps "flapped in the breeze" which could portray that she is hard to read. The structure of the sentence also end stop, suggesting that companionship for the women is difficult due to her past. Duffy also describes the lovers as

In addition to the silly depiction of Carol and Howard as people who so dread public humiliation as singles that they gladly agree to attach themselves to the first appropriate suitor, Gallant also employs an ironic tone and various figurative terms of language to comment on the laughable yet somewhat pathetic circumstance in which the couple find themselves. Many distinctions are made between the ?illusion? of love as a wonderful thing complete with ?violets,? a ?misty background,? and the romantic ?moonlight,? and the actuality of a practical marriage. Though not every proposal can be so romantic, Gallant deliberately emphasizes the underwhelming quality

Love is undoubtedly one of the most frequently explored subjects in the literary world. Whether the focus is a confession of love, criticism of love, tale of love, or simply a tale about what love is, such literary pieces force readers to question the true meaning and value of love. Raymond Carver accomplishes this in his short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” As the unadorned setting and the personality of each character unfold, the reader realizes that Carver is making a grave comment on the existence of love. Carver utilizes strong contrast, imagery, and diction to ultimately suggest that love cannot be defined concretely and therefore cannot be defined in words, and because of this, it is better off unexplored.

We are reminded of the egotistical nature of the persona that Duffy has created when the phrase, ‘I am a genius’ is repeated. This contradicts what was said about how the character didn’t understand Shakespeare and we see how the character is self-loving and very confident about their intelligence. Throughout the poem we see how the character has been cast out from society. This is shown in the phrase ‘I could be anything at all, with half the chance’, this shows how the character feels they have been let down by the rest of society and they haven’t been given the opportunity to show that they could be a big part of society. This also links into the idea that this character has some sort of hatred towards the education system. In the last stanza it says, ‘he cuts me off’. Although this refers to a telephone call, this is a metaphor for how everyone ‘cuts the character off’. This line comes straight after the phrase ‘he’s talking to a superstar’ which again shows the egotistical nature of this character. We see that the character may have a psychopathic nature in the final phrase, ‘I touch your arm’, this makes the poem very personal as if it could affect you. This sends out a message to the reader that we as a society need to make

The two metaphors in each poem have meanings that are very similar. The onion represents her heart and the suitor represents happiness. Although they are different they both rely on each other in the poems. Without finding the onion’s heart, the man is broken and is unable to find happiness, and the happiness that is given by the suitor comes from him from love inside her heart. A representation of this can be found in “The monologue of an onion” when it is said “you are the one in pieces” this man is so distraught at not finding her heart, his heart is breaking into pieces as well. In the suitor it is stated that she is finally happy, and it slowly came as suitors went into her life bringing her love.

Society’s perception of love changes constantly. As a result, poems of different time periods have different perceptions of love and beauty. Ben Jonson’s “A Vision of Beauty” and Samuel Daniel’s “But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again” reflect the importance of physical beauty in love during the Renaissance Era. In the Victorian Period, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt’s “I See You Juliet” and Robert Browning’s “A Face” continue to reflect society’s fascination with female beauty in both a positive and negative way. In the Modern Period, a shift occurs in both marriage and love with a greater emphasis on true love and inner beauty. William Butler Yeats’ “When You Are Old” and Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Only Until This Cigarette Is Ended” show