Compare Carol Ann Duffy's Valentine to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy

Compare Carol Ann Duffy's Valentine to Andrew Marvell's To His Coy

Mistress

In this assignment I will be comparing two love poems Carol Ann

Duffy's 'Valentine' to Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'. The

poem 'Valentine' was written is the twentieth century and in it the

speaker uses onion as a metaphor to show her love. The poem 'To His

Coy Mistress' was written in the seventeenth century and is about the

poet trying to persuade his Mistress to sleep with him.

'Valentine' by Carol Ann Duffy is very different to any other love

poem as you would expect to read something romantic, instead she

writes about an onion.

The poem is divided into four main stanzas and each stanza tells us

something new about the relationship and in between there is one or

two words in sentence which helps you think about want she is trying

to say. The poem starts off with a positive statement 'Not a red rose,

or a satin heart'. She states that she will not give her lover a

normal valentine present. The poet has chosen to give her lover an

onion. She uses the onion as a metaphor for her love. The poet says 'I

give you an onion, it is moon wrapped in brown paper,' with this she

creates mystery and makes her lover think the reason for this weird

present. 'It promises light, like the careful undressing of love.'

Here she is telling her lover that their relationship can still

survive and she refers to sex as she talks about the undressing of

love.

The second stanza starts with the use of the word 'Here' makes the

reader feel that the poet is in control and that she is actually

giving something. She continues with the extended metaphor 'it will

blind you with tears',' like a lover, not only will the onion make

your eyes w...

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are many points we can see this from, but the main one is what the

poem does not rhyme which means that it was not thought about when

being written,

'To His Coy Mistress' is written to persuade so it is only about one

topic 'sex' and there are many religious comparisons to make this look

right. This is also done by the poem being divided into three main

parts 'if', 'but' and 'so'. The first part of the poem is 'if', the

speaker talks about if only he had all the time in the world. This

helps him to define his reason to why he is trying to sleep with her

quickly as possible. The second part of the poem is about 'but', the

speaker talks about the reasons he wants to sleep with her and about

how time is running out. In the third part of the poem the speaker

goes on to 'so', and dedicates the last part of the poem to tell her

that they should have sex.