Since no two relationships are alike, love can be expressed through different ways and can still be able to get across to a person’s significant other. The different views of expressing one’s love can be seen in the poem “Valentine,” by Carol Ann Duff, as one lover gives their lover an unusual gift for Valentine's Day. The other way it is shown, is in Julie Sheehan’s poem, “Hate Poem,” which displays one’s love for the other person, using a negative meaning to show how much they truly love the other person. The contrasting views of love in both “Valentine” and “Hate Poem,” are shown through the different perspectives, languages, and themes.
In Duffy’s poem “Valentine,” she challenges the well established representations of romantic love and
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traditional valentine’s gifts. The speaker throughout the whole poem is a woman and this is because of the fact that the writer of the poem is also an woman. The speaker gives “not a red rose or a satin heart” (Duff 1) and also ‘not a cute card or a kissogram,”(12) as a gift to her lover on valentine's day, but instead the speaker gives her lover an ‘onion,’ which is described as being “wrapped in brown paper” (3) and it “promises light.” This shows that the onion is a more worthy representation of love, because it has hidden beauty beneath its wrapping. Once it is unwrapped, it brings light and therefore joy and love. The repetition of ‘not’ is a clear rejection of these cliché gifts. This is proven when the narrator uses the alliteration of ‘cute card’ to sound very harsh, as if she is mocking the people who do give such gifts to loved ones. This also shows that the speaker does not view the ‘rose’ or ‘satin heart’, to be very romantic objects, or to be worthy of symbols of love. The speaker has a very skeptical view on love, saying it will only be successful “for as long as we are” (17) devoted, which proposes that they will not be affectionate to each other forever and so, their love will not last forever.
To the speaker, this is why the onion’s rings have to “shrink”(19) to become a wedding ring. The “shrink” (19) can imply a feeling of being closed in on or captured. This shows that the speaker may feel that marriage can be suffocating and even “lethal,”(21) suggesting that she believes marriage can kill love. Also, this is why she says the onion’s scent “clings to your knife,” (23) because just as a person must cut open an onion to get its scent, they must also cut open and break apart love to bring about heartbreak. This shows that the speaker is suggesting that marriage is the thing that can break apart love.
When looking at the structure and form of “Valentine,” it is very different with its single lined verses. This can be Duffy’s way of protesting at the stereotypical style of love poems, which are usually very regular and often known to use rhyme. While Duffy’ uses very little. The whole point to her poem was to break away from the customary ways to express one’s love to another while showing that love is not always simple nor is it always
pleasant. Now, in Sheehan’s “Hate Poem,” it is told from the perspective of a woman who is trying to comprehend her feelings towards her significant other by listing different examples of how much she hate the other person. Though the poem begins with “I hate you truley. Truley I do,” (Sheehan 1) it is very similar to the poems that begin with ‘Roses are Red, Violets are Blue.’This is ironic, because even though it opens up with the word hate, it shows the reader there is a different meaning throughout the poem. Through the different examples the speaker presents hate for the other person, she does not succeed in getting her dark emotions across. For instance, when the speaker states “The flick of my wrist hates you. / The way I hold my pencil hates you...” proves that she is thinking about the hated individual during times when they have nothing to do with situations that would concern them, suggesting that are a loved one rather than someone hated. Another example of this is when the woman states Although the poems have to do with different situations, love can be represented by an onion, like the one that was made into a gift in “Valentine.” Onions contain layers and like relationships, a person must take the time to peel them off. The woman in “Hate Poem,” must peel back her emotions one layer at a time, so that it will help impact her true emotions for the person who she is hating. The two poems both shows the different ways a person can demonstrate tenderness for another. Both narrators convey their love for their significant other by either using odd gifts as true representations of their love or replacing the meaning of a negative word with that of a positive meaning. Love can represented by an onion,
In all poems the theme of Disappointment in love is seen throughout. Duffy focuses on the pain, despair and acrimony that love can bring, whereas Larkin focuses on the dissatisfaction before, during, and after a romantic relationship. Both Duffy and Larkin differ in tone. Duffy takes a more aggressive and dark stance to portray what love can do to a person after a disappointing love life. Duffy also uses this sinister and aggressive stance to try and convey sympathy for the persona from the audience in ‘Never Go Back’ and ‘Havisham’ Whereas Larkin conveys his discontent in love through his nonchalant and dismissive tone, but still concealing the pain that has been brought by love in ‘Wild Oats’ and ‘Talking in bed’.
In "Valentine" Carol Ann Duffy starts off the poem by describing the state of the relationship and uses the words like the careful undressing of love to create a simile of sexual nature. As the poem progresses, we find out that Carol Ann Duffy is, in fact, ending the story. relationship with the person concerned. She uses phrases like possessive and lethal, which certainly does not conform to most. Valentine poems for today.
The title of the poem “Love is Not All” asserts the impression that suggests the unimportant of love to its reader at first. However, the ending of the poem reveals the ironic truth that love is worthwhile. Millay’s intention is not to confuse readers by using a title that forcefully disrespects love. However, she projects the title of the poem to ascertain the grounds for her argument that love is important. The first six lines of the poem highlight the incompetence of love when compares with the basic supplies for life.
The Definitive Guide to Love Poems. Web. The Web. The Web. 8 Apr. 2011. The. "Contemporary Literature, Books on Literature."
Love and affection is an indispensable part of human life. In different culture love may appear differently. In the poem “My god my lotus” lovers responded to each other differently than in the poem “Fishhawk”. Likewise, the presentation of female sexuality, gender disparity and presentation of love were shown inversely in these two poems. Some may argue that love in the past was not as same as love in present. However, we can still find some lovers who are staying with their partners just to maintain the relationship. We may also find some lovers having relationship only because of self-interest. However, a love relationship should always be out of self-interest and must be based on mutual interest. A love usually obtains its perfectness when it develops from both partners equally and with same affection.
Both poets want to be loved in the poems in their own way. While both poem’s present a theme of love, it is obvious that the poet’s view on love changes from how they view love at the beginning of the poem from how they see it at the end.
The Lais of Marie de France is a compilation of short stories that delineate situations where love is just. Love is presented as a complex emotion and is portrayed as positive, while at other times, it is portrayed as negative. The author varies on whether or not love is favorable as is expressed by the outcomes of the characters in the story, such as lovers dying or being banished from the city. To demonstrate, the author weaves stories that exhibit binaries of love. Two distinct types of love are described: selfish and selfless. Love is selfish when a person leaves their current partner for another due to covetous reasons. Contrarily, selfless love occurs when a lover leaves to be in a superior relationship. The stark contrast between the types of love can be analyzed to derive a universal truth about love.
The Symposium, The Aeneid, and Confessions help demonstrate how the nature of love can be found in several places, whether it is in the mind, the body or the soul. These texts also provide with eye-opening views of love as they adjust our understanding of what love really is. By giving us reformed spectrum of love, one is able to engage in introspective thinking and determine if the things we love are truly worthy of our sentiment.
Love has the power to do anything. Love can heal and love can hurt. Love is something that is indescribable and difficult to understand. Love is a feeling that cannot be accurately expressed by a word. In the poem “The Rain” by Robert Creeley, the experience of love is painted and explored through a metaphor. The speaker in the poem compares love to rain and he explains how he wants love to be like rain. Love is a beautiful concept and through the abstract comparison to rain a person is assisted in developing a concrete understanding of what love is. True beauty is illuminated by true love and vice versa. In other words, the beauty of love and all that it entails is something true.
Love is a concept that has puzzled humanity for centuries. This attachment of one human being to another, not seen as intensely in other organisms, is something people just cannot wrap their heads around easily. So, in an effort to understand, people write their thoughts down. Stories of love, theories of love, memories of love; they all help us come closer to better knowing this emotional bond. One writer in particular, Sei Shōnagon, explains two types of lovers in her essay "A Lover’s Departure": the good and the bad.
Authors use poetry to creatively present attitudes and opinions. “A Man’s Requirements,” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment” are two poems with distinct attitudes about love that contain different literary approaches. In both of the poems, love is addressed from a different perspective, producing the difference in expectation and presentation, but both suggest the women are subservient in the relationships.
Morrie Schwartz talks a lot about love in “Tuesday’s With Morrie” and I chose this theme as a topic because it’s close to my heart. I can relate to Morrie’s beliefs and thoughts on love and romance. Love is for everyone and everyone deserves to love and be loved in life because humans need something to live for. When a person has love, they feel like they actually have a purpose in life and humans would be lonely without love in their life. “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act’” (Albom, 1997, 52). The Tuesday Mitch and Morrie talk about the world is when Morrie talks about loving and letting love in
On the other side, “Love Poem” is very different from the previous poem. This seven stanza poem is based on a man describing the imperfections of his lover. In this, the speaker uses stylistic devices, such as alliteration and personification to impact more on reader, for example as the speaker shows “your lipstick ginning on our coat,”(17) ...
The types of love in a poem can be reflected in many ways. One of
Love has been expressed since the beginning of time; since Adam and Eve. Each culture expresses its love in its own special way. Though out history, though, it’s aspect has always been the same. Love has been a major characteristic of literature also. One of the most famous works in literary history is, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. This story deals with the love of a man and a woman who’s families have been sworn enemies. There love surpassed the hatred in which the families endured for generations. In the end they both ended up killing their selves, for one could not live without the other. This story is a perfect example of true love.