Poetry Essay Valentine
Valentine: Poetry Essay
The poem “Valentine” written by the present poet laureate in UK, Carol Ann Duffy, subverts the idealized and universal idea of love and projects the dual nature of its essence. She rejects the gifts conventionally associated with Valentine’s Day, such as ‘red-rose’, ‘satin cloth’, ‘cute card’, ‘kissogram’ and brings a Copernican revolution with the option of “Onion” as a gift which acts as an extended metaphor throughout the poem. Insofar as the techniques are concerned, the poetess employs imagery, symbolism, word choice and structure so as to entrench in the mind of the reader that “Valentine” is an unusual love-poem. The poem commences with a negative note “not a red rose” to slash the traditional offering of rose or satin cloth on Valentine’s Day. It is not just a sardonic expression but a deeper statement about love. This is indeed to portray the idea that love is not to be taken as a bed of roses always, but to accept the thorns we find underneath the roses. Love has joyful and sorrowful nature. Although the alliteration ‘red rose’ elicits the conventional symbolism, nevertheless, the negation by the use of ‘not’ dilutes the usual notion. The first line is structured to stick out from the following lines and applied as stand-alone sentence in order to be more emphatic in its expression. Carol gives the image of onion to love which is vividly seen in the second line “I give you an onion”. She metaphorically describes onion as a moon that is wrapped up in a brown paper. The poetess uses again another metaphor in the same line by comparing skin of an onion to a brown paper. Moonlight is often associated with romantic evenings. Onion, described as moon, casts light on the characters of lovers, to discover the true nature of each other as they begin to relate with one another. The different layers of the onion are like the layers of someone’s personality. Beauty is just skin deep, but discovery of
The poem “Valentine” written by the present poet laureate in UK, Carol Ann Duffy, subverts the idealized and universal idea of love and projects the dual nature of its essence. She rejects the gifts conventionally associated with Valentine’s Day, such as ‘red-rose’, ‘satin cloth’, ‘cute card’, ‘kissogram’ and brings a Copernican revolution with the option of “Onion” as a gift which acts as an extended metaphor throughout the poem. Insofar as the techniques are concerned, the poetess employs imagery, symbolism, word choice and structure so as to entrench in the mind of the reader that “Valentine” is an unusual love-poem. The poem commences with a negative note “not a red rose” to slash the traditional offering of rose or satin cloth on Valentine’s Day. It is not just a sardonic expression but a deeper statement about love. This is indeed to portray the idea that love is not to be taken as a bed of roses always, but to accept the thorns we find underneath the roses. Love has joyful and sorrowful nature. Although the alliteration ‘red rose’ elicits the conventional symbolism, nevertheless, the negation by the use of ‘not’ dilutes the usual notion. The first line is structured to stick out from the following lines and applied as stand-alone sentence in order to be more emphatic in its expression. Carol gives the image of onion to love which is vividly seen in the second line “I give you an onion”. She metaphorically describes onion as a moon that is wrapped up in a brown paper. The poetess uses again another metaphor in the same line by comparing skin of an onion to a brown paper. Moonlight is often associated with romantic evenings. Onion, described as moon, casts light on the characters of lovers, to discover the true nature of each other as they begin to relate with one another. The different layers of the onion are like the layers of someone’s personality. Beauty is just skin deep, but discovery of