Compare Carol Ann Duffys Valentine to Andrew Marvells To His Coy Essa

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... ...ere 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.