Eduqas GCSE Poetry Anthology - Valentine (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between Sonnet 43 and Valentine? ›

Differences ● They are set and written in very different times and contexts - whereas Sonnet 43 is written during the Victorian period, Valentine is a modern poem. Sonnet 43 has a much more narrow focus solely on love, whereas Valentine also incorporates the themes of passion, danger and potential pain.

Summary of 'Valentine' by Carol Ann Duffy

The poem presents love as a complex emotion that can consume a person. In the poem, the narrator takes an unconventional approach when giving a gift on Valentine's day, as, instead of 'a red rose or a satin heart', they gift their partner 'an onion'.

In Valentine, Duffy ends on a warning note that love can be 'Lethal' and so life-threatening, forcing the reader to confront the notion that a real love based on honesty and truthfulness can be painful and destructive as well as fulfilling and enriching.

The poem challenges the stereotypical view of a Valentine's gift when the speaker presents their lover with the metaphorical onion as a moon wrapped in brown paper. This is reminiscent of metaphysical poets such as John Donne, who approached ordinary objects in original and surprising ways.

The second to last and most famous sonnet of the collection, Sonnet 43 is the most passionate and emotional, expressing her intense love for Robert Browning repeatedly. Elizabeth says in the second to third lines that she loves Browning with every aspect of her soul.

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy and Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning are two poems in the WJEC GCSE poetry anthology. They're incredibly different, but both speak about the author's intense love for their partners – and there are some fantastic points about both language and structure you can discuss for each.

Extended Metaphor: The extended metaphor of the onion is used to represent love. The speaker sees the onion as a honest symbol- it symbolises joy and intimacy of love, but also the pain it brings. It is an unusual metaphor, which contrasts with the more stereotypical romantic symbols of love, like roses and cards.

Duffy explores the positive feelings associated love throughout her poem and contrasts them with reminders of the downsides too. Her description of an onion as a “moon” that “promises light” shows her to be optimistic of what the relationship could become, the verb 'promise' suggesting faithfullness and unity.

Extended Metaphor – 'It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief' – referring to the person's reflection when one's eyes are full of tears. Idea that love can distress – be destructive.

The South Land referred to here is South Africa, and the woman's husband has been killed there, while fighting in the Boer War. He worked for a while in London, as an architect. Thomas Hardy spent much of his life in Dorset. A Wife in London was written in 1899, and the Boer War was from 1899 – 1902.

What type of poem is Valentine? ›

The poem is written in free verse using irregular stanzas to support its content and purpose, which is to reject traditional restrictive conventions such as marriage and other notions of love and to warn lovers that being overly possessive can have undesirable consequences.

She finds it useless to gift her beloved “a red rose” or “a satin heart”. Rather, she prefers her day-to-day companion while cooking, an onion as a gift. This feminist text also has the theme of individualism. Here, the poet puts aside all such conventional gifts of love.

The simile like the careful undressing of love can be interpreted both as a reference to the sexual aspect of their relationship, and also the growth of their emotional bond which the peeling away of clothes and layers of personality may bring.

On the fourth line however, she uses simile to suggest that the light it promises is 'like' the ''careful undressing of love. '' She also uses personification in fourteenth line, describing the ''fierce kiss. '' This personification gives the onion the actions of a person.

The speaker of the poem offers her lover an onion as a Valentine gift. This is clearly not a conventional gift like satin hearts or roses; nevertheless she gives an onion because it represents her love in many different ways.

The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the overarching theme of this poem. The poet begins with an opening question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and spends the rest of the poem answering that question. The poem is straightforward in language and intent.

Shakespeare proceeds to set their first encounter in the form and content of a sonnet (1.5. 93-106) with two remarkable exceptions: the sonnet lady has a speaking voice, and, far from being the aloof and unattainable Petrarchan spirit, she reciprocates Romeo's passion with her own.

Sonnet 18. One of Shakespeare's best known and most loved sonnets, this reading explains that the stability of love will immortalise a partner's beauty and youth. 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? And summer's lease hath all too short a date.