Valentine And Love's Dog Analysis

Compare the ways in which Valentine and Love’s Dog explore the theme of love

The author of Valentine, Carol Ann Duffy, utilises the idea of fragility and delicacy in order to express the multiple connotations and symbols of love. Valentine continuously makes use of references to love to display the gentleness and tenderness within romantic motif’s/conventions. Carol Ann Duffy refers to the figurative onion being peeled “like the careful undressing of love”, emphasising the compassionate and affectionate nature of love portrayed by the physical/sexual intimacy in “undressing”. This elucidates the physical and emotional exposure that is an attribute of love. Furthermore this primary showing of emotion in Valentine personifies the emotions of …show more content…
Although in Valentine Carol Ann Duffy comments on common romantic gestures within love, whereas in Love’s Dog applies various strange, unconventional objects/concepts in order to represent the sensitive characteristics of love. In Love’s Dog, Jen Hadfield reveals, “What I love about is its bird-bones…”, consequently this demonstrates the nurturing and respectful traits that love can retain as “bird-bones” are generally connected to treatment consisting of care and love therefore resulting in a beautiful appearance or presence. Similarly, “bird-bones” is plosive alliteration emphasising fragility and the compatibility of a pair. In contrast the use of “bird-bones” may also render a feeling of death and exposure for all to see. In addition “bird-bones” doesn’t sound very attractive therefore giving love deceptiveness and fraudulence. Both poets use the delicateness and considerate nature of love meritoriously throughout their poems. Though in Love’s Dog the thoughts are conflicting delicacy and brittleness, in Valentine all the comments on fragility are unrequited towards the pure and deep …show more content…
In Love’s Dog enjambment is used in particular to create a fluid, continuous course, referring to how love is also uncontrollable and how the boundaries between love and hate are blurred. Hadfield writes, “What I love about love is its petting zoo/ What I love about love is its zookeeper-you”, this does not contain antithesis therefore displaying love as the overwhelming emotion. The “zookeeper” adds a controlling nature to love, entrapment but also a caring and protective characteristic. The most prominent structural feature is the fact that it is written in couplets to show constant comparisons and contradictions as well as relations. A unique device that is repeatedly utilised is anaphoric phrases, they illustrate the connection between the actions but the obscure differences within the emotions as they may slightly differ from line to