Compare Attitudes Shown Towards Love and Relationships in Sonnet 116 and Valentine

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The two poems Valentine and Sonnet 116 were written in two extremely different ways, four hundred years apart from each other. This means that the way in which they are written and the words that are used contrast greatly, but the same language devices and points are put across. The poem Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy is an unusual love poem that 'explodes' romantic clichés and replaces them with an onion. The poem Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare is a typical Shakespearean sonnet that explains all about the 'conditions' of true love and marriage. The language devices used in Valentine and Sonnet 116 are very similar and used to portray their attitudes towards love and relationships. Valentine uses the repetition of ‘I give you and onion’ to emphasise Duffy’s view of love being deep and not superficial, and the forceful manner with which this is being said emphasises the simplicity of love in Duffy’s view. Likewise, Sonnet 116 shows that Shakespeare believes that love is permanent; using the repetition of the words ‘alters’ and removes’ to emphasise that love is unchanging. Valentine also uses personification of ‘fierce kiss’ conveying that she wants love that although will be painful at times, will last a long time. Similarly, in Sonnet 116, ‘Love is not Time’s fool’ shows that love lasts a long time, the personification of ‘Love’ and ‘Time’ emphasis that love is greater than and cannot be affected by time. Throughout the poem Valentine, Duffy uses an onion as an extended metaphor for true love. "I give you an onion" Duffy cleverly uses the onion in various different ways to explain her views about love. In Sonnet 116 the metaphor ‘that looks on tempests and is never shaken’ shows that Shakespeare believes that true love cannot be destroyed by an argument or when going through hard times. Valentine has a negative view throughout it, ‘It will blind you with

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