Love is an existential question

Love is an existential question. It is a common theme in literature especially in poetry. This literary genre is a means to talk about emotions including love and all its aspects. Here, we are going to see the link which can be created between the writer and the reader thanks to poetry.

First, a link can appear because the poem offers an unconventionnal vision of love. We are surprised and curious. It captures our attention. We can find this aspect in the three poems. In Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy according to the title, the poem is supposed to deal with a conventionnal facet of love. Valentine's day is the lovers’ day full of hearts, flowers, gifts and kisses. But C A Duffy immediatly dismisses these clichés and stereotypes ( too materialistic and superficial) with the repetition of « not » lines 1 and15. She wants to be convincing towards us starting the sentence with a « not »

. This desire is emphasized by the repetition and the similarly constructed sentences. This is opposed to the lexical fields of traditionnal love : « red rose » line 1, « satin heart » line 1 , « moon » line 3 ; « light » line 4 , « love » line 5, « cute card », « kissogram » line 12 , « faithful » line 15, « wedding-ring » line 18.

Through the metaphor of the moon « it is a moon wrapped in brown paper » which is a symbol of love suggesting romance, Duffy steers us to an unconventionnal gift : an onion.

The fact that the gift is unconventionnal can leave us bewildered and so C A Duffy is insisting with two imperative verbes which help to communicate us strong feelings : « here » line 6 and « Take it »17. The lover should accept the gift. We can imagine a real person, arms open, speaking and offering an onion to her/his lover with this forceful and challenging tone.

We also find this unconventionnal form in the sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare. In this poem, he expresses his vision of love saying what love is not. It is an unusual definition ! The repetition of not illustrates this : « not » lines 1, 2, 9, 11 and « O no ! » line 5. With the personnification « Time’s fool », he explains that love cannot trick time. It isn’t altered by time contrary to beauty. According to him, time has no effect on love, it is immune, eternal and ever lasting. He also uses short, simple and strong words to explain a very complicated thing : love.

In Mad Girl’s Love Song, the unconventionnal part is the strong notion of suffering associated to love. We think of love as a relationship where someone cares about us, with tenderness and affection. The hard vision of Sylvia who talks about internal destruction is unusual, surprising and even shocking. It is a totally disillusionned vision. She doesn’t hope anything from love anymore. We are pushed to understand why she is thinking like this. This creates a link between us and her.

Indeed, as Sylvia tells us : love can hurt. It is our second point which can create a link between the author and the reader. The poet gives us a warning or a part of his/her life and it moves the reader.

In Valentine, we can gather words alluding to pain : « tears », « grief », « lethal », « knife ». Through these words, C A Duffy warns us about the danger of love. Here the link between us and her is strong. « Lethal » suggest that an intense relation may become dangerous. It alludes to violence and even death. This verbeless sentence has an agressive tone that threatens the reader. It conveys the intensity of the feelings which may force an ending.

On the other hand, the metaphor of the onion suggest that gradually you open yourself to the other and you feel deeper emotions. As you peel an onion you don’t know what is underneath. However, it represents a relationship which may cause pain « it will blind you with tears ». This similie shows that love is unpredictable, it can cause distress and when you discover your lover, you may come across some aspects of him/ her personnality that hurt you. We have to be careful. The link between us and the author is more protective. She let us know the dangers of love.

We saw this relation to pain in Mad Girl’s Love Song. Love can destroy somebody from the inside. Indeed, in Sylvia’s head everything is collapsing : « I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. » her pessimism towards

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