In the opening of Sonnet 18, Shakespeare states, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The thought of the comparison with “Summer” is very efficacious as summer has connotations of the season of high youth and represents an uplifting perspective of beauty. The way that the first line is a question shows that he is trying to think about the most beautiful thing to “compare” his loved one to, and then realises following the second line that a comparison to “summer” is not good enough by saying “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” Throughout the poem he describes the imperfections of “summer”, like the metaphor used, "sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines," which could signal that he’s pointing out the flaws in summer to highlight the perfection of the lover, and also emphasises how high he rates his beloved and doesn’t wish to displease them in anyway.
Shakespeare states, in sonnet 116, “love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove”. This indicates that Shakespeare is trying to say that you can’t claim that you’re truly in love with someone if you fall out over small arguments, when love goes off in the wrong direction, the power of the love between the couple should contain it and steer them back on track. Also the use of the word “alter” provides us with the information that Shakespeare is trying to relate love to Christian worship, making love sound symbolic and pure, and the repetition of the word “alter” strengthens his point. At the end of both of the sonnets, Shakespeare can’t help but let his ego get the better of him, “I never writ, nor no man ever loved”, (sonnet 116) is a way of emphasising how powerful he is as a writer, saying that whatever I am saying is impossible to be wrong and you can’t “prove” him wrong. Also, “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”, from sonnet 18, which again expresses a sense of superiority.
In these three poems, the most important aspect of love is “time” and how it affects love both positively and negatively. Shakespeare believes that in sonnet 116, “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks” the personification used here is saying that love will never evanesce with age regardless that age always will get the better of them, nevertheless they believe that time is harvesting youth. This emotion is equally shared in sonnet 18 where stating that “thy eternal summer shall not fade,” which brings about the same sort of interpretation, that time is running away, however love is eternally young, and prime. This impossible statement shows that their idealistic aim for love is blind to the reality, which makes the reader believe this is a truly romantic relationship, however later realising that he has diminished our expectations. Furthermore, in similarity, Piano also offers a wide view of time, he mentions that he has been taken “back down the vista of years” which infers that he is at an aged point of his life. He is nostalgic throughout the poem, mentioning he “weeps like a child for the past”. The sweet memory he had of his mother back as a child, he still feels the same passion and emotion after this long time gap, which emphasises the delicate, sensory atmosphere.
Unlike Piano and the sonnets, a darker and more deceitful view of love is offered in the poems “My Last Duchess” (by Robert Browning) which shows a very cynical, possessive perspective of love, similarly, the poem, “Havisham” (by Carol Ann Duffy) where she shows a conflicted view of love towards her “Beloved, sweetheart bastard” of an ex- lover, who stood her up at the altar. She is an emotional and physical wreck since then, even so she hasn’t the heart to let go of the past and to unveil her “yellowing” wedding “dress”. Whereas, the poem Valentine - also by Duffy, gives a pragmatic approach to the concept of love, saying it’s not always a “cute card or kissogram”.
The poem “My Last Duchess” utilises a conversational tone, in the way that the poet mimics the way people speak, as he says to the envoy “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”. The poem is structured in a regular, rhythmic fashion, which shows the Duke is commanding and also shows off his vocabulary skills as Dukes’ are known to be well spoken, whereas the poem Havisham is more free verse and irregular, showing she is lost for words, “Don’t think it’s only the heart that b-b-b-breaks”, the stuttering shows her breaking down into an emotional state. The word “last” in the title “My Last Duchess” suggests that he had several previous wives, however he only really cared for this one as he had a world famous painter, “Frà Pandolf” to paint her portrait who made the painting look “as if she were alive” – this tells us that she’s dead, and also emphasises the very lifelike, powerful artwork created by this world renowned artist.
The fact that the Duke has a painting of her, shows he has ownership over her even though she is dead, he also then conceals the painting behind the curtain, “The curtain I have drawn for you”, forces the reader to question his ominous actions. Supposedly he has something to hide, we imagine. Throughout the poem, we understand that the Duke is quite dominating and tries his best to keep his wife only to please his needs, however he fails to do so as he believes that she has had an affair with many men. The “spot of joy” that she has on her painting, the Duke believes that “perhaps” it was from some secret that the painter and she shared together, once again doubting her, as he thinks she is “too easily impressed”. This is all a supposition, as he had no physical evidence to prove himself, which shows us the Duke is paranoid as he is repeatedly fantasising what his wife may have been doing. We perceive the Duke’s paranoia as he is keep doubting his wife by telling stories to the envoy about her vulgar activities, when he, uses the euphemism, “trifling” with other men. This thought has been mirrored throughout the majority of the poem.
Moreover, back to the idea of the Duke being commanding, which is also in comparison with the poem, “Havisham”, where Carol Ann Duffy represents the “spinster” as depressed and very reminiscent as her husband yet to- be had rejected her at the worst possible time. We notice her variegated feelings throughout the poem, on one hand she still loves him and wants to have a very close sexual relationship with him, and on the other hand she wants to “strangle” him and turn his body into a “corpse”. This mixture of emotions dispenses a confusing and bizarre type of atmosphere, which presents the theme of love in a pessimistic way. As the poem Havisham, is told as a persona, it creates an emotional immediacy. “I stink and remember” tells us she is being self-destructive to herself. We sense she never wants to move on, as she leaves her body as a symbol of the event also she would be “trembling” if she opened “the wardrobe”. This represents the theme of love in a nostalgic sort of style.
The reason I say that she is nostalgic is because she mentions she has spent “whole days in bed” and “not a day since then” has she changed her “yellowing” dress, because that is the last memory she has of her past lover. Similarly, in Piano where, as mentioned previously, doesn’t want to let go of the golden past, “Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong”, the plosive used on “Betray” and “back” signals us that he doesn’t wish to go “down in the flood of remembrance” as he knows he will never experience the attractive memories ever again.
Which brings me back to Havisham where she then rhetorically asks, “who did this to me?” and at this moment she realises the reality of the situation, but also feels disconnected to herself, as in she can’t recognise herself or her pointless acts. Unusually, she then begins to fantasise about having “the lost body over” her. The fact she desires to seek copulation with a corpse is very strange, yet also reveals her to be quite psychotic. She thirsts for something she knows now will never get, in juxtaposition with Piano, which brings about the powerful, destructive nature of love.
This divergent behaviour, along with Havisham, is also shared in the poem Valentine. Where she states the symbolic metaphor, “I give you an onion”. It’s symbolic in a way that it can make you cry, as do relationships. Also the taste can be bitter or sweet depending on how you cook it (i.e. treat the relationship). Similarly to My Last Duchess, she talks in a conversational manner. The poem is structured in a negative way, in a sense that she uses one-word sentences to direct her message across, for example “Lethal” but also by using imperishable verbs like “Take it”. By expressing this behavioural attitude it could suggest to us that the reason behind not having high expectations for love could be because she has been hurt before, “It will blind you with tears like a lover.” so she describes it in a more commonsensical way. The metaphor used in “It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief” is a clear reference towards talking about the end of the relationship - that the grief is imperishable.
In conclusion, the poems, Piano, Sonnet 166 and sonnet 18 offer a light, satisfying perception on the theme of love. I believe that “Valentine” is a neutral, more realistic approach to the theme of love, also My Last Duchess and Havisham offer a much darker perspective of love that has turned grotesque. The nature of love is complex, which is mainly conveyed in Havisham, as she expresses disparate emotions throughout the poem.
