Analysis of "First Date She and First Date He" by Wendy Cope.

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1st Date She and He

The poem is written by Wendy Cope. She is a contemporary poet and her poems are mostly light hearted and involve a lot of humour. First Date She and First Date He is a classic comparison between a male and female perspective on their first date. It is effectively two poems that are connected.

In the monologue of ‘She’, the female narrator talks about why she said she liked classical music. It is clear that she is trying to impress her date, to make him think that she is cultured and classy. She has insecurities which He did not even notice ‘my brow is acceptably high’. She doesn’t like to lie and she admits this in the line ‘it wasn’t exactly a lie’. She tries to defend herself but there is a little lie associated with her comment.  The allusion to classical musicians ‘Vivaldi and Bach’ shows that she wants to come out as interesting. ‘half dark’ is a metaphorical comparison to their relationship since both of them are not entirely honest with each other. The superlative ‘hardest’ further implies that she is interested in him and tries to impress him.

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In the monologue of ‘He’, a pattern can be seen as if he is responding to the girl without talking. The first stanza of the second poem almost completely mirrors the sentiments from the first two lines of the first poem. It therefore becomes clear that the man too is lying about a love for classical music and not unlike his female counterpart he tries to suggest that it was only partially a lie. He also tries to alleviate his guilt by suggesting he only implied he liked classical music. The tone of the second stanza is disappointing as he ...

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