The representation of love and relationships is profoundly different in 'Valentine', 'Love is as a fever' and 'Porphyria's Lover'. Dealing with obsessive love in 'Porphyria's Lover', desperate love in 'Love is as a fever' and honest love in 'Valentine.

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Chris Blinston        

                                English Coursework

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        The representation of love and relationships is profoundly different in ‘Valentine’, ‘Love is as a fever’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’. Dealing with obsessive love in ‘Porphyria’s Lover’, desperate love in ‘Love is as a fever’ and honest love in ‘Valentine. In this essay I will be focusing on the comparisons of love and relationships deep within these poems.

        In ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ the love the man has for the women is so intense and obsessive that it drives him to kill her. ‘Love is as a fever’ reflects the stereotypical roles of men and women throughout the sixteenth and nineteenth century. Whereas in ‘Valentine’ Carol Ann Duffy ‘crushes’ these values and presents a feminist perspective highlighting a ‘backlash’ against these values.

        In the Victorian Period the roles of men and women were very different to the present day. Men went to work and provided for the family, they would have had a job to do with labor such as a blacksmith, mason, and carpenter ect. Whereas a women would have stayed at home looked after the children and cleaned the home ect.

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        Robert Browning reflects these values in his poem. Robert Browning was born in London as the son of Robert Browning, a wealthy clerk in the Bank of England, and Sarah Anna Wiedemann, of German-Scottish origin. He received a formal education, but had access to his father's library. In his teens, Browning discovered ‘Shelly’, adopting the author's confessionalism in poetry. His first poems Browning wrote under the influence of ‘Shelley’, who also inspired him to adopt atheist principles for a time. At the age of 16 he began to study at the new London University, returning home after a brief ...

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