The Love Poem by Carol Ann Duffy (AQA A-Level English Literature A): Revision Notes
The Love Poem by Carol Ann Duffy
Overview
This poem appears in Carol Ann Duffy's 2005 collection Rapture, which explores various aspects of a love affair. Written by one of Britain's most significant contemporary poets, this piece addresses the challenge of creating authentic love poetry in the modern age. The poem is notable for its unique approach: Duffy constructs her work by weaving together fragments of famous love poems from literary history, creating a conversation across time about the nature of love and poetry.
The technique of incorporating lines from other texts is called intertextuality - a key concept for understanding this poem. Duffy uses it to show how past poets have shaped our understanding of love and the difficulty modern writers face in finding original expressions.
The poem
Till love exhausts itself, longs for the sleep of words – my mistress' eyes – to lie on a white sheet, at rest in the language – let me count the ways – or shrink to a phrase like an epitaph – come live with me – or fall from its own high cloud as syllables in a pool of verse – one hour with thee.
Till love gives in and speaks in the whisper of art – dear heart, how like you this? – look in thy heart and write – there is a garden in her face.
Till love is all in the mind – O my America! my new-found land – behold, thou art fair – both near and far, near and far – the desire of the moth for the star.
Context and background
Carol Ann Duffy composed this work as part of her collection exploring romantic relationships through a contemporary lens. However, the poem deliberately reaches back into literary history, borrowing lines from some of the most celebrated love poets of the past. This technique creates a bridge between traditional love poetry and modern sensibilities.
The Borrowed Lines and Their Sources
The poem contains fragments from ten different famous love poems, creating a rich tapestry of literary references that spans several centuries:
The borrowed fragments come from canonical works including:
- Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 (My mistress' eyes)
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese (Let me count the ways)
- Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Come live with me)
- Walter Scott's An Hour with Thee (One hour with thee)
- Sir Thomas Wyatt's They Flee From Me (Dear heart, how like you this?)
- Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophil and Stella (Look in thy heart and write)
- Thomas Campion's There Is A Garden In Her Face (There is a garden in her face)
- John Donne's To His Mistress Going to Bed (O my America! my new-found land)
- The Bible's Song of Solomon (Behold, thou art fair)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley's One Word is Too Often Profaned (The desire of the moth for the star)
This intertextual approach serves a specific purpose: Duffy suggests that these great poets of the past have already said everything worth saying about love, leaving modern poets struggling to find original expressions.
Summary
The poem presents a contemporary writer's struggle to compose a love poem. Throughout the three stanzas, the speaker describes how love itself seems exhausted, unable to find fresh language. The poet feels inadequate when compared to the masters of earlier centuries. Each stanza begins with "Till", suggesting a waiting period or condition that must be met before love poetry can be written.
In the opening stanza, the speaker expresses frustration as words fail and only fragments of classic poems emerge. The second stanza continues this theme, showing love attempting to speak through borrowed phrases. By the final stanza, the speaker suggests that perhaps love exists only as an intellectual concept now, rather than the passionate, heartfelt emotion that inspired poets like Shakespeare, Donne, and Shelley.
Despite this seeming hopelessness, the final image of "the desire of the moth for the star" introduces a note of yearning and possibility, suggesting that the desire to capture love in poetry persists, even if it feels unattainable.
Structure and form
The poem comprises three stanzas, each containing twelve lines. This structure is significant because whilst the poem nods to traditional love poetry forms like sonnets, it deliberately breaks from them. Sonnets typically have fourteen lines, but Duffy gives us twelve-line stanzas, creating an incomplete or unsatisfied feeling.
The choice of twelve lines instead of fourteen is deliberate - it creates a sense of something missing or unfinished, mirroring the speaker's inability to complete a satisfying modern love poem.
The form reflects modernist principles, moving away from regular metre and rhyme schemes. The lines are fragmented, with broken phrases scattered throughout. This fragmentation mirrors the poem's theme: love poetry itself has become broken and incomplete in the modern age. The truncated quotations (indicated by dashes) emphasise how the speaker cannot even complete these borrowed phrases, underlining the sense of inadequacy.
Each stanza opens with "Till," creating a parallel structure. This repeated opening suggests unfulfilled conditions - the poem describes what must happen before authentic love poetry can be written, but we're left uncertain whether these conditions will ever be met.
The visual layout on the page, with its uneven line lengths and frequent use of dashes, creates a hesitant, uncertain rhythm. This reflects the speaker's struggle to find the right words.
Detailed analysis
Stanza one: exhaustion and inadequacy
The opening stanza introduces the central problem immediately. The phrase "Till love exhausts itself" suggests that love itself has become tired and worn out. The speaker describes love as "long[ing] for the sleep of words", a striking image that personifies love as something weary, seeking rest within language.
Analyzing the Truncated Quotations
Consider how Duffy presents these famous lines:
- "my mistress' eyes" (from Shakespeare)
- "let me count the ways" (from Barrett Browning)
- "come live with me" (from Marlowe)
Each appears incomplete, cut off by dashes. This technique serves multiple purposes:
- These lines are so famous that readers automatically complete them
- It shows the speaker cannot move beyond established expressions
- It demonstrates how even borrowed phrases cannot be finished
- It emphasizes the inadequacy the speaker feels
The truncated quotations that follow are all recognisable fragments from famous love poems. By presenting them as incomplete phrases, Duffy emphasises several key ideas:
- These lines are so famous they need no completion; readers automatically fill in the gaps
- Modern poets cannot move beyond these established expressions
- The speaker cannot even complete a borrowed phrase, let alone create original poetry
- Traditional love poetry has become reduced to clichés
The image of love shrinking "to a phrase like an epitaph" is particularly powerful. An epitaph is an inscription on a grave marker, something meant to last but also associated with death. This suggests that the great love poems of the past have become monumentalised - preserved but no longer living. The speaker wants to create something permanent like an epitaph, something that will memorialize love, but questions whether this is still possible.
The epitaph metaphor connects to one of the poem's central anxieties: great love poetry from the past has become static and memorial-like, while modern attempts feel inadequate by comparison.
The phrase "fall from its own high cloud as syllables in a pool of verse" creates a beautiful but melancholic image. Love poetry once existed in an elevated realm (the "high cloud") but now can only fall into a collected "pool" of existing verse, unable to reach those heights again.
Stanza two: borrowed voices
The second stanza maintains the pattern established in the first, opening with "Till love gives in and speaks." This suggests that love itself must surrender or concede defeat before it can find expression. The phrase "in the whisper of art" implies that love poetry can now only speak quietly, uncertainly, without the bold declarations of earlier poets.
The fragment "dear heart" (from Sir Thomas Wyatt) and the ellipsis that follows emphasize the speaker's inability to continue. The phrase "in her face" (from Thomas Campion) appears isolated, demonstrating how these borrowed lines fail to cohere into a complete thought or sustained expression.
This stanza particularly emphasizes the disconnect between past and present. The great poets of history could express love with genuine feeling and conviction. Their words came from the heart and were "known by feelings." Modern poets, by contrast, lack this authentic emotional foundation.
Without genuine feeling, they cannot create poetry that matches the classics.
Stanza three: distance and desire
The final stanza shifts slightly in tone. "Till love is all in the mind" suggests that love has become intellectualized rather than felt, a concept rather than an emotion. The fragment "O my America! my new-found land" from John Donne's passionate metaphysical poem reminds us of how earlier poets could transform love into bold, original metaphors. The speaker seems to long for this kind of imaginative power.
The repetition of "both near and far, near and far" creates an interesting effect. Love poetry feels simultaneously close (because we have all these examples from the past) and distant (because we cannot recreate their power). This paradox captures the speaker's predicament perfectly.
Understanding the Moth and Star Image
The closing lines "The desire of the moth for the star" (from Shelley) create a powerful final image:
- A moth is drawn to light but cannot reach a distant star
- This represents impossible yearning - the desire for something unattainable
- Applied to the poem: modern poets desire to create love poetry as powerful as the past masters
- Like the moth, they are drawn toward this goal even though it seems impossible to achieve
This image offers hope: despite all the inadequacy described, the desire itself persists and has value.
The closing lines offer perhaps the most hopeful moment in the poem. "The desire of the moth for the star" (from Shelley) evokes impossible yearning - a moth cannot reach a star, yet it is drawn toward it nonetheless. This image suggests that despite all the difficulties described in the poem, the desire to create meaningful love poetry persists. The speaker may feel inadequate compared to the past masters, but the longing to capture love in words remains alive.
Key themes
The burden of literary tradition
The poem explores how literary heritage can be both inspiring and intimidating. The great love poets have created such powerful works that modern writers feel they cannot add anything new. This theme speaks to a broader anxiety in contemporary poetry about originality and influence.
This theme resonates beyond poetry - in any creative field, artists must grapple with the achievements of those who came before them, finding ways to honor tradition while creating something new.
Authenticity versus cliché
Duffy examines the line between genuine expression and borrowed language. The famous phrases she quotes have become so familiar they risk becoming clichés, yet they persist because they captured something true about love. Modern poets must navigate between using familiar language (which feels inauthentic) and finding new expressions (which seems impossible).
Love's endurance and exhaustion
The poem presents love as something that persists through time yet becomes worn out through repeated expression. This creates a tension: love itself never changes, but our ability to write about it freshly seems exhausted.
The creative struggle
At its heart, this is a poem about writer's block and the difficulty of creation. Every writer faces the challenge of finding original ways to express universal experiences. Duffy makes this struggle itself the subject of her poem.
Literary techniques
Intertextuality
The poem's defining technique is its use of intertextuality - references to other texts. By incorporating lines from famous love poems, Duffy creates layers of meaning. Each borrowed phrase carries its original context whilst also serving her new purpose. This technique allows her to comment on the entire tradition of love poetry whilst creating her own work.
How Intertextuality Functions in the Poem
When Duffy writes "my mistress' eyes," readers familiar with Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 recall the full context:
- Shakespeare's poem deliberately rejected idealized descriptions of beauty
- It celebrated honest, realistic love over poetic conventions
- By invoking this, Duffy connects her own struggle with authenticity to Shakespeare's
The technique works on multiple levels:
- Readers recognize the famous line
- They recall its original meaning and context
- They see how it relates to Duffy's new purpose
- The fragment itself demonstrates the poem's theme of incompleteness
Fragmentation
The broken phrases and incomplete quotations create a fragmented structure that reflects the poem's meaning. Just as the speaker cannot complete these borrowed lines, modern love poetry cannot achieve the wholeness or completion of earlier works.
Repetition and parallel structure
The repeated "Till" at the beginning of each stanza creates anticipation. We keep waiting for the condition to be met, for love poetry to become possible again, but the poem ends without resolution. This structure mirrors the speaker's ongoing struggle.
The "Till" construction creates what's called a subordinate clause - it sets up a condition but never provides the main clause that would complete the thought. This grammatical incompleteness perfectly mirrors the thematic incompleteness of modern love poetry.
Personification
Love is personified throughout the poem - it "exhausts itself," "longs," "gives in," and "speaks." This technique makes the abstract emotion more concrete and creates sympathy for love's plight.
Metaphor
Duffy uses several striking metaphors: love as something needing sleep, words as a resting place, love as syllables falling like rain, the moth's desire for the star. These images make abstract ideas tangible and emotionally resonant.
Exam tips
Essential Points for Writing About This Poem
When analyzing "The Love Poem" in an exam or essay:
- Identify specific borrowed lines and explain their original context - this shows depth of knowledge
- Discuss how the structure reflects the meaning (fragmentation, incomplete stanzas)
- Consider the contrast between past and present approaches to love poetry
- Analyse how Duffy creates meaning through what she leaves out (the truncated quotations)
- Explore the paradox: Duffy claims modern love poetry is inadequate, yet she has created an effective poem about this very inadequacy
- Compare this poem to others in the anthology that deal with literary tradition or the difficulty of expression
Common mistake to avoid: Don't simply list the borrowed lines without explaining how they contribute to the poem's meaning and themes.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- The poem uses borrowed lines from famous love poems to explore the difficulty of writing original love poetry in the modern age
- The structure (three stanzas of twelve lines, not fourteen) suggests incompleteness and departure from traditional forms
- Each stanza begins with "Till", creating unfulfilled conditions that emphasize the speaker's ongoing struggle
- Fragmentation and truncated quotations reflect the breakdown of love poetry's power and authenticity
- Despite expressing inadequacy, the final image of the moth desiring the star suggests that the yearning to capture love in poetry persists, offering a note of hope amidst the frustration
- The technique of intertextuality is central to understanding how the poem works and what it means
- The poem is itself a successful piece of love poetry, even as it questions whether such success is possible in the modern age