First love (Duffy) and Wild Oats (Larkin)

Coming as a shock to no one, Larkin turns something otherwise sweet into something cynical whilst Duffy is being gay because she's cool like that.

What is the main theme of both poems and how do they tackle it differently?

Young Love

First Love: follows a light and fluffy depiction of a first crush. It's innocent and drenched with longing and nostalgia.

Wild Oats: as is common for Larkin, this poem is incredibly cynical and follows a man regretting his decision to not get with his current partner's hot friend. He longs for the past not out of yearning, but regret and lust.

Both poems lack a full rhyme scheme- what does this tell us about them?

First love: The lack of any full rhymes present in the poem not only reflects the cloudy nature of memory but also the illogical, disorderly nature of unbridled romantic attraction.

Wild Oats: Although stanza one has a rhyme scheme, the other two lack it. This shows how the narrator’s life is not going as he planned and so every line that ends flatly with no rhythm or connection reflects his bitterness at his love life.

Both poems use their lack of consistent rhyme to show the internal world of their narrators.

How are both poems similar structurally and what does this tell us about them?

Both poems are split into 3 stanzas of equal length (Wild Oats is split into octaves and First Love is split into quintets). This creates the impression of a three act structure as each poem ultimately acts as a story of lost and/or unrequited love.

Furthermore, both contain a lot of enjambment. In Wild Oats, this gives the poem a rapid, rushing rhythm which perhaps reflects how the narrator feels “Rose” slipped from in-between his fingers and his overflowing regrets about lost love. Juxtaposing this, the enjambment in First Love is utilized by Duffy to create a pace that is also rapid yet holds strong overtones of passion to reflect the potent emotions stirred up by the memories of the narrator’s “first love”.

Both poems utilise natural imagery- specifically that of flowers. What impact does this have in each poem and how do they contrast?

First Love: “Unseen/ flowers suddenly pierce and sweeten the air” -This is undoubtedly an image of sexual passion and lust as seen in the contrast of the delicacy of a “flower” with the violence of the verb “pierce”. Furthermore, the “piercing” causes the air to “sweeten” and so here, Duffy utilises the image of flowers as a metaphor for sex as an expression of love towards somebody.

Wild Oats: “bosomy [English] rose” - Firstly, roses are a very cliché symbol of romance, love and desire which contrasts the demeaning nickname “specs” her friend gets. This is not only a brilliant example of Larkin’s objectification of women seen throughout his works, but also showing the narrator’s romanticisation of the past as he cannot help but fixate on what could’ve been like the narrator in First love (but obviously with Larkin’s classic cynicism painted over it).

How does the life of each poet help to make sense of their respective poems?

Duffy (FL): Duffy is Sapphic and her attraction to women has a big impact on a lot of her work. The potency and longing with which the love is described in the poem invokes images of a first non-heterosexual crush- especially the fact that it can now only exist in her memory as Duffy, being a student at a catholic school in the 60s, would not have been able to pursue it safely and so now she looks back on it yearningly.

Larkin (WO): Larkin was quite the womanizer- being afraid to settle in relationships and sometimes having multiple going on at once. Perhaps “specs” is based on one of his real life partners and “rose” symbolises his wandering eye and disloyalty to the women he pursued.