A Comparison of ‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell and ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ by John Donne
‘To His Coy Mistress’ and ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ are both
poems about men seducing women. They centre around sex rather than
love or romance. Sixteenth and seventeenth century attitudes to love
and relationships were much stricter going as far as wealthy people
asking their perspective lovers to court them via love poem or letter.
Though this has changed from the sixteenth and seventeenth century to
today, little else has. It is still most common for a man to initiate
a relationship, and men are still perceived as the most sex obsessed.
However, even though we are led to believe that their attitudes were
more conservative, the attitudes conveyed in these poems are very raw
and primitive in the way that they make sex the ultimate. The men are
desperate begging the women for sex. However, as we know from other
poems (such as Cousin Kate and The Seduction) men valued purity above
most other things (when considering marriage). So we could say that
these men were hypocritical for wanting their women pure for marriage
but willing to have sex with them pre-marriage!
These poems are both themed on love, sex, romance and seduction.
However, the attitudes towards their relationships and lovers are
completely diverse. Andrew Marvell uses all forms of persuasion both
negative and positive to get her into bed with him. On the other hand
John Donne doesn’t seem to have to persuade his lover to sleep with
him at all, it seems that she is already willing. Andrew Marvell
appears to be incredibly desperate, but, in an unrelated way quite
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...day. Today we are much freer to talk
about our emotions. Whether we want to or not, nowadays when we listen
to music, see the television, films, magazines, papers, even just
walking down the street we have sexual, lustful references forced on
us. Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth century people didn’t have
the opportunities we have today to express themselves where as in
Donne and Marvell’s times emotional outlets were few and far between.
Therefore when they did get an opportunity they really went into
graphic detail, and although this can seem quite disgusting I can
understand why it had to be this way. My favourite of the two poems is
“To His Mistress Going to Bed”. I preferred it because the atmosphere
created by Donne is more loving, romantic and sincere. It really
showed that he had deep emotional capability.
The poem is an example of a carpe diem poem - 'carpe diem' is Latin
McAuley also criticizes prejudice and stereotyping in the society. I enjoyed reading both ‘The Seduction’ and ‘To His Coy Mistress’. I preferred Eileen McAuley’s ‘The Seduction because it has a more meaningful message, also because it is directed at my age group.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
to lure a woman into bed the true theme of the poem being more lust
These two poems are meant to be a love letters written by a man to a
During the 17th century, certain poets wrote poems with the specific purpose of persuading a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. Three of these seduction poems utilize several strategies to do this: Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” and “The Flea.” Some of the reasoning used by both poets is similar to the reasoning used today by men to convince women to have sexual intercourse with them. These gimmicks vary from poem to poem but coincide with modern day rationalization. The tactics used in 17th century seduction poems are relevant and similar to the seduction tactics used in the 21st century.
Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is another attempting at seducing an unwilling woman. “Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime” (Marvell 1-2). Its emphases by Dr. Michael William that in the first two lines of the first stanza Marvell played a game with irony and specified
meaning as long as the poem will exist and be read, the girl (who the
What struck me about these two poems in particular is the universal truths they reveal, firstly in “The Eye,” how one learns to hate, and then resent and in “A Poem to my Husband from My Father’s Daughter,” how a woman come to terms with her father’s legacy.
my favourite poem out of the two must be Night of the Scorpion, as I
The Flea and To His Coy Mistress are two poems written by poets living during the Renaissance Period. To His Coy Mistress was written by Andrew Marvell and The Flea was written by John Donne. Both of these poets were well-educated 'metaphysical poets', and these poems illustrate metaphysical concerns, highly abstract and theoretical ideas, that the poets would have been interested in. Both poems are based around the same idea of trying to reason with a 'mistress' as to why they should give up their virginity to the poet.
The overall gist of "To His Coy Mistress" is established in the opening stanza of the poem. It describes a sceneario where a girl has the option to either give in to the young persuaders sexua...
The Carpe Diem Motif in His Coy Mistress. & nbsp; Taking a break from the day. For cavalier poets, there seemed to be little else they found nearly as interesting to write about than the carpe diem concept. The form of carpe diem poetry is generally consistent, almost to the point of being predictable. Though Andrew Marvell worked with the same concepts, his modifications to them were well-considered.
In conclusion "To His Coy Mistress" contains a sexual theme. He uses the "marble vault" and points towards death to scare and win the young lady over. In the 21st Century men use the same tactics as well. This shows that the people were not much different from today.
The formalistic approach to an open text allows the reader to devour the poem or story and break down all the characteristics that make it unique. The reader is able to hear the text rather than read it, and can eventually derive a general understanding or gist of the text. "According to the Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature "when all the words, phrases, metaphors, images, and symbols are examined in terms of each other and of the whole, any literary text worth our efforts will display its own internal logic" (Geurin 75)." When utilizing the formalistic approach, the reader must search in and out of the lines for point of view, form, imagery, structure, symbolism, style, texture, and so on. Using the general theme of time, it is important to focus on structure, style, and imagery found in Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress".