Associations and Persuasion in “To His Coy Mistress”
“To His Coy Mistress” demonstrates a successful work of persuasion through Andrew Marvell’s use of form. Marvell not only presents an effective argument to the woman he tries to convince to engage in intercourse with, but also manipulates the audience’s feelings toward his presentation. Through the use of the speaker’s wanted outcomes being paired with positive connotations and unwanted outcomes being associated with the opposite, Marvell provides a cogent inducement throughout the entirety of the poem.
Diction, imagery, and connotation provide an association between ugliness and coyness in the poem “To His Coy Mistress” to make the argument that sexual intimacy with the speaker is the correct
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An example of this can be seen in the following excerpt: But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found; (Marvell 21-25)
This portion provides us with the force of time and coyness causing the mistress’s beauty to “no more be found”. The phrase “no more be found” inserts certain connotations of lostness, being missing, and defectiveness into the audience’s mind. The diction to use “more” in the phrase instead of “not be found” implies to the reader that beauty was previously there, so the emotion of being defective is amplified. A reader can deduce that this phrase and its diction is meant to strengthen the negative feelings associated with coyness and its consequences because of the unpleasant connotations it suggests. Next, analyzing imagery within this quote also provides the audience with negative connotations, furthering the amount of hatred
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By using the words “youthful hue”, the speaker applies connotations of being beautiful, a form of flattery intended for the mistress. Then, he proceeds his connotative flattery with the phrase, “morning dew”. This phrase is used in context to describe her appearance, implying the connotation of freshness in her beauty. The positive correlation between giving up the mistress’s apparent coyness and her being gorgeous directly targets the want on the mistress to be beautiful. Simply, the speaker saying that the only way he can be satisfied with her looks while engaging in intercourse is by agreeing to sleep with him now. After expressing how beautiful he thinks the mistress is, he speaks of how experiencing intercourse with him will be like. Again, the speaker utilizes diction to provide an overarching theme of charm to further the impression that beauty and sex are affiliated with each other. The speaker says “sweetness” to initiate feelings of delight and pleasantness in relation to copulation with him. In addition, he adds a sense of relief and intense accomplishment with his choice of phrasing in, “tear our pleasures”. The words, “tear” and “pleasures” used together in this phrase provides intense emotion. The speaker hands the reader connotations of passion that describe a vivid emotional description of his wanted coitus. Marvell precisely chooses words and phrases
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
I chose this word because the tone of the first chapter seems rather dark. We hear stories of the hopes with which the Puritans arrived in the new world; however, these hopes quickly turned dark because the Purtains found that the first buildings they needed to create were a prison, which alludes to the sins they committed; and a cemetery, which contradicts the new life they hoped to create for themselves.
Steven Pinker opens his essay with scenes from the movie Tootsie to show his argument that people work around what they really mean when talking to others, yet we all want the full truth and also a fake truth when speaking to someone even if all we say is the fake truth when speaking to others. The scene from the movie at the beginning of the essays allows readers a chance to see humor, but also have a glimpse at what we as people do every day when we speak with someone. We all are guilty of saying one thing we want but not truly wanting it when the time comes. If Pinker would have just started his essay with the third paragraph that included his main argument, the point would not have been as clear and easy to understand as it was with the movie scene reference. The movie scene added real life relativity to the essay, and allowed readers to see what Pinker’s argument meant without having to think about a situation where his argument is
It is safe to say that the box next to the “boring, monotone, never-ending lecture” has been checked off more than once. Without the use of rhetorical strategies, the world would be left with nothing but boring, uniform literature. This would leave readers feeling the same way one does after a bad lecture. Rhetorical devices not only open one’s imagination but also allows a reader to dig deep into a piece and come out with a better understanding of the author’s intentions. Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Wife’s Story” is about a family that is going through a tough spot. However, though diction, imagery, pathos, and foreshadowing Guin reveals a deep truth about this family that the reader does not see coming.
Throughout the poem, "For That He Looked Not upon Her", the speaker creates a guarded and betrayed tone. He explains to his lover why he avoids looking at her face and laments over how desire causes agony and despair. Through the usage of imagery, diction, and form, the speaker successfully conveys his distraught and guarded warning based in past experience to all those who are tempted by desire while also expressing to his lover why he is hurt by her
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.
In the beginning of Sharon Olds’ Last Night the speaker is in passionate lust, nevertheless, the opposite transpires when the speaker becomes aware that she fell in love. In Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, the speaker initiates with the impression that he is in passionate love with his mistress; however, it is quickly perceived that the speaker is only interested in passionate lust. While these poems equally signify carpe diem, they connote it in different ways. Both poems have unique views of what love and passion mean. These two poems use effects of irony and nature imagery to convey their passions.
In John Wilmot’s, The Imperfect Enjoyment, the second Earl of Rochester, was born in 1647 to a noble family in England. He was said to be “one of the most famous lyric poets of Charles II’s court” (Orton). His noble stature later declined in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, due to, the obscene nature of his work. Rochester’s poem ranges from tender love verses to savage pornographic obscenities. Due to the harshness of this poem, it pushes the reader to another level and pushes the limits of poetry, in regards to mode and genre. In this wistfully strange poem, The Imperfect Enjoyment, the tone takes a rapid shift. At the beginning, the poet uses a tenderly erotic tone, which soon becomes intensely anti-erotic. From this tone, we experience excessive bragging to a sense of self dislike expressed through vulgarity. From the first impression of the poem the reader might think they are reading a sweet love story, but with further reading they soon will discover the complete opposite.
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Rober Herrick and Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” have many similarities and differences. The tone of the speakers, the audience each poem is directed to, and the theme make up some of the literary elements that help fit this description.
Comparing the Attitudes Towards Love and Relationships in The Beggar Woman by William King and To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
The poem begins as the Duke draws the attention of his fellow conversationalist, who is, we discover, a messenger representing the Count’s family whose daughter’s hand the duke seeks in marriage, to the image of his deceased bride on the wall. The Duke lionizes the work of the artist, Fra Pandolf, who exhausted a day’s worth of effort on the portrait to make it so lifelike. He invites the messenger to take a seat, and proceeds to discuss how all who have ever lain eyes upon that picturesque expression on the deceased’s painted face have inquired as to the reason behind the lively expression. He then reminisces about his late wife, remembering that it wasn’t solely his company which brought color to her cheeks. He ponders the possibility that the painter complimenting her brought forth such a response, as she believed that such attentions were all just formalities and politeness. He continues, scorning the nature of the duchess; she found something to praise in whatever she saw. He finds it disdainful that things so simple and unworthy as the sunset or a small offering of fruit some officer could make her as happy as his gift to her, his hand in matrimony and an ancient name. He says that no one could really fault the duchess for her flighty nature, but even if he had the power of speech required to make his expectations from her clear, it was beneath him to do so. He hints at the fact that the duchess seemed to smile at everyone in the same way that s...
Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
There is a similar theme running through both of the poems, in which both mistresses are refusing to partake in sexual intercourse with both of the poets. The way in which both poets present their argument is quite different as Marvell is writing from a perspective from which he is depicting his mistress as being 'coy', and essentially, mean, in refusing him sex, and Donne is comparing the blood lost by a flea bite to the blood that would be united during sex. Marvell immediately makes clear his thoughts in the poem when he says, "Had we but world enough, and time/ This coyness, Lady were no crime", he is conveying the 'carpe diem' idea that there is not enough time for her to be 'coy' and refuse him sexual intercourse and he justifies this thought when he suggests when she is dead, in ?thy marble vault?, and ?worms shall try that long preserved virginity?. He is using the idea of worms crawling all over and in her corpse as a way of saying that the worms are going to take her virginity if she waits until death. Donne justifies his bid for her virginity in a much longer and more methodical way, he uses the idea of the flea taking her blood and mixing it with his, ?It suck?d me first, and now sucks thee?, and then...
Response to His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" is the charming depiction of a man who has seemingly been working very hard at seducing his mistress. Owing to Marvell's use of the word "coy," we have a clear picture of the kind of woman his mistress is. She has been encouraging his advances to a certain point, but then when he gets too close, she backs off, and resists those same advances. Evidently, this has been going on for quite some time, as Marvell now feels it necessary to broach the topic in this poem. He begins in the first stanza by gently explaining that his mistress's coyness would not be a "crime" if there were "world enough, and time…" (l.2).
In Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress," he's arguing for affection. The object of the speaker's desire wants to wait and take the relationship slow, while the speaker pushes for instant gratification. This persuasive poem makes the point that time waits for no one and it's foolish for two lovers to postpone a physical relationship.