Comparing Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress and Herrick’s To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Comparing Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress and Robert Herrick’s To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a vital role. Comparing these poems reveals differences between love and lust. Despite the contrasting depictions of love and lust, both poets portray the underlying theme of carpe diem – “seize the day” – using the sun to show the brevity of any single person’s time on earth, and utilizing societal standards to back up their arguments.

Though some may argue that the speaker in Marvell’s poem loves his mistress, he comes across as experiencing no emotion aside from lust. The speaker merely mentions the word “love” three times, all in the first stanza. Nowhere does the speaker connect this so-called love with his girlfriend’s personality traits, but always with her physical appearance. The speaker explains that if he had all the time in the world, he would adore for “an age at least” all the parts of her body and “the last age should show your heart” (17-18). The speaker’s overemphasis of his girlfriend’s body in place of concentration on her personality and heart – one’s more important traits – ...

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...ilize similar arguments in attempt to persuade the person or people to whom they speak. Specifically, both speakers convey the concept of carpe diem through the analogy of the sun. They address their situation in a skewed manner, though. While they have the opportunity to focus on true love, they fail to seize that opportunity. Instead, the speakers concentrate on society’s definition of love, namely, beauty, requesting a response based on the superficial, outward appearance of a woman.

Works Cited

Herrick, Robert. “To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time." Literature An Introduction to Critical Reading. Lee A. Jacobus. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress" and Other Poems. New York: Dover

Publications, Inc., 1997.

New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation, 1995. Available http://www.lockman.org