Analysis of To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell
Andrew Marvell's elaborate sixteenth century carpe diem poem, 'To His Coy Mistress', not only speaks to his coy mistress, but also to the reader. Marvell's suggests to his coy mistress that time is inevitably rapidly progressing and for this he wishes for her to reciprocate his desires and to initiate a sexual relationship. Marvell simultaneously suggests to the reader that he or she should act upon their desires as well, to hesitate no longer and seize the moment before time, and ultimately life, expires. Marvell makes use of allusion, metaphor, and grand imagery in order to convey a mood of majestic endurance and innovatively explicate the carpe diem motif.
To show the passage of time in his poem, Marvell makes reference to past and future events on a grand scale. His allusions to religious scripture early on in the poem give the impression of vast ages passing, spanning most of time itself. He says:
...I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews. (7-10)
The period ten years before the flood, which occurs in Genesis some time after creation, until the conversion of the Jews crosses a massive amount of time. This allusion is one of the several techniques Marvell uses to turn the focus away from impending death to an ideal world without it. These amplifications imply that under normal circumstances the speaker would wait many years until his mistress became ready for their relationship. Marvell also uses the image of the flood to evoke visualizations of a new life within a new covenant.
The reader can almost visualize the deep love the narrator bestows upon his mistress through the inten...
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...icture in the reader?s mind that depicts the speaker?s anxiety and urgent desires.
Marvell uses this anxiety to emphasize the importance of acting now, the essence of a carpe diem poem. In order to seduce his mistress Marvell relies on the threatening rapid progression of time. The second stanza persistently reminds the readers that those who postpone their joy in love will have no joy at all. Time then moves into the present tense, providing the intensity of the current moment. Marvell makes the idea of eternity seem more tangible so that when that timelessness is swept away, the alternative seems all the more frightening. This fear is the backbone of seizing the day.
Works Cited:
Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." 1681. Literature and Society: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Non-fiction, 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pretence Hall,1999.
There are two sides to every story. Where one sees love and passion, another sees burden and indifference. Such is the case with Peter de Vries “To His Importunate Mistress”, a comedic parody of the 17th century work by Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”. Peter de Vries uses satire and rhyme as a way to present a humorous approach to the reality and consequences of a modern day extra-marital affair. While poetry is a literary art that takes on many somber subjects, some feel that humor and profound thought reside on opposite ends of the spectrum.
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 – ...
Although Christopher Marlowe wrote his poem, " The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" in accordance with the Pastoral tradition, Andrew Marvell's " To His Coy Mistress", written with the intended theme of "carpe-diem" seems similar enough to Marlowe's poem to have been written by the same author even though the poems are separated by almost a century. Both poems are written in iambic tetrameter and are addressed to an unnamed lover. The tone of both poems are joy and romantic love, however Marvell expands his theme in his last stanza by bidding his lover to unite with him and use their strength to "tear our pleasures with rough strife, Thorough the iron gates of life."(Marvell, 128, lines 43-44)
...essed” (Line18-20). The phrase “ill spirit it possessed” symbolizes the body’s lustful and evil desires, which only leads to the soul’s ailment and eventually, destruction. Nevertheless, the body complains of being entrapped by the “bonds of this tyrannic soul” (Line 12). By identifying the soul as “tyrannical” Marvell coveys how the soul’s morality and conscience cause difficulty and complexity to individuals when it resists their egotistical desires. Although the soul encounters the body’s vehement outbreaks with love and hope; mistakenly, the body considers such love as psychological sufferings inflicted by soul.
My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door, —a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own industry for a living. She was by trade a weaver; and by constant application to her business, she had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery. I was utterly astonished at her goodness. I scarcely knew how to behave towards her. She was entirely unlike
Throughout the entire poem, coyness is not regarded as an attractive behavior in the long term view of objective reality. Time is always of the essence, and death puts an end to all physical and emotional interactions between people. This is expressed in the line “that long-preserved virginity, and your quaint honor turn to dust, and into ashes all my lust” (Marvell). As time progresses, so does the process of decay, and this is what leads to the cycle of life and death. Marvell conveys both the biological and emotional need to propagate the concept of carpe diem, seizing the day and taking initiative in the face of time’s constant war against mortality.
“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.
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...
middle of paper ... ... r Marvell to use this foot, as the poem represents a conversation. The easy flow of the iamb also helps to make the poem seem more real, more believable, because we don't have to stretch or sound strained while reading it. There is a slight change in the foot pattern in line 33. Marvell begins the line with the word "now" and places a stress on this syllable.
Marvell's piece is structured as a poem but flows as a classical argument. He uses the three stanzas to address the issues of time, love, and sex. In doing so, he creates his own standpoint and satirizes his audience in the process. Using appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos; logical reasoning; and even a hint of the Rogerian technique - Marvell proves that acting now is essential. The logical argument for the "carpe diem" theme is built up from beginning to end.
In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell makes use of allusion, metaphor, and grand imagery in order to convey a mood of majestic endurance and innovatively implicates the carpe diem motif. & nbsp; Previous carpe diem poems (such as those written by Robert Herrick at the same time period) often took an apostrophic form and style which stressed the temporality of youth. The logical extension was to urge the recipient of the poem to take advantage of that youth to further her relationship with the narrator. They were often dark and melancholy in theme, underneath a light exterior of euphony and springtime images (perhaps to urge consideration of the winter to come). & nbsp ; Marvell chooses not to employ many of these techniques in the opening of "To His Coy Mistress."
As part of his conceit, Marvell spends the first half of “On a Drop of Dew,” relating a simple story drawn from nature, the story of a dewdrop resting on a flower. Without initially revealing what the dewdrop represents, he traces its “life” from the time it is “[s]hed from the bosom of the morn” (line 2) to the time “the skies exhale it back again” (18). He also incorporates personification into the conceit, describing the way the dewdrop “slight[s]” the flower on which it lies and rues its separation from the sky (9). To the way the dew beads on the petal, he lends emotion and motive: “careless of its mansion new,” the drop withdraws into itself, hoping to capture a part of the sky in...
Andrew Marvell in his poem describes a young man convincing his fair mistress to release herself to living in the here and now. He does this by splitting the poem up into three radically different stanzas. The first takes ample time to describe great feelings of love for a young lady, and how he wishes he could show it. The idea of time is developed early but not fully. The second stanza is then used to show how time is rapidly progressing in ways such as the fading of beauty and death. The third stanza presses the question to the young mistress; will she give herself to the young man and to life? Although each stanza uses different images, they all convey the same theme of living life to the fullest and not letting time pass is seen throughout. Marvell uses imagery, symbolism, and wonderful descriptions throughout the poem. Each stanza is effective and flows easily. Rhyming couplets are seen at the ends of every line, which helps the poem read smoothly.
Differing slightly from the traditional Greek example of a “wedding lyric,” (Britannica) Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamion is Spenser’s way of sharing both his fears and apprehensions, but also his hope and optimism in regards to his own new marriage to Elizabeth Boyle in 1594. The entire poem is written from the bridegroom’s point of view; from the moment he awakens on the wedding day, to the night, after the couple has consummated their nuptials. The poem’s structure and form are extremely complicated and often highly debated, but there are obvious patterns and insight in the poem’s form in connection to time. The most important interpretation of Spenser’s structure is the number of stanzas in direct correlation to the number of hours in a day. Thematically, the continuous change of tone in the poem during the 16th stanza - when the wedding day turns to the wedding night – suggests that, despite Spenser’s immense joy in his new marriage, he has deep fears regarding time, and the possibly damning effects time may have on his wedded bliss.
Structure, a major tool stressed in this poem, tends to rearrange the text in a large-scale way. In "To His Coy Mistress", the reader should focus on the most significant types of structure: stanza and temporal. In other words, time and chronological order assemble the whole meaning of the text throughout the poem. Although the story contains seduction and intimacy, which is portrayed in the title alone, it is merely a cry for two lovers to be together before time runs out. Temporally, the man first explains to the woman how he would love her if he only had the time. The man's sincerity is truly expressed when Marvell writes, "Had we but world enough, and time...I would love you ten years before the flood...nor would I love at lower rate," (373: 1, 7-8, 20). It seems that the man genuinely cares for the lady, or is he secretly seducing her into bed? Taking a look at the second stanza...