Love in "To His Coy Mistress", "Shall I Compare Thee," "Let Me Not," and "The Flea"
The four poems I am going to be comparing are, “To His Coy Mistress,”
“Shall I Compare Thee,” “Let Me Not,” and “The Flea.” All four of
these poems are based on the subject matter of love. The four poems
have a lot in common but each poem touches a different aspect of love.
Two of the poems, “Shall I Compare Thee”, and “Let Me Not”, are
sonnets and both were written by Shakespeare. “To His Coy Mistress” is
written by Andrew Marvell and “The Flea” was written by John Donne.
All four of the poems have three parts to them each posing a different
argument. I will be analysing and comparing the four poems in the
purpose of the poem, the nature of love, the effect of outside
influences on their love, the form of the poem and the techniques the
poets use convincingly.
The main purpose of ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is to persuade Marvell’s
mistress to consummate their relationship together, this is also the
same purpose of ‘The Flea’. The other purposes are to brag about how
good he is at writing; this is shown in his arrogant style of writing.
It is for seduction, a satire of legal persuasive speech and the final
purpose is a reminder of mortality, and they should seize the day. It
also says that the woman is very shy and that if they had all the
world but enough time so being shy is not a crime, this is shown in
the opening lines, “Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness,
Lady, were no crime.” Phrases such as, “amorous birds of prey,” and
“tear our pleasures” show that they consummate their relationship.
“Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near”, is a reminder that death will
soon dawn upon then and so there is more reason ...
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...hat he is a fantastic
writer.
All four of the poems are very persuasive and are written effectively
by the poets’ techniques. ‘Shall I Compare Thee’ and ‘Let Me Not’ are
both romantic and flatter the lady Shakespeare is writing for. Both
the sonnets make Shakespeare’s loved one seem extremely special and
Shakespeare does it convincingly. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is humorous in
places and maintains the politeness throughout the poem. ‘To His Coy
Mistress’ is also very persuasive and Marvell convinces his beloved to
consummate their relationship. ‘The Flea’ is effective because a flea
is so insignificant but the way the poet describes it makes it seem so
important. All of the poems are very similar and definitely have many
similarities between them, the main one is obviously love but they all
talk about death being the main outside influence on their love.
One of the poems I have chosen is 'One Flesh'. It is written in the
The poem is an example of a carpe diem poem - 'carpe diem' is Latin
Chaucer's Parody To Courtly Love After the Knight tells his story, the Miller insists very rudely to tell his tale. Chaucer uses the aspect of courtly love which is found in the Knights tale and makes a parody of it; He uses the Miller?s character to mock the Knights idea of courtly love. Miller describes the heroine of his story Alison, as a wife of an older man and also an infidel. She?s compared to a ? wezele?
is telling her to do all the time. This is shown by the way he has
trying to portray a message to us: It is not what is on the outside
She is talking about a man that does not do anything for her, but always wants her to take
And in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks." (Lines 7-8) expresses his mistress' dire need for a breath mint. These comparisons give one a vivid description of his mistress' lacking beauty, and sets one up for the couplet at the end of... ... middle of paper ... ... manner, making them focus primarily on the lacking, yet lustful, physical attributes of his mistress.
I know that there is a unique difference between love and lust. In the Andrew Marvell poem “To His Coy Mistress,” I would argue over the issue of love versus lust. In this poem, we are introduced to a man who is infatuated with a young woman and wants to become intimate with her. He tries to pursue this young woman, but the woman is playfully hesitant. The man is trying to explain to the young woman if she keeps being resistant to him, they would never get a chance become intimate. Could it be that the man really does have true love for the young woman? Or is that he is just lusting for her gentle touch?
Lover A Ballad was written as a reply to the poem To His Coy Mistress.
Love in To His Coy Mistress and The Flea Both 'To His Coy Mistress', by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) and 'The Flea', by John Donne (1572-1631) present different attitudes to love. Both are also structured very differently and occasionally use contrasting imagery. Each poem was written in the 17th century, just after the Renaissance. The poets were metaphysical poets. Although the 'metaphysic' was originally a derogatory term, metaphysical poetry used intellectual and theological concepts in an ingenious way.
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.
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).
Donne uses the flea throughout his poem as an essential link between sexual conquest and union. The flea transcends its initial existence as an irritating bug and become an existence essential to their union. It is through this representation of the flea, which allows Donne to draw the reader into an argument of carnal desire trumping propriety. The flea is essential to this argument, without which there is nothing grounding the obvious leaps of logic made by the speaker and Donne. The conceit is a popular literary device Donne uses in his poetry, and in this particular case he uses it masterfully throughout the entire poem to create a love poem that straddles the line between poetry and rhetoric.
Donne develops this idea through the symbolism of the flea and the twisted imagery of the Trinity. He uses slant rhyme to depict the man’s slanted argument and stretched logic, which highlights the man’s crooked idea of what physical love is. Donne’s use of slant rhyme and hyperbole mock other poems that praise women with flowery language in an attempt to charm them into bed. In contrast, the speaker here uses crude arguments meant to woo this woman to sex with him. Renaissance carpe diem poems speak about enjoying physical love within one’s short-lived youth.
In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker develops similarities between the fleabite and lovemaking. The first two lines of the poem, “Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that, which thou deny’st me, is;” I interpreted to mean that the woman doesn’t deny the flea access to her body, yet she denies the advancements of the speaker. Next the speaker uses conceit to illustrate the similarities between their lovemaking and the mingling of their blood within the flea. “Me is sucked first, and now sucks the, An in this flea our two bloods mingled be.” The speaker uses this argument to show the woman that the same physical exchange, which t...