The poem To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, speaks to his coy mistress about how time is rapidly passing and he wishes her to reciprocate his feelings along with sexual desires. In this poem I feel like Marvell is also talking to the reader and encouraging them to act upon their desires. Ultimately live life to the fullest because time is running out. This poem is all about Carpe Diem with a satirical aspect on love. Essentially Marvell is trying to get this mistress to sleep with him. He wants her to abandon her false modesty and give in to his requests, so that all his problems can be fixed with sex. In lines 1-20 Marvell starts out talking about how ideally, he would spend eternity loving her before having sex with her. Verbs like sit, think, and walk are associated with slowing down but they are used to show they have no time, “We would sit down, and think which way to walk, and pass our long love’s day.”(Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress,” 3-4) So, he would love her, but they don’t have time. There is an aspect of exaggeration via exoticism seen in Ganges vs Humbler. She is by the Ganges with rubies while he is by the Humbler complaining. I think this really hints at the reality of what he is trying to get at because “rubies” represent talismans that are supposed to preserve virginity (Mays, pg 765, footnote 7). There is a controlling aspect of the speaker where he then again states he would wait if there was the time. Throughout the stanza the passion grows and he
Within To His Coy Mistress we see the manipulation in which the speaker uses for his own benefit through the personification of time, ‘Had we but World enough and Time’ expressing, through the personification of ‘Time’, how he would love the potential lover and wouldn’t mind her initial rejection if time was an endless matter. This attempt of flattery, seen
‘To His Coy Mistress’ was written by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). The poem is a metaphysical poem, which was mostly used in the seventeenth century and was classed as a highly intellectual type of poetry and mainly expressed the complexities of love and life; just as this poem is. In brief the poem is about seizing every opportunity in life and not caring about the past or future. In other words ‘seize the day’. The poem also explores the nature of seduction.
In both poems there is the recurrent theme of irony. In “To His Coy Mistress†the poem’s entire first section is ironic in the sense that the speaker knows he isn’t being genuine. The speaker uses words to his advantage and we can take little of what he says to be truthful. In Line 1, “Had we but world enough, and timeâ€Â. The first section of the poem is a series of hyperbolic statements meant to impress and flatter the reader but the
In “To His Coy Mistress” it’s about a guy trying to conquer the love of a mistress. He tells her how much time he will wait for her and his love will endure forever as long as she is with him. Later the tone changes and it’s when carpe diem takes place. He starts to say that they don’t have all the time in the world and that one day all this will end. He points out that beauty one day will end and that she should take the advantage of being with him now that she is young and beautiful and not waiting till she’s old and wrinkly. Also he mentions her virginity and says that she should have sexual intercourse before she dies because if she dies as a virgin it’s the same thing as doing it while being alive because worms will still get inside her and eat all her remains. He wants to be with her, and would’ve waited a long time to get what he wanted, but since they don’t have all the time in the world and one day will die he wants
The speaker uses words such as “louring” (line 2), “deep deceit” (line 8), “grievous” (line 11) and “bale” (line 140. All of these words have sorrowful and despairing meanings to them which gives the whole poem an unhappy tone. The third and fourth lines discus that the speaker cannot even look at the beautiful face, which appears to grow more attractive daily, of the woman he loves. Moreover, the couplet tells the readers that the sorrow in the speaker’s eyes is there because of the pain he has felt due to his faulty relationship. The mouse that “lies aloof for fear of more mishap” (line 7) shows the misery felt by the speaker by using the words “aloof” and “mishap”. “Aloof” means to be stand-offish or reserved, which the speaker is because if he gets too close, he will be hurt again. “Mishap” means disaster or unfortune which altogether sounds miserable. Had the speaker used diction that was lighter or less depressed, the reader truly would not understand the misery the speaker has went through. The miserable diction depicts the deep wounds the speaker received from his love, shedding light to how much he really loved her and how bad she really hurt
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 title "To His Coy Mistress" implies a certain falseness as the word coy is almost an insincere form of modest, it indicates that this mistress were indeed not coy rather falsely coy in order to gain assurance of his feelings towards her for her own validation. The first line "Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness lady were no crime." introduces the theme of time and lack of a crucial theme in the poem, the lover also accuses this coyness of being criminal by saying "HAD we but world enough and time, this coyness lady were no crime" implying that they do not have time therefore this coyness is a crime, this is clever use of irony which is also a constant theme throughout the poem. Marvell also uses soft alliteration such as "long loves" to lull the reader into believing his intentions honourable, he uses flattery all throughout the first section of the poem though he changes his tactics throughout the poem. The lover tries to create the image of himself as a committed patient lover with promises of waiting for her if she should travel to the "Indian Ganges" without complaint and
‘To His Coy Mistress’ Is a love poem by Andrew Marvel. The poem is ‘carpe diem’ which translates to seize the day, this means the poem does not take its time its blunt and straight to the point. The poem contains a thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the main argument points of the poem. The poem is split into three stanza’s which are used to persuade the woman to give up her virginity before her beauty dies. It is a conventional poem for its time in the 17th century.
The speaker in this poem seems frustrated; he delicately tries to inform his coy mistress that their death is near, and they still have not had sexual intercourse. In lines 17-33 the poem seems to lose the exaggeration sense and suddenly becomes serious. He (the speaker) reinsures his coy mistress that ³you deserve this state?(state of praise and high acknowledgment), ³But at my back I always hear, Time¹s winged chariot hurrying near? Andrew Marvell uses and interesting image in line 22 (the line mentioned above) when suggesting to his coy mistress that death is near. He substitutes the word ³death?for a more gentle, delicate term of ³Time¹s winged chariot? This term was probably used to prevent from frightening such a coy mistress. Marvell continues to involve the reader¹s imagination through unimaginable images. What do ³Deserts of vast eternity?look like? In fact, Marvell probably used such abstract images to suggest to his coy mistress that their future is indeterminable, and ³Thy beauty shall no more be found? Perhaps, beauty is what the coy mistress is so concerned with and the speaker in this case is trying to frighten her to have sex with him quicker. He continues to use intense imagery when describing to his coy mistress that even after death the ³worms shall try That long preserved virginity? The speaker now abstractly describes that holding on to your virginity for
Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." The Hudson Book of Poetry: 150 Poems worth Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 17-18.
attention of this mistress so that he can scare her and rush her into making a
Grief is keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; and sharp sorrow. Grief is something that can take a massive toll on one’s mental health and actions. It can change a person’s thinking and what they do. In “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, grief is shown in many ways but with each person who is grieving they begin to act differently than they normally would.
His summary of the sun describes being a virgin to life and marriage. His words consist of characteristics that he propose should be treasured, protected, and useful. Herrick's poem encourages the carpe diem style of other English poets as well and brought it to a better extent. For instance, Andrew Marvell's English poetry of, "To His Coy Mistress", sets aside more of a moral consideration of carpe diem. He portrays a personal situation addressing to one woman he desires and tries to persuade her into loving him. His tone suggests her temperament to make love, despite of her own
The dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess” was penned down by Robert Browning. In this poem, the narrator is the Duke of Ferrara, and the listener is the count’s agent, through whom the Duke is arranging the proposed marriage to a second duchess. The poem is ironical and reveals its rhetorical sense, gradually. In the later part of the poem, the Duke claims that he does not have a skill in speech, but his monologue is a masterpiece of subtle rhetoric. While supposedly entertaining the listener by showing his wife’s portrait, he clearly reveals his character. Through his formalized tone of rhyme, he reveals his egoistic and jealous attitude.
The use of connotative words in this piece is the foundation of this poem and it provides an idea of what this poem is going to be about. In the first stanza he describes the woman as “lovely in her bones,” showing that her beauty is more than skin deep comparing her virtues to a goddess of “only gods should speak.” In the second stanza, the reader can see and feel the love between the two people. The woman taught him how to "Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand," showing that she was the teacher in the relationship and taught him things he thought he never needed to know. The speaker shows how when they are together, she was “the sickle” and he was “the rake” showing that this woman taught him what love is.