Love or Lust? Poets are famous for their sweet love poems, or better yet lust poems. Poetry has a way of making even the worst stories sound lovely. The way the words roll off your tongue can fool even the smartest off readers. The hidden meanings are buried within the literary devices that poets use. In Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” there are plenty of hidden messages buried in the literary devices, but before we start digging in the lines of the poem let us think about what is going on in the poem to be able to fully understand the meaning.
The poem is about a man trying to sway a woman into having a sexual relationship with him. The poet also does not give the reader a specific time in history that the poem is taking
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The “conversion of the Jews” is a hyperbole that reflects his endless live for his mistress. He uses these allusions to the biblical times to express his feelings to his mistress. The speaker uses the idea of time to describe how much time she deserves to be adored by saying: An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and thy forehead gaze,
Two hundred years for each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart. (Marvell 13-18).
He uses a hyperbole here because he knows that it is not possible for a person to live for thousands of years. After telling his mistress that if time was endless he would use all of it to adore her he converts the pleading into an expression of how time is not endless and how their time will eventually run out. Then at the end of his pleading he asks to live in the moment and make me best of what time they have left by sleeping together. Now, let us dig deeper into the poem by uncovering the tone of the poem, better yet the tones.
In “To His Coy Mistress” the tone seems to change. In the beginning the tone is romantic with a hint of sarcasm behind it. The speaker is describing how long he will love this woman by describing through thousands of years. Even though he knows that they will not have thousands of years, this is where the sarcasm comes into play. In the second part of the poem the speaker’s tone turns into a rushed tone. The speaker
Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." The Hudson Book of Poetry: 150 Poems worth Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 17-18.
fate of the lovers will be, as well as the state of his own feelings
‘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.
Comparing Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress and Robert Herrick’s To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
The speaker in Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'; is a man who is addressing a silent listener, who happens to be his mistress. In this dramatic monologue the speaker tries to explain his feelings to his mistress. The speaker uses many allusions to empires and other objects, events and ideas that are not directly related to his feelings, in order to explain how he feels. He uses these allusions to exaggerate his feelings in order to clearly show them. After reading over the poem once, you get a sense of what the speaker is feeling. Upon further analysis of the poem you realize that the allusions used in the poem, are in fact, what makes this poem so interesting.
He uses this in the poem to give it rhythm to engage the reader and
The Seduction Eileen McAuley To His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell Eileen McAuley’s The Seduction is set against the bleak surroundings of Merseyside. ‘The Seduction’ Eileen McAuley ‘To His Coy Mistress’ Andrew Marvell Eileen McAuley’s ‘The Seduction’ is set against the bleak surroundings of Merseyside. The purpose of the story is to show a teenage girl’s predicament after getting drunk at a party. The poet contrasts the girl’s ideas of love and sex with reality.
Persuade the Mistress In the poem “To His Coy Mistress”, the speaker uses allusion, metaphor and hyperbole to embellish the theme. The speaker employs allusion when he talks about the flood, “I would love you ten years before the flood”. The speakers adds that “Love should grow vaster than empires”. He utilize a metaphor to show his love for the Mistress.
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
A few groups were formed in Professor Joan Henry’s composition 2 class, and each group was given a different poem to read and write about. One group in particular was given To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell. Playful, serious and passionate are a few tones that are given to describe the speaker’s state of mind.
has lots of tone. Tone is the attitude of a poem but not only just the attitude but also the
attention of this mistress so that he can scare her and rush her into making a
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
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.
In the first stage of the poem he uses time, as he flatters the Coy