Style and Tone in Two Poems: “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell and “The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy

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

Marvell, Andrew. "To His Coy Mistress." The Hudson Book of Poetry: 150 Poems worth Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 17-18.

Biblical references are used as he refers to Noah’s arc and ‘conversion of the Jews’ which is the end of the world. Marvell also uses euphemism ’vegetable love will grow’ where he’s saying he is getting over excited. From line 23 to line 18 the man is trying to persuade her by using hyperbole, flattery and exaggeration. On line 20 the man is telling the women how beautiful she is and how much he loves her. Generally in the first section the man doesn’t think much of the woman respect wise because he’s trying everything possible to get her.

To his Coy Mistress, I would say they are all tragic poems as The Lady

Prompt: Read the following two poems very carefully, noting that the second includes an allusion to the first. Then write a well-organized essay in which you discuss their similarities and differences. In your essay, be sure to consider both theme and style.

This is displayed even in the first line “She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.” The clothes are not only showing the change of appearance, but are used as a symbol for showing the small and large sacrifices that are made when having children. Because of her clothes you are able to identify the clear loss in vanity and pride that she has in herself. Not only does this line indicate this but when read in conjunction with the line “From his neat head unquestionably rises” it shows the juxtaposition of the two different lives of two ex-lovers. “His neat head” suggests that his well put together, acting as a symbol for who he is appearance wise. When looking at the adjectives that describe the women it clearly shows that both their lives are juxtaposing against one

Most of the poem is sweet, but also tells them to hurry and enjoy life right now before they run out of time. Also that their bodies are energized now and later on they won’t be able to do what they would do when they were younger. In comparison to “To His Coy Mistress” the author tells them to get married also because they have something that time will sooner, or later take away and that would be sad that they didn’t get to enjoy it just because they wanted to

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: there can be many different perspectives seen in a poem. One individual could read a poem as depressing and another can perceive it as a new beginning. One’s views rests on individual perspectives. For example, Edgar Allen Poe’s writing is dark and controversial. In my essay I will argue that Poe was not in his right mind and he was driven mad with evidence throughout his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”.

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 time”. The first section of the poem is a series of hyperbolic statements meant to impress and flatter the reader but the

The speakers in “The Ruined Maid” are two women in the working class. The first is a simple country worker that has run into a lavishly changed version of her former farm working friend. The extravagantly dressed woman, ‘Melia, is quite different than our simple country woman remembers. Throughout the poem the manual laborer repeatedly exclaims at the difference in her appearance, dress, speech and actions. In reply to each of the country woman’s remarks ‘Melia tells her that is the result when one is “ruined” (4).

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

In this compare and contrast essay I will compare four poems in detail and mention two in the passing to find similarities and differences. The poems and sonnets I have chosen to compare are ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning and Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

In the first stage of the poem he uses time, as he flatters the Coy

happens to one of them or if one of them dies. He says he wants them

‘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.