To his coy mistress sparknotes analysis. To His Coy Mistress Poem Summary And Line By Line Analysis By Andrew Marvell In English • English Summary 2022-12-08
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"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem written by Andrew Marvell in the seventeenth century. It is a seduction poem in which the speaker attempts to persuade his mistress to sleep with him. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter and is structured in three stanzas, each of which presents a different argument for why the mistress should succumb to the speaker's advances.
In the first stanza, the speaker begins by telling his mistress that if they had all the time in the world, he would take the time to court her properly, praising her beauty and virtues at length. He says that he would "love" her "ten years before the Flood" and "you should, if you please, refuse / Till the conversion of the Jews." This reflects the speaker's belief that time is on his side and that he can afford to be patient and courteous in his pursuit of the mistress.
In the second stanza, however, the speaker's tone shifts as he realizes that time is not, in fact, on their side. He points out that they are both "decay'd" and that death is "not far" off. He argues that they should therefore make the most of their youth and the limited time they have left, saying that "the grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace." The speaker's tone becomes more urgent as he urges the mistress to seize the moment and give in to his desires.
In the final stanza, the speaker makes his most forceful argument, urging the mistress to "now defy / Time's scythe and mower." He tells her that if they do not act now, they will regret it when they are old and no longer able to enjoy physical pleasure. He compares their youth and beauty to "unravish'd bride of quietness," implying that they are wasting their potential by not embracing physical love.
Overall, "To His Coy Mistress" is a clever and persuasive poem that uses a variety of rhetorical devices to try and convince the mistress to sleep with the speaker. The speaker's arguments become increasingly urgent as he realizes that time is running out, and he uses a range of vivid imagery and rhetorical devices to try and persuade the mistress to give in to his desires. Despite its explicit themes, the poem remains a classic of English literature, and its enduring appeal can be attributed to its wit, elegance, and rhetorical power.
To His Coy Mistress Essay
They should submit to their desires immediately, he explains, because death will steal away her beauty and his admiration and lust. Instead of making a more general claim about the passage of time, the speaker specifically refers to his own experience here, suggesting that he may have a personal preoccupation with his own eventual death. Come to think of it, we probably do, too. See eNotes Ad-Free Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. Such exaggeration is used to create a contrast with the conventional way of thinking about time and space. He would imagine the condition if they had a limitless life.
Metaphysical poets often use highly metaphorical diction and striking, unconventional comparisons and images to carry their argument, and this is certainly true of Marvell in this poem. He compares his love with vegetable because his love grows slowly and organically, without any external force. Perhaps because of the nature of the time in which he lived, Marvell is very conscious of the limited likes that people had — he is urging his mistress to enjoy herself whilst she has time and is still young. He proceeds to detail the lavish ways he would slowly court her if he could. The poet says that his beloved really deserved the attention, and he would not think of granting her anything less than that. They would get plenty of time to think about which way they needed to walk. We can do nothing to defeat time.
She also says that when you want to get your message across, you should use language that is shared- or understood by all in the conversation. Since he opens the poem by saying there is not "world enough and time" for a courtship as leisurely as she might desire, it is possible to read his words as an ambivalent mix of sincerity and sarcasm. He will concentrate on her heart at the very end. In this case, the speaker is trying to convince his mistress to spend time with him, and he does so by using exaggeration and irony. Stanza 2 However, the problem is that the poet always hears the winged chariot of Time coming speeding behind him, as though chasing him. Lines 38—40 And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. By providing a female perspective, if even it is from a different author, shows how women were treated with a different mindset and with even the possibility of appearing helpless.
There are arguments and counter-arguments in this poem, as well as a conclusion. He starts by telling her how he would spend eternity praising her beauty if he could, but since they only have a limited time on this earth, he says that they should seize the moment and enjoy each other now. The poet points out to his lady love that the grave is a nice place to have a certain degree of privacy, but it is definitely not a suitable place for lovers to get united. I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. In the poem overall, Marvell uses many of the accepted features of persuasive writing. Marvell maintains this rhyme scheme throughout the entire poem, with no deviations.
Poet Andrew Marvell an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman also named Andrew Marvell. Despite being separated by so much space, the speaker implies that the lovers would remain connected by the vitality of these flowing bodies of water. The speaker now suggests that the two lovers should be like passionate amorous preying birds like eagle, hawk etc. At that time, the bounds and restraints of the Catholic ideals were beginning to fall apart. The speaker has no reason to believe that the future will be any less fruitful than the present.
The speaker addresses to his mistress and argues about the need to make love without wasting time. He tells her that life is short, but death is forever. It is a response to an implied argument from the mistress that she would prefer a slower courtship, defining the desirability of waiting to having "world enough and time. . In our destined tomb, our beauty will slowly but surely turn into dust.
Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. Analysis Dramatic Monologue "To His Coy Mistress" is a dramatic monologue, a work in which a poem or speech is presented in the voice of a fictional person, revealing aspects of their character. In "To His Coy Mistress" the speaker is attempting to convince his mistress to "sport" with him. This kind of poetry was developed mainly by John Donne in the 1590s and early 1600s. Instead of pushing equality for men and being passionate about the subject, she maintains a distant relationship with the topic at hand; she does not want her writings to seem offensive or intense.
The speaker is not necessarily meant to be the poet himself, nor are his statements necessarily intended to be taken completely at face value. So, he wants to do it before death. Most likely written in the 1650s in the midst of the English Interregnum, the poem was not published until the 1680s, after Marvell's death. Half-rhyme is an imperfect rhyme in which the final consonants of stressed syllables match, but the vowel sounds do not agree. Whenever we have sex, we pursue time, instead of time pursuing us. Eliot and others have offered multiple interpretations of the fallacy, ranging from cynical manipulation on the part of the speaker to genuine error on the speaker's part to possibly a subtle compliment to a lady expected to be smart enough to spot the error. From thereon, the speaker wished that if he and his lady had enough time, he would take the normal approach to praise and court her.
He opines that if they had plenty of time and space in this world to live, then her shyness would not be considered a crime. Also Read: Welcome to My Blog! In these first lines, there are ten couplets, and mimics a traditional format — in this case, the poem itself, although written in the form of a love poem, does not aspire to such lofty heights; the gentleman wishes only for his lady to give in to his sexual advances, and so the use of the traditional love The man begins by explaining, to his lady, how he would go about worshipping her if he had the time. The poet says calls upon his lady-love to unite with him while they enjoy the pleasures of sex, without bothering about the obstacles in their life. Hope both take different tones and methods to addressing the problem of the gentlemen, they are both similar and yet, very different in some aspects. The message the conclusion of this essay offers is women should not have to conform to talk the way men do in order to be heard and respected.
