Love in To His Coy Mistress and Remember

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Love in To His Coy Mistress and Remember On first outlook it would that To His Coy Mistress and Remember both share the topic of love. They seem to be of direct relevance to each other, whereas upon closer inspection, To His Coy Mistress does not attempt to express any emotion at all. Instead, THCM is ultimately physical and portrays a man’s desperation and lust, The persona of THCM has written this poem as a persuasion technique, with the addressee being his current girlfriend while the speaker from Remember appears to be leaving a message to her soul-mate. The two poems both mention a lot about time, although in different tenses. THCM makes an abundance of references of the present tense such as “…Now, therefore, while the youthful hue…” and “Now let us sport us while we may”, whilst Remember talks about the future and what is yet to come. i.e. “You tell me of our future that you planned”. By talking about the future as opposed to the present, judgement of alignment is possible. “Remember me when I am gone away”. This is the opening line to the poem Remember. Although this line is very imperative, along with “…you should…” its overall message is good-willed and genuine. THCM however takes on more of a negative view attempting to con a woman into having sexual intercourse with him, and stating the consequences if she doesn’t for example lines 31 and 32: “The grave’s a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace”, meaning that she will die a virgin and unloved if she fails to attend to his physical urges. The alignment massively changes the language used. Remember is very euphemistic. For example “…when I a... ... middle of paper ... ...one side of the situation. In Remember the addressee is mute because he is listening and taking advice whereas in THCM the addressee is mute as she is being coy or unwilling. THCM uses a lot of hyperbole in the first section and is almost making fun of the situation. He makes his exaggerations very obvious to cement the fact that they should have sexual intercourse as soon as possible, for example: “An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest.” The use of imperative, commanding sentences is Rosetti’s way of cementing her message into the addressee’s mind. The proof of this is that she uses the phrase “Remember me” a total of 3 times during the poem. The two poems share a few similarities, but many differences.

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