In the poem “To His Coy Mistress”, the speaker is trying to seduce his wife. In the assumption the mistress is his wife; she is being bashful towards losing her virginity. The speaker, which is the mistress’s husband, develops a carefully constructed argument where the speaker seeks to persuade his lady to surrender her virginity to him. In the poem “To His Coy Mistress”, the speaker says, “Had we but world enough, and time…I would love you ten years before the Flood, and you should if you please refuse till the conversion of the Jews” (lines 1 and 7-10). The speaker is stating if they had all the time in the world, they would have no need to rush their love making. With all the time they would want he would love her from the very beginning until the very end. The speaker refers to the “Flood” (line 8) as the flood of Noah’s Arc in the Bible, which indicates he would love her from the beginning of time. Next, the speaker says, “Till the conversion of the Jews” (line 10), which would indicate the end of time. In the Bible, it is believed that when Christ comes back for his people the Jews will convert to Christianity. Therefore when Christ returns, that will be the end times. In conclusion, the speaker is saying if they had time from the beginning to the very end, his mistress is welcome to continue being shy. In contrary, the speaker and his coy mistress do not have that kind of time to spare, which is the reason he is trying to convince his wife to surrender her virginity. The speaker continues to argue that time is not in favor of his mistress’s nervousness or his age. For instance, he says, “But at my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (lines 21 and 22). In other words, he is saying his time is running out quickly. There can be many reasons why his time is running short, but according to the poem there is one reason he could be in a rush to make love with his mistress. The speaker says, “And yonder all before us lie deserts of vast eternity” (lines 23 and 24). “Deserts of vast eternity” (line 24) expresses his concern of not being able to have children, which would make him sterile. As men age, their sperm count becomes less and less, which makes conceiving a child nearly impossible.
Olds states, “When I love you now,/I like to think I am giving my love/directly to that boy in the fiery room,/as if it could reach him in time.” This statement brings into light how much the speaker’s father was unloved and emotionally abused by the grandfather. Ultimately, the speaker hopes that sending her love through the this poem will somehow reach the innocent boy who was sitting in the fiery room to make up for the love that was not given by the grandfather. The words “in time” offer two meanings, one being the literal meaning, she hopes that the love she is sending will reach him in time, and the other being the moral meaning: which is how the speaker tries to love her father before he became her
Time is equated with constant decay throughout the entire poem, which is primarily shown in the speaker’s comparison of the concept of eternity to a desert. Love, and other concepts felt in life, are subject to this negative force of deconstruction over time, and are vanquished in death; this idea can be seen in the witty commentary at the end of the second stanza, “the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace”
Comparing Tone in To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and To His Coy Mistress
The speaker also manipulates time to bring out his or her message. Lines 3, 8, 11, 21, 34, and 36 all contain some order of either “spring summer autumn winter” (3), as in lines 11 and 34, or “sun moon stars rain” (8), as in lines 11, 21, and 36. As the order of these seasons changes, it indicates the passage of time. This manipulation of time draws attention away from these lines and towards the lines with deeper meaning hidden within. However, there is another form of time: the progression of life. The speaker comments on the growth of children in terms of their maturity levels and how as they get older, children tend to forget their childish whims and fancies and move on. He or she says that they “guessed (but only a few / and down they forgot as up they grew” (9-10). He or she then goes on to say that “no one loved [anyone] more by more” (12), hinting at a relationship in development, foreshadowing a possible marriage.
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.
...ld of art and literature. Since the "marriage", the parent generation, is already dead or dying, therefore every new creation is now also afflicted with disease and condemned to death. Consequently this means the end of hope for a renewal of society, but since the stanza begins with the word "how", this is also a voice of accusation and a demand for change.
Throughout his life... was a man self-haunted, unable to escape from his own drama, unable to find any window that would not give him back the image of himself. Even the mistress of his most passionate love-verses, who must (one supposes) have been a real person, remains for him a mere abstraction of sex: a thing given. He does not see her --does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her; not of love, but of himself loving.
"What say you? can you love the gentleman? This night you shall behold him at our feast; Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face, And find delight writ there with beauty's pen; Examine every married lineament, And see how one another lends content; And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies Find written in the margent of his eyes. This precious book of love, this unbound lover, To beautify him, only lacks a cover: The fish lives in the sea; and 'tis much pride For fair without the fair within to hide: That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story; So shall you share all that he doth possess, By having him, maki...
Response to His Coy Mistress Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" is the charming depiction of a man who has seemingly been working very hard at seducing his mistress. Owing to Marvell's use of the word "coy," we have a clear picture of the kind of woman his mistress is. She has been encouraging his advances to a certain point, but then when he gets too close, she backs off, and resists those same advances. Evidently, this has been going on for quite some time, as Marvell now feels it necessary to broach the topic in this poem. He begins in the first stanza by gently explaining that his mistress's coyness would not be a "crime" if there were "world enough, and time…" (l.2).
During the 17th century, certain poets wrote poems with the specific purpose of persuading a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. Three of these seduction poems utilize several strategies to do this: Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” and “The Flea.” Some of the reasoning used by both poets is similar to the reasoning used today by men to convince women to have sexual intercourse with them. These gimmicks vary from poem to poem but coincide with modern day rationalization. The tactics used in 17th century seduction poems are relevant and similar to the seduction tactics used in the 21st century.
The. Maybe it is a genuine love poem to his mistress, sort of. offer of a way of life. Both concepts, though, underline the point. simplistic romanticism of the poem.
At the start, the first stanza of the poem is full of flattery. This is the appeal to pathos. The speaker is using the mistress's emotions and vanity to gain her attention. By complimenting her on her beauty and the kind of love she deserves, he's getting her attention. In this first stanza, the speaker claims to agree with the mistress - he says he knows waiting for love provides the best relationships. It feels quasi-Rogerian, as the man is giving credit to the woman's claim, he's trying to see her point of view, he's seemingly compliant. He appears to know what she wants and how she should be loved. This is the appeal to ethos. The speaker seems to understand how relationships work, how much time they can take, and the effort that should be put forth. The woman, if only reading stanza one, would think her and the speaker are in total agreement.
being coy or unwilling to listen. THCM uses a lot of hyperbole in the first section and is almost making fun of the situation, he said. He makes his exaggerations very obvious to cement the fact that they should have sexual intercourse as soon as possible, for example: “A 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.”
In the case of To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvall, a not-so-gentle gentleman is trying to woo a “coy” young lady with claims of love. This poem is strewn with hyperbole to the point that it becomes exactly the opposite of love. When there is such over exaggerated praise, it starts to lose the real meaning of the message. If you take a look at lines 13-18, you can see the obvious amplification:
And in some perfumes is there more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks." (Lines 7-8) expresses his mistress' dire need for a breath mint. These comparisons give one a vivid description of his mistress' lacking beauty, and sets one up for the couplet at the end of... ... middle of paper ... ... manner, making them focus primarily on the lacking, yet lustful, physical attributes of his mistress.