In "To His Coy Mistress," Andrew Marvell presents a speaker who appeals to his love through persuasion. The speaker uses an appeal to reason as his main tool, but he also appeals to his mistress through emotion and character to garner a response. Each stanza utilizes a different method of appeal that relies on diction and punctuation. In the first stanza, the speaker appeals to character, in the second emotion, and in the third reason. By using different methods of appeal, the speaker hopes to win his mistress' love.
From the title, one can see that the speaker is a man addressing a female. However, to understand the dramatic situation, one cannot examine the title alone but must scrutinize the entire poem. In the first stanza, the speaker professes his love for his mistress by saying he would love her from time's beginning to time's end (7-10). The speaker's "love should grow vaster than empires"(11-12) and he would adore her for thousands of years (13-18). In the second stanza, the speaker uses images associated with death, and in the third he offers a plan by which the two should live, knowing that one does not live forever. With this information, one identifies the dramatic situation as a man's attempt to woo a fickle lover into spending the rest of her life with him.
Identifying the speaker and the situation is not enough to analyze a poem rhetorically, so one must look at the overall scheme in combination with an in-depth look. The overall scheme of this poem follows an appeal to reason, as proven by the first lines of each of the three stanzas. The poem begins with, "Had we but world enough and time," which sets up an argument in which the speaker proposes what he would do if time permitted. The argument continues in the second stanza with the first word, "But," which indicates a problem with the speaker's initial thoughts. The "But" begins a stanza in which the speaker introduces the universal truth that one does not live forever. However, by starting the final stanza with, "Now therefore," the speaker gives a solution to the problem he raised in the previous stanza. The method by which one introduces an idea, finds a flaw in it, and then finds a solution to the problem follows a chain of logic and appeals to a person's reason.
Analyzing the poem further, one notices that the speaker's ton...
... middle of paper ...
...s what he wants and knows that he does not have eternity, so he wants his mistress to profess her love while she can. To accomplish this goal, the speaker appeals to his mistress' reason. Starting the stanza with "Now therefore" (33) begins his appeal to reason. He uses the thoughts he introduced in the first two stanzas to rationalize his ideas in the third stanza. The speaker wants to live with his mistress while they are still "youthful" (33-34) and passionate "like amorous birds of prey" (38). He wants the two of them to make the most of their lives together (43-46) and refusal of his love does not make sense because their passion will mean nothing in death, a logical reason. By loving each other, they may not stop time and live forever as lovers, but they can make it seem that way by filling their lives with love and happiness.
In conclusion, Marvell's poem incorporates the three rhetorical appeals by creating a situation where a man attempts to persuade his mistress into spending her life with him. Overall, the speaker appeals to reason, but upon closer inspection, the type of appeal changes whenever the tone and persona of the speaker changes.
Both poems represent the despairs and failures of the love they hone for their beloved, with brings a touch of sadness to the poems. From this the reader can feel almost sympathetic to the unrequited lovers, and gain an understanding of the perils and repercussions of love.
Nature, that washed her hands in milk” can be divided structurally into two halves; the first three stanzas constitute the first half, and the last three stanzas make up the second half. Each stanza in the first half corresponds to a stanza in the second half. The first stanza describes the temperament of Nature, who is, above all, creative. This first stanza of the first half corresponds to stanza four, the first stanza in the second half of the poem. Stanza four divulges the nature of Time, who, unlike Nature, is ultimately a destroyer. Time is introduced as the enemy of Nature, and Ralegh points out that not only does Nature “despise” Time, she has good reason for it (l. 19). Time humiliates her: he “rudely gives her love the lie,/Makes Hope a fool, and Sorrow wise” (20-21). The parallel between the temperaments of Nature and Time is continued in stanzas two and five. Stanza two describes the mistress that Nature makes for Love. This mistress, who is made of “snow and silk” instead of earth, has features that are easily broken (3). Each external feature is individually fragile: her eyes are made of light, which cannot even be touched, her breath is as delicate as a violet, and she has “lips of jelly” (7-8). Her demeanor is unreliable, as well; it is made “Only of wantonness and wit” (12). It is no surprise that all of the delicate beauty Nature creates in stanza two is destroyed by Time in stanza five. Time “dims, discolors, and destroys” the creation of Nature, feature by feature (25-26). Stanzas three and six complete the parallel. In the third stanza, the mistress is made, but in her is “a heart of stone” (15). Ralegh points out that her charm o...
Persuasion is a difficult skill to master. One has to take into account the ideologies held by the audience and how those relate to one’s own intentions of changing minds. In order to encourage her troops to fight courageously in defense of England, Queen Elizabeth I utilizes Aristotle’s principles of effective communication that include logos, pathos and ethos in her Speech to the English Troops at Tilbury, Facing the Spanish Armada.
Through his writing, Andrew Marvell uses several strategies to get a woman to sleep with him. In his seduction poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell first presents a problem and then offers his solution to the problem. Marvell sets up a situation in which he and his lover are on opposite sides of the world: “Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side/ Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide/ Of Humber would complain….” (5-7). He has set up a circumstance in which his lover is in India and he is in England; however, this situation can be interpreted as a metaphor for sexual distance. Marvell then goes on to profess his love for this woman, telling her that he will always love her, saying “...I would/ Love you ten years before the flood” (7-8) and saying that his “vegetable love should grow/ Vaster than empires and more slow” (11). This suggests that he is promising permanence in their relationship. In doing so, Marvell is also trying to pacify his lady’s fears of sexual relations. He wants his lover to feel secure and confident about having intercourse with him.
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.
These three metaphors exemplify beauty, but also an end to nature and life. Death is slowly creeping up to him and taking over his life as realized in this comparison of him to nature. The poem shows the need to seize the moment in life before death. The last couplet talks about the topic of love and the power of it. Love lasts through the struggles in life, and the changes of seasons. Love of life keeps us from realizing that an end will eventually come. “This thou perciev’st, which makes thy love more strong.” Encompasses the idea that although everything comes to an end, love still fuels everything within a person. He realizes everything will come to an end and death is inevitable but the passion is still
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.
Marvell uses many images that work as tools to express how he wishes to love his mistress in the first stanza of the poem. From line 1 to 20 Marvell tells his mistress how he wishes he had all the time in the world to love her. In the very first line Marvell brings up the focus of time, “Had we but world enough and time/This coyness, lady, were no crime”. The second line shows the conflict that the author is facing in the poem, her coyness. Marvell continues from these initial lines to tell his mistress what he would do if he had enough time. In lines, three and four Marvell talks of “sitting down” to “think” where they will walk on their “long love’s day”. All of these word...
...ry description of the beloved, his hope for freedom, and fight for power. The beloved, through the speaker’s perception of her, is able to maintain the inverted gender roles and strip the speaker of all power and control resulting in his resentful acceptance of defeat.
Structure, a major tool stressed in this poem, tends to rearrange the text in a large-scale way. In "To His Coy Mistress", the reader should focus on the most significant types of structure: stanza and temporal. In other words, time and chronological order assemble the whole meaning of the text throughout the poem. Although the story contains seduction and intimacy, which is portrayed in the title alone, it is merely a cry for two lovers to be together before time runs out. Temporally, the man first explains to the woman how he would love her if he only had the time. The man's sincerity is truly expressed when Marvell writes, "Had we but world enough, and time...I would love you ten years before the flood...nor would I love at lower rate," (373: 1, 7-8, 20). It seems that the man genuinely cares for the lady, or is he secretly seducing her into bed? Taking a look at the second stanza...
...ally anything to secure his passion and not even her love for the girl would make him shift or even think of shifting his stand, the conversation brings out the author as a very determined, resolute and down to earth person who would stop at nothing to achieve his goal, this is also brought out through first person narration the author uses this style perfectly well to echo out his perception.
Now the speaker is experiencing love, they are “in amongst it” (16) and their view has changed. No longer is love irregular and uneven, now it has steadied and settled into lines. The trick is to work out the direction of these lines and find a pathway through the maze of possibilities. The boat has become a train and the journey to find love is a map, going in all directions. That it is “underground … hidden” (17) implies it is still not easy to find or to follow. Like the stars of stanza three, we have to learn to read the signs. The lack of a “scale” (18) confirms the immeasurability of love and echoes the mathematical theorem this poem hopes to define. Until now, the speaker has focussed on their own concept of love and, as in the previous stanzas, there is a shift in ideas in the second part of the stanza. The focus moves away from the speaker to include everyone and the way love is a part of every facet of life. It takes us to work, it takes us out in the evenings and it takes us home to our beds. These bedrooms are “rumpled” (21), love has taken on a physicality, and it is becoming a more concrete concept for the
He then goes on to persuade her into considering it by describing the passion that they would encounter. He aims to arouse her sexu...