To His Coy Mistress
Introduction
Andrew MarvellÆ
This is an excerpt from the paper...
Andrew MarvellÆs To His Coy Mistress is a poem in ABAB rhyme scheme that is divided into three stanzas for a total of 46 lines. In the first stanza the speaker informs his intended Lady how he would love her if time were no consideration. In the second stanza he warns her that time is fleeting and they are mortal. In the final stanza he maintains they need to have passionate sex, ôlike amorous birds of prey,ö to achieve the only victory of spirit mortals can have over time, i.e. mortality, (Marvell 38). MarvellÆs poem illustrates how women were viewed by men in his era as existing solely for their pleasure, particularly their sexual pleasure. The speaker in MarvellÆs poem is quite crafty in his intentions of having a passionate sexual relationship with hir intended Lady. In the first stanza, the poem is filled with pastoral images and elegiac expression of feelings by the speaker. The speaker tells his Lady that if ôwe had but world enough, and time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime,ö (Marvell, 1-2). First, the speaker assumes intimacy with the Lady, using the word ôweö at the outset of his appeal. Second, he associates her ôcoynessö with a ôcrime,ö since her coyness keeps him from what he most desires. In this way, we see he is dominating by assuming they are a pair and he is trying to make her feel bad she has remained aloof. In his next image, the speaker informs his Lady they when they take a daylong walk sharing
. . .
ver.ö Thus, we see that the speaker also uses fear and domination to attempt to get his Lady to have sexual relations with him.
It is in the third stanza where we most see the sexual motives of the speaker revealed. The poet uses a number of tricks to help the speaker coerce his Lady to engage in sexual relations. In the first stanza he tells her he wishes reality could be different. In the second stanza he tells her that she will end up alone and rotting in the grave if they do not embrace now. In the third stanza, he informs her that sexual passion is the only way that they can achieve some kind of temporary triumph over time. Whereas the speaker offered his Lady romantic and pastoral images in the first stanza, in the third stanza he provides his Lady with passionate images of sexual activity in nature, ôNow let us sport us while we may, / And now, like amorous birds of preyö (Marvell 38).
Up to this point in the poem, the speaker has used images of romance like exotic locations, love that grows ôvaster than empires, and more slowö and he would divert ôan age at least to every partö of his Lady, (Marvell 12; 17). However, by the time we get to the final stanza, the speaker has rejected such images in favor of what
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Approximate Word count = 1643
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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Introduction
Andrew MarvellÆ
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