What Line in to His Coy Mistress Is the Speaker Trying to Be Funny

Andrew has a keen involvement in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject area. His poems are published online and in print.

Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell And A Summary of To His Coy Mistress

To His Coy Mistress is Andrew Marvell's best known poem. It focuses on the lustful desires of a man attempting to entice a female virgin, the mistress, into sexual intimacy.

• The poem is a bout de force, and has come up to be known every bit a seduction verse form or carpe diem (seize or pluck the day) poem.
• Wit, innuendo and metaphor are all employed in what is a syllogism - a logical argument - that tin be summed up in a short phrase: Life is too short, let's get information technology on before you and I decay.

It was offset published in 1681, in Miscellaneous Poems, iii years afterward the death of the author.

Marvell is known today equally ane of the metaphysical poets (alongside such names as John Donne, Henry Vaughan, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw) considering he wrote on subjects such as human being's place in the universe, existence, love and religion.

To His Coy Mistress is a clever, well structured verse form, a dramatic monologue in result, the speaker progressing logically through the stages of persuasion in an effort to turn the lady's head and heart.

He wants to deflower her before it's too late. Basically his argument goes like this:

• If they had all the time in the world at their disposal then everything would exist fine and he needn't have to press her for a sexual liaison. But, hey, has she noted that there's no time to lose?
• Earlier them is eternity, a vast desert where they'll both plough to dust and ashes in the grave. Dazzler will die. Not a very pleasant prospect. Lust turns to disgust. And Time flies.
• Permit's devour time before it devours u.s.. The instinct drives birds of casualty, why not united states; permit'south strike while the iron's hot, create a ball of passion and take on the sunday.

As you can run into, the argument builds upwardly through the three sections of the verse form, starting off with the speaker's assertion that the lady's coyness (shyness, modesty) wouldn't be accounted a moral law-breaking if they had all the world in which to spend time together.

At that place then follows a series of potential scenarios laid out by the speaker to illustrate exactly what he means. There is a relaxed tone to these lines, spiced with hyperbole and innuendo.

She, being of Indian descent maybe, could become walking by the river Ganges in search of rubies (in fable the river originates from a huge jujube tree near a hermitage where stands some stairs fabricated of rubies and corals).

Likewise, he, being from Hull in Due east Yorkshire, England, could get walking by the tidal river Humber. Only he wouldn't be looking for precious stones, he'd be complaining - mayhap unhappy with the distance between him and his lady.

And there would also be fourth dimension, thousands of years, for him to adore her concrete beauty, her eyes, her breasts and so on.

Keeping regular rhyme and rhythm throughout, the poem culminates in what many recollect is an alchemical climax of sorts, a coming together of male person and female person elements, with the emphasis on a passionate fusion, strong enough to affect even the sun.

• In conclusion, To His Coy Mistress explores the realm of man mortality, approaching the seriousness of this finite reality with humor, logic and ironic reflection. Why let time become the upper manus when being pro-active could bring fulfilment?

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To His Coy Mistress

Assay of To His Coy Mistress

To His Coy Mistress has been rightly lauded as a small masterpiece of a verse form, primarily because it packs so much into a relatively small-scale space. It manages to deport along on simple rhyming couplets the complex passions of a male speaker, hungry for sexual liason with a lady, before all devouring time swallows them up.

Lines one - 20

The statement begins with an appeal to the coy mistress based on the idea that, if fourth dimension and infinite were limitless, they could spend their days in leisure, she by the exotic Ganges river for instance, he by the ebb and flow of the Humber.

Sex needn't be a priority in this fantasy world. The speaker's ironic tone even allows for his love of the lady a decade before the one-time testament flood, and she could say no to his advances upwardly to the fourth dimension when the Jews convert to Christianity - which would never ever happen of course.

• This natural language-in-cheek allusion to religious notions of the end of the world, plus the underlying urges for physical intimacy, have been too much for sure Christian groups and others in more mod times. They would like the poem to be banned from being taught in schoolhouse, claiming that information technology would negatively influence their children and that it condones predatory male behaviour.

Years he would spend growing his honey, like a vegetable grows slowly, rooted and stiff, in the earth. And he could bide his time admiring her physical beauty - her eyes, brow, breasts and other parts.

This imaginary scenario is a clever and slightly ludicrous prepare. He is clearly in awe of her body and totally wants her heart but because she refuses to comply he introduces this thought of a timeless, dizzying love. Fourth dimension becomes a metaphor for love only is little more than than a limitless resources.

Lines 21 - 32

But all of the previous means naught because the reality is that the clock is ticking louder and louder. Fourth dimension is flying. And then i 24-hour interval you detect ten years take got behind you, no one told you when to run, you lot missed the starting gun. Don't look over your shoulder. Don't look ahead either because there is a vast desert - eternity.

The speaker's tone starts to change, becoming more than serious. The future isn't that bright - her dazzler will be lost in the sands of time - even worse, when she's dead and cached only the worms volition feel what he presently longs for. What a challenging image.

And there are some who think quaint honour is an obscure reference to the female private parts (quaint was used equally a noun in pre-Elizabethan times). He too volition perish, consumed by his own passion, nothing but a pile of ash.

The last couplet of this section is perhaps the about quoted and puts a seal on the message: Let's make love while we're however alive.

Lines 33 - 46

The final function of this poem concentrates on the rational summing up of what's gone before. Annotation the first 2 words: Now therefore,..it'due south as if the speaker is saying, Look I've given you 2 quite valid reasons for you to succumb, consequently this final effort volition brand yous see sense.

Never has an adverb carried and so much weight.

And the speaker has conspicuously thrown out the fantasies and wishes of the previous scenes. Gone are infinite and time and death, in their identify is the all-consuming present. Just look at the apply of the word now (3 times in lines 33-38), suggesting that the speaker cannot wait a second longer for his postponed fulfilment.

The emphasis is on the physical - peel, sport, roll and tear - the language being tinged with aggression and forceful energy.

• Line 34 is controversial every bit many later versions modify the word glew for dew whereas in the original it is definitely glew. So the poet used this word to further the image of youthfulness, equally line 33 imparts. The word glew, now archaic, could be the old fashioned word for today's gum only this wouldn't make sense in the context of the couplet: Sits on thy skin like morn glue,; what makes improve sense is to look for variants of either glow or glee - nosotros still say the skin glows but do not often say the skin is happy. Her skin has a morning time glow.

• As the lines progress the intensity increases, the passion starts to burn, and when the images of two birds of casualty emerge, devouring time (instead of the other way circular) the reader is surely taken across mere pleasures of the flesh.

Some recall the poet is using the symbols of alchemy to express the deep lying sexual chemistry unsaid in the second unusual image, that of a brawl of sweetness to signify the union of male and female.

The atomic number 26 gates could well be the barrier, the threshold, through which the speaker wishes to emerge. He sets the imperative. If they come together and then who knows what volition happen? Mutual sense and the logic of time volition no longer dictate their lives.

Farther Analysis - Rhythm And Metre

Metre (Meter in Usa)

This poem has a ascendant eight syllable, 4 beat rhythm to the bulk of lines - iambic tetrameter - but there are lines that deviate from this familiar, steady constant.

Get-go, the iambic tetrameter, for example, line 2 :

This coy / ness, la / dy, were / no criminal offense. (regular da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM)

Then at that place is the 3 stressed ending to line 4:

To walk, / and pass / our long / Beloved'south day. (spondee at the finish DA -DUM)

And the altered vanquish of lines 1 and 3:

Had nosotros / but world / enough, / and fourth dimension (first foot is a trochee DA-DUM)

We would / sit down / and remember / which manner

And there are varied beats in lines 21/22 and 23/24.

These varied beats in certain lines tend to change the pace and accent, and together with a mix of punctuation, colons, semi-colons, commas and total stops, non forgetting enjambment and repetition, makes the syntax particularly suitable for conveying a sense of momentum and familiarity.

More Assay of To His Coy Mistress

To His Coy Mistress is a 46 line single stanza, split into three sections. Some modern versions bachelor online show 3 distinct stanzas only the original is indeed one stanza with indented lines at 21 and 33.

Rhyme Scheme

The rhyming couplets are mostly full end rhyme, aabbccdd and and then on, which shows a tight knit relationship. Only lines 23/24 and 27/28 are imperfect - with camber rhyme, lie/eternity and try/virginity.

Alliteration

There are several examples: we would, long Honey's, An age at, love at lower, while thy willing, Thus, though, Stand still, we will. Alliteration brings texture and altered phonics to the line and challenges the reader.

Sources

The Poetry Handbook, John Lennard, OUP, 2005

www.poetryfoundation.org

www.academia.edu

world wide web.youtube.com

© 2017 Andrew Spacey

Daniel on Dec 07, 2019:

I love this site. Beautiful analysis.

Meghana on November 20, 2019:

Really information technology'southward very useful to prepare for exam thank you !

viral culture on November 10, 2019:

Fantastic explanation

Chris on July 18, 2019:

I always thought the last two lines were a pun on the words sun and son.

ie they cant make the sunday motility faster, but they can become a son faster.

Andrew Spacey (author) from Sheffield, Britain on May 31, 2019:

Marvell'due south To His Coy Mistress is a pleasure to analyse. Best of luck with the exams.

Possy Tamin on May 31, 2019:

This site is a really skillful help in test prep. I take British Poesy paper tomorrow. Thank you!

Ryan on April fifteen, 2019:

I similar the incorporation of the lyrics of Pink Floyd's "Fourth dimension" in the first paragraph of the analysis of lines 21-32

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Source: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Poem-To-His-Coy-Mistress-by-Andrew-Marvell

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