by
Andrew Marvell
(Summary)
Summary
Marvell was the son of a clergyman and got
education at Cambridge. He was an accomplished poet. He wrote beautiful lyrics
and odes, pungent satires and telling political pamphlets. Majority of his
poems were published only after his death. Marvell’s well-known poem “TO HIS
COY MISTRESS” indicates the metaphysical instinct of the poet that has a blend
of passion and fantastic conceit, handled by his distinctive control and poise.
In this poem the poet describes the typical quality of coyness as a luxury
meant for those lovers who have an ample time to qualify it and thus considers
him as a true lover.
It
is a love-lyric. It is an address to the poet’s beloved who is very shy. He
asks his beloved to shake off her shyness and enjoy the moments of youthful
love. The poem is full of his philosophical thoughts about love, time, humanity
and transitoriness of life and this world. It is an effective persuasion on the
part of the poet to get favourable response from his beloved.
There
are three steps in the poem. The poet tells his shy beloved that if he had
enough time, he would wait and wait for her favourable response. He would spend
hundreds of years in praising her beauty. In the next section of the poem the
poet tells his beloved that everything in this world is transitory. Time moves
like an inevitable monster to devour everything – the beauty the Virginity and
the Vanity of his beloved, and the love and lust of the lovers. In the last
section the poet asks his beloved to shake off shyness and enjoy love and sex. He
says that it is the only way to conquer the impersonal force of time.
Summary:
The poem is uttered by a male lover to his
mistress in order to convince her to sleep with him. The
speaker argues that the Lady’s shyness and hesitancy will be right if the two
had “world enough, and time.” But because they are finite human beings, he
thinks they should take advantage of their sensual embodiment while it lasts.
He
tells the lady that her beauty, as well as her “long-preserved virginity,” will
only become food for worms unless she gives herself to him while she lives.
Rather than preserve any lofty ideals of chastity and virtue, the speaker
affirms, the lovers ought to “roll all our strength, and all / Our sweetness,
up into one ball.” He is alluding to their physical bodies coming together in
the act of lovemaking.
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