Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Question for October 31 (8:00 class)
Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress (pages 1703-04) can be divided into three parts, beginning on lines 1, 21, and 33. In your own words, summarize these three sections in a sentence each. Then discuss and explain the meaning of one of the poem's many figures of speech or literary devices (metaphysical conceit, metaphor, simile, personification, connotation, irony, etc.).
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In the first part of To His Coy Mistress in lines 1 through 20, the writer suggests a hypothetical situation where he and his lady have a very large amount of time to spend together and goes on to tell of several things that he would do over the course of centuries. In the second part, lines 21 through 32, the poet tells the lady that they do not have that opportunity and, revealing his true intentions, tells her that her virginity is pointless to keep as it will be useless when she is in the grave. The last part is just about Marvell telling his mistress what they should do, and what they should do is have intercourse right now. Marvell uses many literary devices in his poem, in the first part he includes allusions to the bible, “I would love you ten years before the Flood, and you should, if you please, refuse till the conversion of the Jews.” In the second part he begins with a metaphor for death and the afterlife saying the former is “Time’s wingèd chariot” and the latter is “Deserts of vast eternity”. In the final part of the poem Marvell uses a little bit of personification as the conclusion of his desperate attempt to woo this woman writing, “Thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run.” The personification of course being the part where the sun runs, but more importantly these lines use the sun to describe how they could spend their coming time. They don’t have forever, but they can make the most of the time they have. This is an excellent example of another carpe diem poem, like The Flea.
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