Andrew Marvell and To his Coy Mistress

Life of Andrew Marvell and His Poems

Unit-16 Andrew Marvell: A Study of his Poems 

Born 31 March, 1621 in Yorkshire where his father was a rector but later moved to Hull in 1624.

Graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1633

Marvell grew up in an age which Abraham Cowley was later to describe as 'a warlike, various and a tragic age'. It was an age which saw radical changes in the institutions of the Church and the State and the questioning of many fundamental beliefs about the nature of man and society and the universe he inhabits. Neither the church of England nor the Monarchy survived the revolutionary decade of the 1640s.

Both the life and writings of Andrew Marvell can be interpreted as the responses of an intelligent and sckeptical mind to the need to find new bearings amid the confusions and challenges to inherited assumptions of a period of revolutionary change. 

Works - Young Love, The Match, The Unfortunate Lover, The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun and of course To His Coy Mistress, The Garden. To his Noble Friend Mr Richard Lovelace, Uphold the Death of Lord Iiastings, Elegy upon the Death of My Lord Francis Villiers

TO HIS COY MISTRESS:

Written in 1650 published in 1680

The poem is in the form of an invitation to an unnamed lady for more active participation in the game of courtship. This poem about the lady's reticence, is a mockery of this reticence.

To His Coy Mistress is probably Marvell's most destructive poem. The poem laments the remorseless grinding of Time's jaws and sensitively explains every change of mood and turn of thought. The movement of the poem has great urgency, there is a forward impulse in the three part syllogistic argument, The traditional plea to give up coyness is given a syllogistic fonn - "Had we but Time enough" [A syllogism is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. ]

First part - casts a mockingly regretful tone over the hyperboles. They were not subject to the Pores inexorable laws of space and time, they could play out the fantasy of a love which slowly expands over the face of the earth

In the first section the leading image is of "vegetable love ', an attack on Romantic love which grows slowly, and thus requires endless time and world. The lady could then search for jewels by the Ganges and the lover complains by the tide of the Humber. 

Second - introduced by the but' that has been looming ever since the conditional verb of the opening. Bodily perfection will vanish from the earth and even the poet's record of his devotion will eventually be lost.

In the second section the key image is of Time's wind chariot and the corresponding intensity of terror produced by it. Based on Luther's predictions it was believed in Marvell's time that the world would shortly come to an end (in 1560). So Marvell's preoccupation with time is not surprising. 

Last part - With a final sardonic couplet the lover leads into the third stage of his syllogistic assignment

The final couplet  may contain an allusion to the feat of the biblical hero Joshua who made the sun stand still while he took revenge on Israel's enemies. The final fourteen lines of the resolution both prove firmly conclusive for the immediate moment also suggest costs and values beyond that moment. 

"Morning dew" and "fire" occur in the next section. The invitation to the sexual act IS expressed in three independent images - the lovers as amorous birds of prey devouring time.

You can check out my YouTube videos on the same topic where I have explained everything in Hindi in detail. Links are below-

Block-3 The Metaphysical Poets: Donne, Herbert

Marvell's Poems -

To his Coy mistress The Garden An Horation ode

More related and helpful links in the description box of my YouTube channel.