Andrew Marvell - as a poet of Love with reference to. "To his Coy ...

International Indexed & Referred Research Journal, November, 2012, ISSN 0974- 2832, RNI- RAJBIL- 2009/29954; VoL IV * ISSUE- 46
Research Paper- English
Andrew Marvell - as a poet of Love with reference
to. "To his Coy Mistress".
* Dr.Kuldeep K. Mohadikar
* Asst. Prof. Shri Shivaji Arts and Commerce College Amravati.
A B S T R A C T
Introduction:-
Andrew Marvell is very sensitive, intelligent
metaphysical poet but from the multi-dimensions of his
personality he is most popular as a poet of love. Marvell's
love poems constitute an important division of his lyric
poetry, the other two important divisions being poems
dealing with the theme of religion and those dealing
with nature. In the opinion of the Critics, Marvell's love
poetry has, with the exception of " To his Coy Mistress",
little passion as Cowley's, while it is as full of
conceits. " To his Coy Mistress" is Masterpiece as a
love-poem.
Main Text:-
This paper deals with Marvell as a poet of love.
Marvell was a friend of Milton and like Milton; he also
has theories of the true relation of the sexes which
interfered with the spontaneous expression of feeling.
But " To his Coy Mistress" is a poem where passion is
allowed to take its most natural path. Although even
one feels that the poet is expressing the passion of the
human race than his own individual feeling and passion
as it is in Marvell is heightened by wit, the effect
is striking. As a love-poem " To his Coy Mistress" is
unique. It could not be the most popular of Marvell's
poems, but for sheer power it ranks higher than his
other verses. He begins with hyperbolical protestations
to his mistress of the slow and solemn state with
which their wooing should be conducted as if only time
and space were their servants and not their masters.
Each beauty also of face and feature should have it's
special and age long praise as :
" But at my back I always hear
Time's winged Chariot hurrying near,
Any yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
The grave's a fine and private place
But none I think do there embrace".
SHODH, SAMIKSHA AUR MULYANKAN
November ,2012
This research paper deals with Andrew marvell as a Love Poet. The Petrarchan approach which was popular among
Elizabethan poets, was used to exalt the beloved and to shower glowing and eloquent praises on her beauty and charm.
The Intensity and Passion depicted in Marvell's poems is as intense as in any Elizabethan love-poem. As a love-poem "
To his Coy Mistress" is unique.
Marvell in his love-poems adopts the Petrarchan tradition
while dealing with treatment of love, like his
technique and style of expression is wholly unconventional.
The Petrarchan approach which was popular
among Elizabethan poets, was used to exalt the beloved
and to shower glowing and eloquent praises on
her beauty and charm. The Petrarchan lover was always
sighing and weeping over the indifference of his
beloved and over the disappointment he felt as a consequence
of her attitude. The Petrarchan elements can
be seen in at least three poems, namely " The Fair
Singer", " To His Coy Coy Mistress" and " The unfortunate
lover". In the first of these poems, the lover
praises the beauty of his mistress's eyes and voice in
extravagant terms and speaks of her complete controll
over his mind and heart. In " To his Coy Mistress", the
lover speaks of the beauty of his mistress's limbs in
hyperbolic term, asserting that he needs hundreds and
thousands of years to be able to praise them accurately.
" An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead Gaze
Two hundred to adore each Breast
but thirty thousand to the rest."
This is probably the best-known love-poem of Andrew
Marvell. It is a love-poem in which the speaker offers
a strong plea for the beloved to soften towards him and
to relax her rigid attitude to grant him sexual favours.
The lover, who may be the poet himself, builds up a
really strong case and supports it with arguments which
no sensible woman can reject. So Marvell truly followed
Petrarchan tradition in his love-poems.
The Intensity and Passion depicted in
Marvell's poems is as intense as in any Elizabethan
love-poem. In " The Fair Singer", the lover says that
both beauties of his mistress have joined themselves
in fatal harmony to bring about his death and that with
her eyes she binds his heart and with her voice she
captivates his mind. He speaks of the "Curled trammels
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International Indexed & Referred Research Journal, November, 2012, ISSN 0974- 2832, RNI- RAJBIL- 2009/29954; VoL IV * ISSUE- 46
of her hair" in which his soul has got entangled. If a
lover can speak about his feelings, we cannot say that
he is a cold kind of lover. In the poem " To his Coy
Mistress", the passion is equally ardent. In the final
Stanza poet presents fierce passion when he suggests
that :
" Let us roll our Strength, and all
Our Sweetness, up into one Ball :
And tear our pleasures with
rough strife.
Through the iron gates of Life"
Poet expresses in the above lines that they should
enjoy the pleasure of love-making with all their energy
and vigour and they should even become fierce in
extracting the maximum pleasure from their lovemaking.The
Poem " To His Coy Mistress" has this
intellectual quality though the passion strikes through
logic and reasoning. This Poem follows Syllogistic
Pattern in its construction. Syllogism has three stages
: "if", "but", 'therefore". This poem begins with if, we
are told in the opening lines what the effect would be
if the lovers had enough space and time with them. The
second stanza deals with second stage i.e. But, " But
at my back I always hear..."). The rest of the lines tells
us why the lovers cannot spend their time and the
space, as per their wish. The third stage begins with
first line of the third stanza. Their are many conceits in
this poem and all are popular except the conceit in the
closing eight lines which may create Problem.
Marvell's best poems were written in the early
1650's. " The Definition of love" and "To His Coy
Mistress" are among the great metaphysical poems of
love, but the latter also follows classical tradition and
both have perfect Symmetry and Swift. They are not
more simple but they are under perfect control. The
essence of both poems is paradox, yet every idea and
word is an integral part of the pattern. The very title, "
The Definition of love is paradoxical and the infinity of
frustrated love is rendered in terms of the exact sciences
of astronomy and geometry "To His Coy Mistress"
is the period's finest variation on the theme of
Carpe diem. A series of Witty particular, hyperbolical
fancies about unlimited space and time lead to the grim
R E F E R E N C E
6
fact of mortality, which is realized in phrases half general
and suggestive, half particular and Concrete. The
lover resolves the antithesis between love and death
with the earnestness to use and conquer time.
In some of his love-poems, Marvell shows the
Elizabethan influence by following the Petrarchan tradition.
In these poems he shows tendency to Swell on
charms of the beloved in the extravagant terms, as was
the case with Elizabethan love-poets who followed the
Pertrarchan mode of love-making. In these poems by
Marvell, we have the same sighs and tears and the same
exaltation of the beauties of the beloved as we find in
the Elizabethan love-lyrics. In "The Unfortunate lover",
we are told that the tyrant god of love used " all his
winged artillery", and the lover found himself between
"the flames and the Waves. The lover was forced to live
in storms and wars. He was torn into flames and ragged
with wounds. He was a lover dressed in his own blood.
" To His Coy Mistress" is another poem in which the
Petrarchan hyperbole and Elizabethan Conceits combine
with a metaphysical Condensation of Style which
is almost epigrammatic. The lover here needs a hundred
years to praise his mistress's eyes and to gaze on her
forehead. He needs two hundred years to adore each
of her breasts and he needs thirty thousand years to
praise the remaining parts of her body. The passion of
the Elizabethan lyric is also to be found in this poem and
it finds a notable expression in the closing six lines
where the lover suggests that he and she should roll all
their strength and tear their pleasures with rough strife
through the iron gates of life. The passion is certainly
Elizabethan in its intensity, the conceit employed to
express the passion is thoroughly metaphysical. As for
the condensed Style, its becomes epigrammatic in such
lines as these :
" The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think,
do there embrace."
Conclusion:-
It is to be concluded that poems of love are not
numerous in Marvell's work, but among several which
are graceful or slightly ironical, denouncing women's
tricks, artifices and Coquetry and few hold us by their
passion.
1) A History of English Literature by Legouis and Cazamian.
2) Andew Marvell: an evaluation of his poetry: Rama Brothers,2004 published by Educational Publishers, New Delhi,2004.
3) To his Coy Mistress".page no.107, Rama Brothers,2004 published by Educational Publishers, New Delhi,2004.