‘To his coy mistress’ uses many rhetorical devices, including hyperbole (exaggeration) e.g. ‘a hundred years should go to praise two hundred to each breast but thirty thousand to the rest. This depicts that he is exaggerating her beauty, and of how much time, if he had it, that he would spend on her. Marvell also uses flattery ‘now therefore, while the youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew’. This is trying to persuade his mistress to sleep with him by recognising her youth and beauty. Marvell uses the fist person plural (we) to include the reader/mistress personally, and make them feel like they are part of the poem. Dramatic imagery is use within the poem to alarm his mistress ‘then worms shall try thy long preserved virginity’ in to sleeping with him, depicting of how it would be much more pleasurable to lose her virginity to him, rather than to worms in death. ‘Our love now’ uses rhetorical devices to convey an argument. The extended metaphor of ‘I said, remember how when you cut your hair, you feel different, and somehow incomplete. But the hair grows, before long it is always the same. Our beauty together is such’ this is saying that whatever is wrong with their relationship, that given time, it can be fixed, back to how it was before. The female opinion of this is ‘she said, after you’ve cut your hair, it grows again slowly. During that time, changes must occur; the style will be different. Such is our love now’. This extended metaphor is a depiction of the couples opposing views to their relationship, described as ‘the tree is forever dead’ (i.e. their relationship is dead). In the mans opinion, he feels that their relationship can be fixed, and that things will return to the same, whereas in the woman’s opinion, things will never return to how their love was, and that things change with time. Both poems use the first person, and portray male dominated narratives, the differences that occur are that in ‘our love now’ the woman’s opinions are portrayed, whereas, in ‘to his coy mistress’, we don’t hear the woman’s opinions. This depicts that in ‘to his coy mistress’ that the male is dominant.
The structure of ‘to his coy mistress’ is divided into three sections of logical development, the careful, and deliberate structure portrays Marvel’s un-emotional state of mind, and the three part argument which, he is narrating to his mistress. The poem uses the structural device of rhyming couplets, which provides a predictable rhyme scheme, reflecting his self assurance that he will sleep with his mistress, and get his own way. In the seventeenth century, men were dominant in relationships, and got their own way. ‘Our love now’ has a structure of an argument, with stanzas, which are opposite each other on the page, this structural device portrays their disagreement, and opposing views. In ‘our love now’ there is no rhyme scheme, this shows there is no controlled structure, and that emotions are free, therefore showing that the poem is un-planned, and that the couples aren’t controlling, or containing their emotions.
There are many similarities or differences between ‘to his coy mistress’ and ‘our love now’. Both poems are about relationships, between men and women, and the love and attitudes of men and women in relationships. Both poems are spoken in the first person, and told from a man’s perspective, so, therefore, are biased. ‘To his coy mistress’ and ‘our love now’ have different social and historical content. ‘To his coy mistress’ was written in the seventeenth century, where women were expected to be sub-missive to male domination. ‘Our love now’ was written in the twentieth century, where women and men expect mutual respect and where women make choices and opinions, and these are classed as important.
I prefer ‘our love now’, because opinions are egalitarian, and the woman’s perspective over the relationship is given. Emotions within ‘our love now’ are portrayed by the non-existence of a rhyme scheme, and how unpredictable the poem is. I also feel that the poem is better because of the social context within it, where the woman shows she is on level terms with her partner because his opinion starts the poem, and hers ends it.
