Analysis of 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Analysis of ‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Marvell’s playful entanglements of sex and condescension are conspicuous in his metaphysical poem. He achieves this by using overwrought similes outsized metaphors and hyperboles for example, ‘an hundred years’, ‘like amorous birds of prey’ and ‘vegetable love.’ He uses these techniques to enrich meanings and to express how strong his sexual feelings are for his mistress.

The poem is addressed to the speaker’s “mistress” that signifies she is a lady to whom courtesy and courtly convention and erotic longing attribute is conveyed giving her a superordinate status in the poem. It demonstrates the power to command through using powerful language. The word ‘coy’ used in the title is strategically withholding. She is imagined by the reader as capable of calculation and of extracting erotic compliment at a high ‘rate.’ ‘Coyness’ in Marvell’s era, might have been used to represent mere reticence, the implication would be that it would take a very innocent lady indeed to gaze into the mirror of Marvell’s poem and to see herself figured as unaffectedly shy.

Marvell’s uses the third person ‘His’ in his title of the poem and doesn’t use ‘my’ suggesting that he may not want to make the poem personal to himself. He may be writing this poem for other men that have a ‘coy mistress’ because he might think that they will be coming across these problems too. However, the body of the poem is written in the first and second person suggesting that his love addresses his lady directly.

In his first verse, he says ‘Had we but world and time’, which suggests that he is setting up a ...