Jordan Daniels 11.5 Matthew Moss High
School
Unit 4 literary heritage pre 1914 poetry
I have been assigned a coursework to compare and contrast three poems which are ‘The Ruined Maid’, To His Coy Mistress’ and ‘Remember’ all these poems have got points and I am going to make similarities and dissimilarities about the poems in comparison to each other. Most poems have aspects of a pace, a point, a structure and also different types of language, all of the above poems have these and express them well. Then again all the above have the aspects but the aspects are shown in different ways e.g. a fast pace following on to a slower pace but another poem could have a slow pace moving on to a fast pace.
Firstly, all the poems have points and they are all different but have aspects in of that point that are same. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ has a metaphysical side to it and Marvell’s entanglements of sex and arrogance are in his metaphysical poem. He achieves this by using tense similes and outsized metaphors 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. To His Coy Mistress' is also about an existing relationship, but this poem is designed to persuade his mistress to sleep with him. To His Coy Mistress" follows a classical argument and a form of persuasion. He begins by outlining how things would be if everything were perfect, then moves on to pointing out the stark reality of the situation before drawing a logical conclusion to persuade her over to his point of view. In contrast to ‘Remember’, ‘Remember’ has a structure of love and she wants to be remembered and not forgotten but with sad side to the poem. The poem is based on the theme of love, loss and remembrance. From the first introductory line it outlines that she has gone far away and is reminding him of what they both once had shared. When the poet stresses the term “gone away”, it does suggest that she may return but, it defiantly does not stress that she has gone forever. However, whilst the poem enfolds the words used create the idea of emotions involved in the relationship, the couple once were together at the beginning and they will eventually separate at the end. ‘The Ruined Maid’ is a contrast to these two poems and has a point of how women are treated after they had had sex before marriage ant the term ‘Ruined’ was used for this in the 19th century and that it isn’t that bad now that she has had sex before marriage and that she is better of with ‘such fair garments’ and ‘such prosperi-ty’ but this also stresses the point of how society makes rules about sex before marriage and Thomas Hardy makes this a serious point about how women are treated in most of his writing for example ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ so this poem could be called ‘typical Hardy’ to resemble that it is like the rest of his writing. ‘Remember’ and ‘To his Coy Mistress’ share a comparison of arguing there point. In ‘To his Coy Mistress’ it argues the point that they don’t have enough time to just stand around and that the two lovers should just have sex this is shown with the verses like ‘Time's winged chariot hurrying near’ and in comparison to ‘Remember’ which also stresses the argument (point) of the lover not forgetting her or him with the verse ‘Only remember me; you understand’. These two poems all so have love in common with the point and is exposed with words like ‘love’s’ in ‘To his Coy Mistress’ and in ‘Remember’ words like ‘grieve’ which is what you would do for someone you love and ‘remember’. The two poems ‘To his Coy Mistress’ and ‘Remember’ have the point of they don’t have enough time in the world this is expressed in ‘To his Coy Mistress’ with ‘an hundred years’ and in ‘Remember’ with words like ‘future’ and ‘late’ and the poets have used this to express there emotions in the poems and that they haven’t go enough time in the world to just stand around and stare.
