Compare and contrast ways in which attitudes to love are expressed in three of four poems you have studied.

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AMDG.        Joshua Gray

Compare and contrast ways in which attitudes to love are expressed in three of four poems you have studied.

Introduction:

The poems that I have chosen are: ‘To his coy mistress’ by Andrew Marvell.  ‘Sonnets 18 by William Shakespeare, and ‘To the virgins, to make much of time’ by Robert Herrick.

All the above poems are poems about the subject of love.  Each poem is very passionate and complex in nature when you initially read it for the first time and consequently they have stood the test of time and lasted hundreds of years.  This portrays a conclusion to what some poets say because they express how the poems will last forever.  There are many various themes used throughout the poems.  Time, beauty, praise for the beloved and how love can be confused by lust are all reoccurring themes in these poems and sum up many pre-18th century love poems.  However, two themes that are central to this form of poetry are ‘Carpe diem’- seize the day – and how the incessant march of time contributes to the fading of beauty.

‘To his coy mistress’  - perhaps the most controversial of the poems, deals with the theme ‘carpe diem’ but focuses more on lust than love, ‘To the virgins’ once again deals the theme of ‘Carpe diem’   and urges the young to enjoy themselves, this is also significant in it’s title.

‘Sonnet 18.’ Shakespeare wrote a series of sonnets which were probably addressed to a noble young man for whom he felt deep love and admiration. ‘Sonnet 18’ is the eighteenth sonnet in the series where he deals with love and the problems of time.

The use of the powerful Latin phrase ‘Carpe diem’,   interpreted into English roughly as ‘To seize the day’, used in the context of literature I  would imagine is used to explain away certain behaviour or the loss of morals, i.e. live for today (as it really doesn’t matter about tomorrow).Marvell relies strongly on the idea of carpe diem, his theory that if they had all the time in the world he would spend “two hundred (years) to adore each breast”.  However he contradicts this in the second and third stanzas and shows his change of tone with a ‘but’.  This implies that something is not quite correct and then proceeds to explain what is wrong.   He insists that if his mistress does not take her chance now, it will forever be too late, stating “Thy beauty shall no more be found” and that there will not be any affection after death.  Once again the theme of this poem reminds us that time waits for no man and as if by stealth catches up with us all, its passing is unavoidable.  Time is “hurrying near” and while she is still young and attractive, Marvell’s’ mistress should “sport…..while (she) may”

In ‘To the virgins” Herrick also strongly emphasis on the theme of ‘Carpe diem’ However, he is unconcerned with having sex, he wants the subjects of his poem to Marry and have children.  He is anxious that when the youth pass their “prime” they will “forever tarry,” but instead they should utilise their time wisely and “while ye may go marry”.  In the second line of the first stanza he writes “old time is still flying”.  This can be compared with the line in ‘His coy mistress’ “times winged chariot hurry near” Both use the analogy of flying.  Flying portrays the image of something moving swiftly e.g. in the phrase ‘time flying by.’ In  “To the virgins” the use of the words ‘old’ and ‘flying’ emphasises the fact that time is going quickly. The image of the sun rising continues the carpe diem theme in the second stanza by saying that as the sun gets higher, the day is approaching its end.  With each day that passes you are one day older so you must ‘seize the day’ before it’s too late and you are past your prime.

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    In both poems ‘carpe diem’ is prominently associated with the passing of beauty.  Both poets emphasis that as time goes by the subject’s beauty will fade.  In ‘To his coy mistress’ he writes that if she does not cease to be “coy” and make the most of the time while she is still young and beautiful, time will eventually destroy her beauty. He uses the alliteration of death being linked with her beauty fading, making references to her “quaint honour being turned to dust,” and “the grave.” Her beauty will be lost once she is old or ...

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