Shall I compare thee…? Also starts of with an exotic and beautiful image of Shakespeare’s lover, ‘shall I compare thee to a summers day?’ The poem starts of with a question about a girl he is in love with and introduces the comparison of his beloved to a summer’s day. He continues this comparison building on it, ‘thou art more lovely and temperate…’ Although a summer’s day is beautiful anyway, he describes her as even lovelier, even though summer does have its negatives, he is saying she doesn’t. The word ‘temperate,’ gives the reader of more constancy and that she is always lovely. ‘Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.’ Here he uses rough winds as a metaphor to show the capricious chance and change of winds which shake the ‘darling buds of Maie,’ implying that his lover does not get affected by the rough winds as summer does. The word ‘darling’ also implies beauty and delicacy.
So as we can see both of these poems start of with praise with careful use of words to give beautiful descriptions of the respected lovers. However there is a difference in tone in each of the writers approach. Where Marvell writes in a persuasive and intellectual tone, Shakespeare writes his sonnet in a much more sincere, admiring and loving way. Also we see the narrator self deprecating himself in To His Coy Mistress in to suggest that his beloved is better than the ordinary. In Shakespeare’ sonnet however, he doesn’t compare her splendor to himself or any other human, she is purely and simply just compared to the summer.
There is biblical reference too in To His Coy Mistress; ‘conversion of Jews’ which give you a sense of time because the conversion of Jews was to take place just before the end of the world. Also not to forget the use of phallic imagery and hyperbole ‘my vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow…’ He is exaggerating it so that it cannot be taken literally, as if his love grows slowly like a vegetable.
Marvell however uses time very well to describe and compare her to summer. ‘Sommers lease hath all too short a date…’ Here, ‘lease,’ a term for which you live, suggests that summer has ‘too short a date,’ and that summer’s beauty is short lived and not constant as compared to his lover where it is everlasting. The two poems contrast each other because To His Coy Mistress is about the shortage of time and what should be done about it, whereas Shakespeare’s sonnet talks about the praise of his lover and the fact that her splendour is everlasting.
Furthermore, To His Coy Mistress uses phallic imagery and hyperbole ‘my vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow…’ He is exaggerating it so that it cannot be taken literally, as if his love grows slowly like a vegetable. This striking phrase is interesting in the way that vegetables come from the vegetative part of a plant as opposed to a fruit which comes from the reproductive part. This may be intentionally ironical because he wants to have sex with her or it may just be a mere coincidence. Towards the end of the stanza he is very boastful, and with the use of hyperbole he exaggerates and emphasises time ‘hundred years should go to praise…two hundred to adore each breast.’ Here, euphemism is also used ‘but thirty thousand to the rest…’ he deliberately mentions it vaguely, since the word ‘quaint’ is used which has a positive reference to the Middle English word ‘quente’. He is very courteous and uses flattery for the end of the stanza ‘the last age shows the heart,’ suggesting he loves her from the heart and not for her body, this flattery is continued and showed by the last couplet ‘for lady you deserve this state, nor would I love at a lower rate…’
Although both poems have the same ideas in the beginning i.e. praise, the next stanza of To Coy Mistress and the next quatrain of Shall I compare thee…? contrast each other in that Shakespeare’s sonnet expands on the beauty comparison he is making, whereas Marvell in the second stanza says what could happen and how her beauty could be wasted.
The second stanza of To His Coy Mistress starts of with the use of personification ‘at my back I always hear time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near’ suggesting a lack of time, and enjambment on the first two couplets, which give a fast pace and rhythm the ‘hurrying’ chariot of Apollo. This second stanza is a complete contrast to the first one because of the use of language, ideas and imagery. The use of enjambment speeds the poem up in contrast to the first stanza which was very slow, ‘if we had all the time…’ The first stanza was all exotic and beautiful whereas this second stanza is the complete opposite; ‘deserts of vast eternity…beauty shall no more be found’ and there is contrasts of a very wet beautiful river like the Ganges and a dry empty desert. From being jovial and cheerful in the first stanza the mood is reversed to a threatening and frightening tone with menacing images of death ‘in thy marble vault…then worms shall try,’ images of a tomb in a burial place are made to come to mind from this description. The word ‘marble’ is thought of as a cold stone used for only the important but here it implies loneliness and remoteness. This second stanza is written in a genuine tone of despair. Towards the end of this stanza Marvel uses a phallic and repulsive image of worms eating her body ‘Then worms shall try That long preserved virginity, And quaint honour to dust and into ashes all my lust.’ He is suggesting the beauty will be wasted if it isn’t passed on through reproduction. Enjambment is also used here, again to speed up the pace of the poem. This may be so that people rush through the second stanza which would be thought of as mostly gruelling and negative. Furthermore the fact that it is written in the style of a debate, in which after he has gone through the positives, he goes through the negative matters fairly quickly i.e. where the first stanza is slow paced, the second one rushes through. Euphemism is again used here since ‘quaint’ which means old fashioned is very similar to the medieval word “quente” and has a an unclear meaning.
The second quatrain of Shall I compare thee…? expands on his love for her and the comparison between her and summer. Shakespeare personifies the sky or ‘heaven’ by the use of the metaphor ‘the eye of heaven…’ suggesting that if the sun is the eye then the sky is complexion. The fact that he describes the heaven as an ‘eye,’ shows he is comparing it to his beloved’s beautiful eyes. He continues this description on the next line ‘often in his gold complexion dim’d…’ where he is again comparing the sun to his lover. This capricious description of summer’s beauty and how it is only temporary and inconsistent as compared to the permanent beauty of his beloved is ‘every faire from faire some-times declines…’ Here he implies that everything in the world comes to an end whether it be seasons or good times, unlike her beauty, ‘but thy eternal sommer shall not fade…’ showing that her beauty is every lasting. This is contrasted to Marvell’s poem because he goes on about the shortage of time and how it shouldn’t be wasted.
The third and final stanza of To His Coy Mistress, which basically sums up the two contrasting previous stanzas, uses a lot of different writing techniques to convey strong language just like the previous stanzas. This stanza contrasts the previous one in the sense that there is life again, ‘while the youthful hue sits on the skin like morning dew,’ there is a contrast from the old and dead in the previous stanza to the new and fresh. ‘Dew,’ signifies beauty, freshness and the start of a new day as if there is life again, and this contrasts the death in the previous stanza. A lot of enjambment is used for the same quick pace where we left off in the previous stanza. After the first three lines the poem becomes very passionate with very sensuous and powerful sentences such ‘at every pore with instant fires.’ There is repetition of ‘now’ at the start of the stanza and four lines later and on the fifth line of the stanza too suggesting a sense of urgency, i.e. he wants to have sex right now before it is too late, and her beauty is wasted. ‘Like amorous bird of prey,’ as if like passionate and affectionate birds of prey to seize the opportunity and avoid disappointment. The sense of urgency is re-instated again, ‘at once our time devour…Than languish in his slow chapt power,’ which show images of physical decay in the sense that chap skin is wrinkled and old. He also uses monosyllabic words in this stanza such as ‘us’, ‘roll’ and ‘tear.’ He gives an image them two as unified and rolled together ‘us…our…we…we,’ as opposed to the first two stanzas. He ends the poem just like you would whilst carrying out a debate using ‘thus’ to summarise a logical conclusion, with ‘sun’ referring to Apollo again, and that they will make the most of time ‘yet we will make him run.’
Marvell however continues this theme eternal beauty in the last paragraph too, however no longer compares it to the variability of summer. He still speaks about her qualities though; ‘thy eternal sommer shall not fade…’ The word ‘fade’ is quality of light, and which brings darkness. In this however he contradicts this. Furthermore; ‘nor shall death brag thou wonder’st in his shade,’ here he is saying she will not enter the shade of death and further expanding on the use of the metaphor and underlining the poem’s main purpose. Shakespeare gives his beloved immortality through the words of the poem, ‘…in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.’ He ends the poem with a rhyming couplet, which ties together poetry and love, and has a very good impact in the way he represents her beauty. He ends it by the implication that as long as there is life her beauty will be everlasting, ‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.’ We are told that she is alive because she is in our minds through the words of the poem. She is immortalised through the words of the poem, and the fact that people still read about her poem. Some may be led into believing that this everlasting beauty is the actual poem itself, because it is everlasting as it is passed on generation by generation.
In summary we can say that, To His Coy Mistress makes use of different writing techniques significantly more such as hyperbole, enjambment, assonance and alliteration…etc. it is much more technical in terms of English, possibly because it is a poem of persuasion, and is in one way written in debate style. Shall I compare thee…? however is much more of a descriptive poem in which he compares his beloved to nature all the way throughout and her eternal beauty, in contrast to Marvell’s poem which is a poem written about the shortage of time. Although both Shakespeare and Marvell have the same basic concept of praising their beloved, they are written in a different tone, and that’s the main difference. This is because Marvell writes in a more persuasive and intellectual way whereas Shakespeare writes in a much more sincere and admiring way. If my opinion was to be taken, I personally preferred Shakespeare’s sonnet simply because of the way it ends, because the last couplet ends in a very sensuous and powerful way. After reading the whole sonnet, the dramatic change at the end just makes the reader re-think and re-read it, especially the imagination which must have gone into concluding his sonnet like that unknowing whether his poetry would still be known in the future 400 years later till this present day.
