Shakespeare’s ‘Shall I Compare thee’ is similar to ‘To Autumn’ in that it too uses pleasant, positive imagery, such as personifying summer as ‘temperate’ and mentions the ‘darling buds of Maie’. He uses these words to describe summer; however he says how these qualities are short-lived, unlike the character he is writing about. Written in the 1590s it would be typical for this genre to use 14 lines (split into an octet and a sestet), have an iambic pentameter and focus on nature-based imagery. However, an interesting use of imagery in this poem is at the end, when he personifies death, saying ‘nor shall death brag thou wandr’st in his shade’, i.e. death will not boast about taking you. He says this to show that, as long as men can read the sonnet, the addressee will survive. I like this feature as it is a good use of imagery, describing an interesting, different point in an unconventional, interesting way. The character in this poem is, as in ‘To Autumn’, negatively defined – the narrator says what the character is NOT, not what the character is. I think this successfully creates interest for the reader, giving something unconventional.
Written by Andrew Marvell (interestingly regarded as insane and forced to live in a mental institution) ‘To His Coy Mistress’ also contrasts greatly to ‘To Autumn’. The main reason for this contrast is likely to be that, unlike ‘To Autumn’, this poem is a direct address to a real person – not idealised personification as present in ‘To Autumn’. However, this poem does use imagery very effectively to try and seduce the character. The use of imagery is very different to ‘To Autumn’ – whilst to Autumn, as said earlier, uses pleasant, positive imagery, ‘To His Coy Mistress’ uses much more powerful, violent imagery (at least, in the last stanza).Examples include ‘like amorous birds of prey….devour’; ‘tear our pleasures’ and ‘slow-chapt’. A reason for this could be that the narrator is suggesting vigorous sex, and also to significantly contrast with the 2 previous stanzas. Although this may be seen as ironic, talking about death and violence in a love poem, I think that it is effective because it shows that the couple-to-be have no time to waste, and must hurry to make love before this somewhat gruesome end comes. Also interesting is how this poem shows how different the pre-twentieth century society’s attitudes were compared to today’s. In this poem his mistress is shy and doesn’t want to lose hr virginity – in the society when it was written, loss of virginity and in particular pre-marital sex was considered morally wrong, and courting was often a very slow, ‘official’ process – very different to today’s world.
‘The Flea’, like ‘To His Coy Mistress’, is also a poem where the narrator is trying to woo his mistress, and contradict moral issues of losing virginity. Its author, John Donne (1572 – 1631) was from a wealthy family and trained as a lawyer and acted as an MP, which gave him wit and intelligence enabling him to seduce his mistress. A contemporary of Shakespeare’s, he was considered the founder of the metaphysical movement. He, rather strangely, uses a flea to try and achieve this. Good examples of imagery in this poem include comparing the flea to a temple and bed, saying ‘this flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;’
This, he says, would make it a sin if she were to kill the flea. He effectively uses words like ‘cloistered’; ‘pamper’d’ and ‘swells’ to suggest indulgence and luxury.
The use of voice and tone in the poems is an interesting point. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ has a yearning, slightly humorous voice, with innuendo such as ‘my vegetable love should grow’. This is a double entendre – on the surface it is showing love is organic and will grow over time. However, it also has a phallic undertone. The last two lines of the last stanza have a distinct, yearning sound to them:
‘Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run’
The narrator is saying ‘whilst we do have time, and before death catches up on us (2nd stanza is about death and lack of time), let’s enjoy it [and have sex]’. This yearning, humorous voice is extremely different to that of ‘The Sick Rose’. In ‘The Sick Rose’ the voice is forceful and disapproving, as is the tone (although also sad and disappointed). Examples showing this disapproving voice are ‘Does thy life destroy’ and ‘has found thy bed’ (found suggesting a crime, or a sin). This forceful voice is also present in ‘The Flea’, and to an extent ‘To His Coy Mistress’. However, these poems’ voices also contrast to ‘the Sick Rose’’s in that they are not disapproving of sex – the narrators are in fact trying to seduce the character.
The poems, although some controversial and unconventional, do generally fit with the love poem genre in most ways: with features such as rhyming couplets (to suggest partners and love), iambic pentameter and the structure of the poems. However, other features are different, such as the characters in ‘Shall I Compare Thee?’ and ‘The Flea’ being negatively defined. A good example of a poem technically typical of the genre is ‘Shall I compare thee?’. It is typical of a sonnet, with octet/sestet construction, iambic pentameter, 14 lines, and rhyming couplets. However, it is perhaps different to a typical sonnet in that the character is negatively defined.
The poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is also generally typical of the love poem genre (iambic pentameter, rhyming couplets), but then also very different to what might be expected because the narrator vividly talks about a gruesome death in the second stanza, with words such as ‘worms shall try thy long preserved virginity’ (i.e. ‘worms will eat you’); ‘quaint honour turn to dust’ and ‘into ashes all my lust’. ‘The Flea’ also has a strange feature, the flea itself being very strange for use in a love poem.
‘The Sick Rose’ is extremely different to a usual love poem’ It is very blunt (just 8 lines), to get his blunt powerful point across. It uses forceful, violent imagery such as ‘howling storm’ and ‘destroy’, which certainly isn’t normal for a love poem. Blake doesn’t use rhyming couplets or iambic pentameter in this poem, further separating it from a typical love poem and emphasizing his message.
These similarities and contrasts in features like imagery and voice have shown that authors have different views of love and different ways of showing those views. This difference in views is also shown by the variation in how the poems fit to their typical genres.