Love Poetry - "To His Coy Mistress" and "Sonnets from the Portuguese (XLIII)"

Authors Avatar

How do Andrew Marvell and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning portray different attitudes towards love and relationships?

Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese (XLIII)" display very different attitudes towards love. This is displayed through their uses of different techniques and different tones. In "To His Coy Mistress," Marvell expresses a cynical and aggressive attitude towards love. He does this by structuring an argument intended to persuade his speaker’s mistress to give up her virginity. This is in direct comparison to "Sonnets from the Portuguese" as in this poem, Barret-Browning writes about her undying love for her husband to be. She writes about all the reasons she loves him without any need for something in return.

Andrew Marvell lived from 1621 – 1678 in a time when women would have needed to find a husband to support them as soon as possible. This is shown through his use of possessive pronouns over the woman and the polite use of "Thou." At the time, the popular conventions of love were that men and women should be married before engaging in any kind of sexual relations. Girls would have married as young virgins to older men, who may have had mistresses. The speaker is probably writing to a younger woman to whom he is not married. This is evident in Marvell's writing as there is no female voice, which helps us to see the role of men and women at the time. Marvell was part of the metaphysical movement who tried to challenge people's perception of love and man's relationship with God. This is evident through his use of wit, irony, and puns, which disguise serious subjects under humorous word play.

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning lived in the later period of 1806-1861 however; views about love were very similar. She was part of the Romantic period, which was the reaction against the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution. The poets of the time hoped to return to nature, to dismiss reason and embrace beauty.

"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem of seduction in which Andrew Marvell uses a lot of interesting metaphors, imagery, and personification to convey his messages. It is a Carpe Diem poem, in which the character in the poem is trying to convince his coy lover to sleep with him. He wants to show her that time waits for no one and he suggests that they spend their time wisely and with care because every second lost will never be regained; therefore, they should seize the day and live every day as it comes.

Marvell’s poem has the title "To His Coy Mistress" which has a great effect on the poem, and how it is read. Through the use of coy, we can see how he feels about her attitude towards their relationship and how she is acting towards him. He is saying how the speaker’s mistress is acting flirtatious, whilst pretending to be modest, and the use of "His" shows us how the mistress almost belongs to the speaker. This can relate to the attitude toward women at the time.

The poem is split into three separate sections; the first, a flattering and subtle introduction to the argument that has an insincere tone in which he tells her of all the possibilities they would have if there were time for them to take their relationship at a slower pace. The effect of this is shown as it gives the hypothetical success of their relationship, which means that she would be more willing to commit. Nearly the whole of this stanza uses hyperboles. The second is a threatening and manipulative personification of death in which he scares her into seeing the death, and sadness that she would feel if she does not sleep with him now. It is the anthesis of the poem. The final stanza gives the subject a solution to all her troubles and is a conclusion in which he flatters her again, showering her in love and devotion.

Join now!

Through the use of a conditional, "Had we but world enough, and time," Marvell shows us how the speaker is encouraging the object of the poem and being optimistic toward their future together, shown though the use of the personal pronoun, we. This is effective, as the woman would think of themselves as united and involved with each other, which would show support and love, also showing false sincerity. Through the use of time in the quotation, he brings up Carpe Diem again, showing how he is pressuring the woman into sexual relations.

There are many sentences, which span ...

This is a preview of the whole essay