Poetry Comparison: The two Love poems 'A Woman to Her Lover' by Christina Walsh and 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvel

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Poetry Comparison: The two Love poems 'A Woman to Her Lover' by Christina Walsh and 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvel.

In this essay I am going to compare the two poems 'A Woman to Her Lover' by Christina Walsh, written in the middle of the nineteenth century and 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell, from the seventeenth century. Each of the two poems show a different gender perspective and the different views on marriage in the society at the time they were written. Christina Walsh's poem reflects the inferior view of women in the Victorian era. However in the seventeenth century when 'To His Coy Mistress' was written there was an unwritten rule of courtly love where the woman had the choice of who she marries and to achieve a woman's love a man would have to almost worship her.

The titles of both poems start the idea of opposite gender perspectives; feminism and chauvinism. In 'A Woman to Her Lover' the word 'her' suggests a feminist voice speaking for all women. This is reinforced by the use of indefinite article 'A Woman' suggesting Christina Walsh is speaking for a universal group.