Write a Comparison of "To His Coy Mistress" and " The passionate Shepherd to his Love". What similarities and differences are there in the writers approach to love? How effective are there poems as expressions of love?

 This first section is then finished and he says to her that her feelings are going to be released. He finishes this section of the poem with a rhyming couplet and gives it a conclusion. This suggests that this man will not go any lower for his love for her, he is trying so hard so that he can have her. This first section does have a theme, it is a strong physical section all the parts of the body that are mentioned shows her beauty and value.

  Now that we go onto the second section of the poem, things begin to change, it’s a contradiction of the first section. The main theme of this section is to do with time. “ Times winged chariot hurrying near.” If you have a chariot behind you, this suggests it’s chasing you, this gives the impression that life is catching up on you, it’s a personification and to me it looks as if it’s a threat that she will be taken over by time. Which is quite a threatening and powerful thing to say because of what it suggests. He is really determined now to get this one specific girl who he loves. He is trying to persuade her, in some ways he is trying to do more than persuade more like to intimidate her and frighten her using the phrase “ dessert of eternity”. Which is good imagery giving the impression that if she doesn’t go with him, she will live somewhere where nothing grows and nothing happens, which is the imagery of the dessert of it stretching out forever, this again is another threatening thing to say which is frightening this girl. He then goes on to say that her beauty will not last forever, and in this line he uses the words “no” and “nor” in the same line which gives a more negative effect.  It then becomes a lot more negative as he tries to frighten her with death “ then worms shal try that long presservi’d virginity”. Death has a strong influence and is to be feared because everyone is scared of dying. There is also the idea of growing up and being lonely; something that scares everyone as no one wants to be lonely. Another image he portrays is that a lowly worm will take away her virginity when she is dead rather than him, this is a very shocking and disturbing image for her as you get the impression that he is trying to make her feel uneasy. Marvell uses the word “quaint” which suggests that he is patronising the lady and proves that he is playing on her fears, which gives the impression that he has little respect for her, as if he talks down to her. He tries to scare her into bed. Marvell uses strong stressed words to make them more powerful for example: “Desarts of vast eternity” No matter how hard she tries to stay pure, the worms will eat her; after her mind is gone, what price her “quaint honour”? He uses the phrase: “And your quaint honour turn to dust and ashes all my lust, recalling the funeral ceremony “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, He does not assault this, but rather says that whatever they mean to her now, they will mean noting when she is forgotten. He finishes by saying that: “The grave is a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace.” Which is saying that he doesn’t fear death, it is a “fine place”, apparently, but it must be accepted and it is pointless to suggest tings such as he did in the verse before, because there is only a short lifetime, and nothing afterwards. Now that in this section she has been frightened, hunted down by time, and he has told her what will happen in the future if she doesn’t have him. Now she needs reassurance.

 He starts this last section saying how beautiful she is to him, she is in the first youth. “While the youthful hew sits on thy skin like morning dew”. Using the word “dew” as it’s clear, suggesting that it’s fresh, beautiful and appears in the morning, it is saying that the rest of the day is to come which brings a lot of reassurance and happiness to the women. All this beauty that she is full of then starts to pour out, her soul is being expressed through every pore on her body. “like am’rous birds of prey” here Marvell has used a simile because he has used “birds of prey” this is because they are strong, big and threatening, this gives the impression about how their love will be. No matter how fast or how far she runs he will catch her. “Rather at once our Time devour” meaning that they will live life fast, it will fly by, but the main feature of this line is that they will also live life to the full. “Time” is written with a capital letter, Marvell does this to make it very clear that they will devour time. He will then go on to role everything they have, all their love for each other into a ball. It suggests that this is the ball of life that they have rolled up and that they will need to use it in someway. They will then push their ball through the iron gates. This gate gives the impression that it’s an entrance into a new life, it is as if they are not living until they have passed through these iron gates together. Mavelle makes the gate made out of iron because it is strong and lasts for a long time, so this symbolises that their life will go on and on and their will be a strong relationship between the couple. Marvelle then finishes this poem with the concept of time. He admits that you cannot stop time, it is not even stopped for lovers. He uses the image of the sun to symbolise time, which suggests you can neither slow down or speed up time. The sun also symbolises that this relationship will be powerful as it gives the impression that they will run time and the sun, so they will have the power and this will make their love even stronger.

 Unlike Marvell with “The Coy Mistress” Marlowe looks at love poetry in a different way. Marlowe’s poem “The passionate shepherd to his love” is also addressed to an individual but it is written in an innocent ideal world where life is simple and natural, which makes this poem different to his coy mistress. (TMSTHL) has a different beginning to it, starting with an invitation but is not named poem like (TCM). The two poems do have different and in some ways similar structures. Both poems are written in rhyming couplets and are both iambic which gives the right effect in both poems. (TCM) has three verses with no spaces which is like a long argument, unlike (TPSTHL) this poem is more split up, it has seven much shorter four line verses to give more of a rhythm, to me it gives the effect of a song like rhythm, like this man is singing to persuade this women.

  Again the two poems have similarities and differences when looking at the subject of the poems. Of course they are both about the subject of love, and are both similar as they are trying to get they woman the want, but have different tactics in their ways of getting the woman that they want. (TCM) has very aggressive tactics to get the woman that he wants unlike (TPSTHL) which takes the less threatening way of persuasion. Also I noticed that (TPSTHL) uses a lot more metaphors and similies, has a lot more hidden meanings and the man plays this woman with logic and tries to frighten her. Nothing is said about the woman in either poem, there is no individuality, the poem is more focussed in the love and not the women. Both poems are about what love is actually like and introduce the idea of love in an ideal world, but in my opinion I think that (TCM) is very exaggerated in what he says unlike (TPSTHL) which is a lot more real and in some ways possible.