I feel, that cannot feel, the pain,
And all my care itself employs,
That to preserve, which me destroys:
The soul can perceive but cannot actually feel any pain that the body encounters. Marvell expresses the frustration of the soul as he is compelled to protect the body from external danger yet he feels that it also destroys him through physical ailments.
The soul also complains of the external hazards on the body and the effects that it has upon himself,
Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure:
And ready oft the port to gain,
Am shipwrecked into health again?
Firstly Marvell states the external threats, such as diseases which the soul had previously conveyed that he cannot feel, but then goes on to discuss the effect of cures on the mind. Marvell uses the significance of 'port' to express different meanings. As we can interpret from the subsequent line 'port' is used in the nautical sense meaning a harbour, however as port is also a sweet wine Marvell gives the Soul reason to complain as alcohol effects the mind and inhibits its ability to protect the body. This is one sense of the external world that Marvell uses to demonstrate the pain that the soul and body inflict on each other, the body is hurt by the soul due to the physical effects of emotional situations,
And then the palsy shakes of fear;
The pestilence of love does heat,
Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat;
Marvell uses images of serious physical ailments in comparison to emotional sufferings to express the extent to which the soul harms the body i.e., paralysis, epidemics and ulcers. Even the emotions that, supposedly, produce pleasure are described as ‘perplexing’. He shows the mutual sufferings that they cause each other through emotions, but also through the imagery of confinement and torture that the body inflicts on the soul,
With bolts of bones, that fettered stands
In feet, and manacled in hands
The body is seen as a hindrance on the freedom of the soul and with the use of restraints Marvell expresses the torture inflicted by this and the extent of liberty that the soul possesses. The body retorts by showing its own restraint and describing the soul as a tyrant who invades his consciousness with frivolous emotions.
Which, stretched upright, impales me so,
That mine own precipice I go;
The body recognises that he owes his consciousness to the soul but expresses it as a superfluous entity. He expresses it as a precipice, therefore implying the depths of the souls destruction upon the body. Again this is expressed in the last stanza of the poem with an accusation by the body,
What but a soul could have the wit
To build me up for sin so fit?
The soul creates knowledge and therefore makes the body aware that he is sinning, he sees this as an infliction purposely made by the soul to torment him. However Marvell also implies the idea of the 'original sin' of Adam and as the poem continues,
So architects do square and hew,
Green trees that in the forest grew.
The fact that Marvell uses a past tense of the forest growing suggests the theme of paradise and Eden before the ‘sin’. Marvell uses the image of the architects designing nature to impress this idea of paradise lost where there was consciousness of neither soul nor sin. Hence, that the green trees are symbolic for the body and the architect of the soul which suggests that the body was pure and innocent before the introduction of the soul and, therefore, sinning.
However there are many interpretations of these ultimate lines where within Donno's version of Marvells collective works, she suggests that these lines indicate political criticism by using a quote from Grosart commenting on another of Marvells works,
"Men, instead of squaring their governments by the rule of Christianity, have shaped Christianity by the measure of their government… and bungling divine and human things together, have been always hacking and hueing one another, to frame an irregular figure of political incongruity."
By using this quote Donno shows Marvell to be commenting on the state of society and the use of things spiritual in conjunction with those of the material world. We see the contrasting images of man-made and nature being joined together to create Grosart’s ‘incongruity’.
Within this poem Marvell shows a witty account of the different responsibilities of the soul and body, but also the pain that the external world impresses upon us. Marvell enhances the wit of the poem by the repetitive rhythm of the stanzas and increases the feeling of a constant banter between the two beings. We are shown the pain that each impresses upon the other, but also the parallels between the ‘lives’ that they lead. Marvell expresses the soul as a partner to the body rather than an innate entity, which creates differing opinions and an argumentative tone.
Marvell’s appliance of logical argument in ‘A Dialogue between the Soul and Body’ shows the complexity of the human composition, which we take for granted. The contrast of wit with a logical debate, at first, conveys the simplicity of the poem, but as Marvells builds the argument we are given the logical flow of the inflictions we are exposed to in life.
Bibliography
Ed. Campbell, G., Andrew Marvell Selected Poems, Everyman, London, 1997.
Ed. Donno, E. S., Marvell Complete Poems, Penguin Books, London, 1976.
Bennett, J., Five Metaphysical Poets, Cambridge University Press, London, 1964.
Marvell Complete Poems, Ed. Donno, p260.
