Compare the presentation of love and women in Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ and John Keats ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’
Andrew Marvell was writing his piece in post civil war England, and he believed in the revolution and was a great fan of invention and new technology and was renowned for thinking forward, this is consequently reflected in his poetry. John Keats was writing at the time of the industrial revolution, and believed in romance and tradition, so he did not favour the industrialist age. Therefore this is also reflected in his poetry. ‘His Coy Mistress’ by Marvell is about him trying to seduce a shy young lady to have sexual relations with him. He uses varied sentence structure and a constant rhyming scheme to achieve the effect of romantic flattery in his piece. ‘La Belle Dan Sans Merci’ by Keats again is a romantic piece, and the title give a clue as to what the piece is about as it directly translates to ‘The beautiful lady without mercy’ so this is quite the opposite to Marvell’s poem as in this the Woman of his desire has power, and he believes in chivalry and treating a lady with respect.
