In remember by Christina Rossetti, she has written it in a Petrarchen sonnet where there is an octet and sestet. The octet is about forgetting the person who the person is trying to remember: ‘remember me when no more day by day, you tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand.’ Here, the narrator is saying that she should forget him more as each day passes. The sestet states that if she should remember him after forgetting him for a long time, do not feel sad: ‘And afterwards remember, do not grieve.’ This means that if you remember me afterwards don’t start to grieve. The use of an octet and sestet exaggerates the change in subject of two particular sections of any poem.
In both poems, a rhyme scheme is used to show the aspects of love, in To His Coy Mistress the rhyme scheme helps covey a pure physical love and in A Woman to her Lover the lack of rhyme scheme in some places reflects the nature of her hatred for some types of loves. In To His Coy Mistress, there is an obvious rhyme scheme where each word at the end of the line rhymes in rhyming couplets in the thesis. The caesura in the middle of the sentence does not highlight the rhyming couplets clearly. ‘We would sit down, and think which way to walk, and pass our long loves day. This may be because the man in the poem does not want to tell the woman straight that he lusts after her. The antithesis has a different rhyme scheme, where two lines rhyme and another does not and another two lines rhyme: ‘Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound, My echoing song; then worms shall try, That long preserv'd virginity.’ This may be in contrast with the subject (in the antithesis) that they should not waste time and so he has not wasted time in rhyming each and every sentence with rhyming couplets because the rhyme scheme is ‘AABCAABCAABC’. The synthesis has the rhyming couplets again until the end of the poem. However, in A Woman to Her Lover, there is no rhyme scheme at all. This is because the woman wants to break away from the normal poetic rules as well as the rules of life because the stereotypes suggest that, the woman is the homemaker and the man is the breadwinner. She also has no rhyme scheme because, a normal poem has a rhyme scheme, but because she doesn’t want to have a normal relationship, it has reflected into her poetry where she doesn’t want a normal poem with a rhyme scheme, which also shows that she does not want to have a stereotypical husband wife relationship. In Remember by Christina Rossetti, there are rhyming couplets in the Octet because in this part of the poem, the speaker requests that her lover should not forget her and not grieve: ‘It will be late to counsel then or pray.’ The woman in this poem is saying that it will be too late to sort out problems if you kept remembering me, this is reflected by the use of a short sentence, as the woman wants to tell the man instantly that he should not remember her too much.
In To His Coy Mistress, the punctuation highlights the way the person is speaking subtly. In the first part, the thesis, the lack of caesura after each sentence shows that he is speaking with confidence and with a temperate flow, when he says, ‘Thou by the Indian Ganges side should’st rubies find.’ The enjambment shows that he is speaking freely, which suggests he is trying to woo the woman. However, the lack of caesura in A Woman to Her Lover is to show that she is angry: ‘in drudgery and silence no servant will I be.’ The enjambment here shows her anger because she is saying that she will not be any man’s servant or will not drudge for anyone. In the second stanza, her tone is worse and louder, when she says, ‘go! – I am no doll to dress and sit for feeble worship.’ The use of an exclamation mark makes her sound louder and much angrier.
In To His Coy Mistress, towards the end, he begins to talk about death and how its coming close, his seriousness is shown by a few more pauses in the sentences, ‘Rather at once our Time devour, than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r.’ The comma in between ‘devour’ and ‘than’, makes the reader pause and briefly think about what he is saying. In the fourth stanza of A Woman to Her Lover, the poet makes a change of subject as the topic of this stanza is completely different to the previous ones: ‘I shall be your comrade, friend, and mate, to live and work, to love and die with you.’ The increase in caesura suggests that she is becoming calmer and makes it sound more considerate because she has changed her mind in what she should say, she is now stating what she wants a man to do and not what she doesn’t want like the previous stanzas.
In To His Coy Mistress, the author is trying to give the message that this man cannot wait for them to fall in love and that life is too short to wait for that, so they should just be together at once. The thesis is saying that if he had enough time, then he would take time in trying to fall in love with her: ‘Two hundred to adore each breast but thirty thousand to the rest.’ This means that if he had unlimited time he would take all these years to adore each part of her body and fall in love with her. This is backed up by how he gives large numbers of years implying that his love is so great and large that he can wait these many years for her if he had the time. In the antithesis, the speaker is trying to show that they should not waste any time. The man says, ‘times winged chariot hurrying near.’ What he means is that the end of time is coming closer and chariots are usually shown with death. The synthesis is saying that they should do it now and not wait, when he says, ‘Now therefore while the youthful hew sits on thy skin like morning dew.’ The similie suggests that he is the youthful hew that is young and ‘sits on the skin like morning dew’ implying that he is still young and so they should be together whilst they are still in ‘morning’, early years.
In A Woman to Her Lover, the poet has shown a different approach to love by having the first three stanzas about what a woman does not want and then a change in the last stanza where she says what she does want. The first stanza is talking about a love where the wife bears the mans children: ‘to bear your children, wearing out my life,’ She is saying she does not want to be someone who just ruins her life to bear the mans children for him. The second stanza is talking about the man wanting the woman to be a perfect angel, she says, ‘a wingless angel who can do no wrong.’ She explains that she will not be someone who is perfect and never make any mistakes. The third stanzas talks about a raw physical love where the man can look at her whenever he wants and she can be his ‘doll’: [‘then gratify your clamorous desire.’] This means that she will not be there just to satisfy the man whenever he needs to. But the last stanza has a change in subject where the woman explains what she does want. ‘If you ask of me, that I shall be your comrade, friend and mate to live and work and die together.’ She is explaining that, if a man wants her to be her friend who she can live and love together and work as a team, she’ll accept him. Both poems present a different type of love: To His Coy Mistress shows a raw physical love no based on emotions of friendship and A Woman to Her Lover is about a pure love where the two people are perfect for each other.
The tone at the beginning until the end of the poems change to show the types of love being expressed, such as a raw physical love or an emotional love that is based on what a woman wants in a man and what she doesn’t want. At the beginning of To His Coy Mistress, the tone is more smooth and calm and there is more flattery: ‘We would sit down, and think which way.’ This shows that the speaker is sitting down and negotiating with her and trying to explain that if he did have time this is what he would do. The tone changes according to the varying amount of enjambment, in the middle of the poem the speaker is more desperate: ‘Then worms shall try that long preserved virginity.’ This violent imagery is showing that the man is so anxious that he will tell the woman what would happen if she would remain a virgin, he explains that worms will take it away when she is dead and buried. At the end of the poem, the man describes a rough passionate love as the speed is increased with a lack of caesura. ‘And tear our pleasures with rough strife, through the iron gates of life.’ This shows that the man wants to fulfil his pleasures quickly and the tone is fast and passionate because the words tear, pleasures and strife are used.
In A Woman to Her Lover, the poet has shown a firm and straightforward tone in the first three stanzas. In the first stanza, the lack of caesurae in the first three lines suggests that she is angry: ‘To make me of bondslave to bear you children.’ She is saying that she does not want a man who expects her to bear his children, her tone is angry because she is stating what she does not want. In the second stanza, her tone is worse and is louder when she says, ‘go! – I am no doll to dress and sit for feeble worship.’ The use of an exclamation mark raises her voice which makes her sound much more irritated. The last stanza is much more understanding and calm, this is shown by the increase in caesura: ‘That I shall be your comrade, friend and mate,’ the calmness is portrayed by the pauses that the reader must follow, the woman is asking if a man could just be her companion and not be the stereotypical husband or lover.
To conclude, the different loves shown in the two poems are very different, because in To His Coy Mistress the type of love, being expressed is a perfect love but the woman is also explaining the stereotypical views of a husband and wife relationship. Whereas in To His Coy Mistress, the man shows a desperate and raw physical love and try’s to get the woman to be with him. In both poems the types of love have been portrayed using different poetic techniques, in To His Coy Mistress the free verse, thesis, synthesis and antithesis help layout the different subjects that the poem views. In A Woman to Her Lover, the last verse having a change of topic shows that the woman can also have a different side to her and can represent what she would want in a relationship.
