The mood of ‘Sonnet 116’ is very passionate in the way that Shakespeare wants us to understand that love is the most important thing in life and nothing, including time, can change it, “Love’s not times fool…”. ‘To His Coy Mistress’ has a different mood in every verse. Verse one’s mood is flattering. We can see this from the lines, “I would love you for ten years…”, “My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires…” and “Nor would I love at a lower rate.” In Verse two it seems he is trying to frighten her by telling her that the effects of time are close upon her and “Thy beauty shall no more be found.” Verse three is used to try and seduce her by explaining that they may as well use the full physical potential they both have whilst they are young. We know he is saying this in the line, “… tear our pleasures with rough strife”. Once again, like Marvell, Donne’s poem is split into three different moods using verses. In verse one, he is challenging the sun as he doesn’t want to be disturbed by the “Busy old fool...” and says that he should go and shine on those people that are not in love as those in love don’t need it as they aren’t affected by days. In verse two he is all powerful and we know this when he says, “I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink”. In verse three he is accepting the sun as he is saying he is creating the perfect universe within his bed with his lover and a universe must have a sun. This is shown in the line “Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.” In my opinion, Donne and Shakespeare are similar in their moods because they both agree that love conquers time, as proved “Love, all alike, no season knows…”(Donne) and “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks…”(Shakespeare) but they have different reasonings whereas Marvell disagrees with them both by saying that time will catch up with them.
‘Sonnet 116’ has a metaphysical setting that fits beautifully with showing that love lasts forever. Although the setting involves physical objects they are used in metaphorical language, for example, “It is the star to every wandering bark...“means that love is the star to every wandering ship which I interpret to mean love is the beginning of a journey. ’To His Coy Mistress’ has a mixture of setting in it. In verse one, a physical setting is used. “Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide Of the Humber would complain...“ I feel that this means that he sees her in an elevated light with her being in the beauty and exotic Indian river and he by the plain Humber. He is almost comparing her with the beauty of rubies and the exotic Indian river and saying that she deserves to be their with her beauty. However, verse two has both a physical and metaphysical setting. By the line “Deserts of vast eternity“I believe he is scaring her by saying before they know it their youth with have deteriorate due to time catching up with them and the lust for each other will disappear. Unlike the other poets, Donne has taken a physical setting, the bedroom, and turned it into a metaphorical setting, his own universe. The line, “This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere” shows this.
Shakespeare has structured his poem to show that people change over time whereas love does not. He uses Spondee as a vital part of his argument, “Loves not times fool” and “Oh no! it is an ever fixed mark…” Shakespeare also uses the iambic pentameter in the first of the two quotes on the word “not”. The trochaic substitution in the line, “If this be error…” adds to the affect he created in his argument along with the trochaic substitution, iambic pentameter and the use of spondee. The rhyming couplets used as the last two lines give his argument the ‘Coup de grace’! The use of imagery and metaphors creates a constant, “Within his bending sickle's compass come…”, “…looks on tempests and is never shaken…” and “Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark…”. The quote, “…it is an ever-fixed mark…” is there to say that time can do its worst but it will never be able to change them unlike Marvell who says time does affect people’s looks, “Thy beauty shall no more be found”. Marvell has cleverly structured his poem into a three piece argument that creates a perfect build up for his view that time conquers love. He has structured his poem to create a three piece argument, Stanza one is ‘If we had’, Stanza two is ‘But’ and Stanza three is ‘Therefore’. The sensuality of language adds to the affect he creates such as the use of the word “devour” which he uses to say he will ‘consume’ her. Marvell structured stanza one to show his loneliness, stanza two to show the nothingness of love, we can see this by the line, “Deserts of vast eternity” and stanza three shows his desperation. The last two lines, “Thus; though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run” for me are the two words that sum up his whole argument because he says that we can’t make the sun standstill and therefore stop time, so we will give him a run for his money due to the vigorous nature of our love making. Similar to Marvell, Donne has structured his poem in a three point argument, verse one is ‘why do you?’, verse two is ‘why should you?’ and in verse three he has conquered the sun. Although the poem has a regular meter, it does have metric variations and consists of the dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter and pentameter. This is used to make it seem more like a conversation than a poem that fits perfectly with the idea of talking to the sun and also show the argument. The use of hyperbole, in the line, “I could eclips and cloud them with a wink…” shows that he can stop the sun from shining on them meaning he could stop time for love and therefore sums up the meaning he is trying to get out.
The conflict between love and time are evident in all of the poems and the mood, structure and settings have been written to prove so. Shakespeare’s beautiful choice of words and metaphors really stand out to me, especially “It is the star to every wandering bark”. Another powerful piece of language in the poem ‘Sonnet 116’ are the last two lines (“If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”) in which Shakespeare basically says that if he is wrong about love then he never wrote and nobody ever did love. This shows strongly his belief that love does in fact conquer time and the passionate way in which he wrote this poem shows this. The conversational way in which John Donne wrote ‘The Sun Rising’ adds to the three piece argument he is trying to get across. Personally, I think that the way in which he finally conquers the sun is put across in an amazing metaphorical way that just shows that his love can conquer time when he creates his own universe in his bed, “This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.” ‘To His Coy Mistress’, I feel, is written out of desperation rather than love. I think this due to the fact that he seems to be reminding her that time is catching up with her and her “…beauty shall no more be found” make me feel he does not love her because love is a feeling that doesn’t alter even if people do. Yet, I suppose that this helps get his point across that time conquers love so they should embrace in the physical side of love whilst they can.
