Wednesday, October 6, 2010
To His Coy Mistress
The aspect of Marvell's poem that stands out the most is his pivoting tone through the poem , more specifically as he states "Had we but the world enough, and time" but later firmly corrects himself, stating "But... Times winged chariot hurrying near". Without a close reading, the reader is unable to catch the fact that in the first stanza, Marvell starts the poem off with the word "had', and such a "tuned-out" reader may classify the poem as a sweet love poem. However, the poem truly changes its tone and its meaning after the word "but" in the beginning of the second stanza. What originally seems like a soft and sweet poem pivots into a poem having a harsh and vicious tone.
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I agree with most of your points however I think the "had" is a big signal for what he is about to describe. I think with him startign with that word alone, the reader knows that what he is about to describe is conditional and the situation is ideal. I agree that "but" is definitely a pivot word. The first word of each stanza really sets the tone for the whole stanza.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point that initially the poem could be classified as a "sweet love poem." Lines such as "My vegetable love should grow vaster than empires, and more slow" and "for lady, you deserve this state, nor would I love at lower rate" reveal a sort of tender tone that shifts in the next stanzas. After the "but," as you reference, we see lines such as "thy beauty shall no more be found nor in thy marble vault shall sound my echoing song" and we even see the mention of unpleasant things like worms and dust. The poem, in a sense, through its language exemplifies the deterioration that is of the core of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress."
ReplyDeleteSam I agree that Marvell's poem does shift tones and I would like to add that there are 2 main tonal shifts in this poem. The first one you mentioned in your post. The speaker mentions how he and the woman don't have unlimited time. The word "But" is indeed a key indicator that the mood is about to shift. There is one more crucial tonal shift in the beginning of line 33. "Now, therefore" symbolizes the beginning of his argument to why she should stop being coy and start acting on her love for him. The remainder of the poem urges the woman to seize the day or "Carpe Diem."
ReplyDeletegood conversation here!
ReplyDelete