What do you find interesting about the ways in which love and desire are explored in these three poems Essay Example

What do you find interesting about the ways in which love and desire are explored in these three poems? Essay In The Fair Singer Andrew Marvell describes a girl he has seen but has not necessarily met unlike in his other poem To His Coy Mistress in which he writes to his lover. Throughout the poem Marvell uses surprising imagery as he portrays his love with military metaphors, for example in the first line, To make a final conquest of all me, the word conquest is usually used to describe a battle or an attack. There is an example of military connection in each line of the first stanza. He is trying to show how beauty can be dangerous. The poet then uses personification, Love did compose so sweet an enemy this shows love as his foe and that he does not necessarily want to fall in love, this is also another example of military imagery. Joining themselves in fatal harmony: this is an example of oxymoron, fatal meaning deadly and harmony being peaceful. 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Breaking the curled trammels of her hair, Here, Marvell has used the word trammels to describe the womans hair; this is an odd choice of words but it adds to the effect and carries on the trend using military imagery. It is as though he is caught in a net, her hair. The poet then suggests that she is controlling him, like a siren, Whose subtle art invisibly can wreathe My fetters of the very air I breathe? her subtle art is her singing voice and she is astounding him and taking his breath away with her fetters, which literally means chains but here it describes her voice as strong in, once again, a surprising use of imagery. In the final stanza, Marvell shows that he has given up hope and has let his love overcome him. He gives excuses to justify himself falling in love with this woman. He once more tells us that because she has two beautiful qualities, she is irresistible, Where victory might hang in equal choice, But all resistance against her is vain, Here, rather than telling us that love is the trouble as in the last two stanzas, he tells us that she is the problem. In the final line the poet mentions the sun as in the other two poems, She having both the wind and sun. although here the sun represents the womans eyes, instead of actually the sun. Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress is trying to convince his reluctant girlfriend, His Coy Mistress, to love him, It uses a different style than the other poem, although it keeps rhyming couplets: Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. It also uses three separate stanzas like the other two poems but it uses irregular sentence length. The writer uses a metaphysical combination of strong ideals and complex intellectual ideas to bring across his strong feelings. The writer uses three irregular sections using different methods to woo his mistress. The first section starts at Had we but the world on line one and ends at Nor would I love at lower rate. on line 20 and this is his concession. The method employed in this section is sarcastic and humorous. Had we but world enough, or time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. If the poet had an endless amount of time then it would not matter that his girlfriend is reluctant as he could spend forever convincing her to love him. We would sit down, and think which way, To walk, and pass our long loves day. This is exaggerated, creating idyllic and dream-like surroundings making the act of love seem very easy and casual. Marvell uses the typical clichà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ that you can be miles apart but the love for each other keeps them together, Thou by the Indian Ganges side, Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide If he lived forever, he could gaze upon his lovers beauty eternally and spend forever before revealing his love I would Love you ten years before the flood, In the seventeenth century the bible was seen as history, rather than the metaphor people see it as today, it was believed that Noahs Ark was very close to the beginning of time. And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews; This states that he would not complain about waiting to reveal his love and would even wait until the conversion of the Jews which is what people believed to be the end of the world, implying an anti-Semitic view. In this section, Marvell uses numbers of years to imply how long he would wait before he would reveal his love, rather than being rather vague earlier on. Two hundred to adore each breast and But thirty thousand to the rest, showing how he would not care how long hed have to wait to reveal his love because he could spend forever gazing upon his lovers beauty, Nor would I love at lower rate. This use of hyperbole is flattering and is used throughout the first stanza. But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying hear Immediately the mood of first section is reversed and inverted, stating that this is not reality and that death times winged chariot is catching up with them. And that after death, And yonder all before us lie, Deserts of vast eternity. There is nothing, giving an agnostic view that there is no heaven or hell, which would not have been orthodox in the seventeenth century. The next line, Thy beauty shall no more be found, saying that you will be beautiful when alive but when dead no one would be able to see that beauty and that it will have been wasted. On line 26, there is a short pause halfway through the line just after My echoing song which leads on to the second half of the line which uses even greater shocking imagery: then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your greater honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust: Here, the poet writes that after death no one will be able to get to you but the worms as she decomposes and also that her honour in preserving her virginity is going to be worth nothing when shes dead and that, even though, death may be peaceful, The graves a fine and private place, But none, I think do these embrace. no one will be able to love her when shes dead. Through use of penetrating words and displeasing imagery, he is able to shock his lover. In the final section the word therefore is used to make the act of love seem logical and right. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on my skin like morning dew, this shows that beauty will evaporate and fade away like dew on grass. It also suggests that soul wants to come out through the definition of fresh moist skin. This is further shown in the next lines: And while thy willing soul transpires With every pore with instant fires, Again stating that inside her, her soul is burning for her to lose her virginity and he is the right person to take it from her. The poet then uses imagery to show how he and his coy mistress should not waste time And now, like amorous prey, Rather at once our time devour the writer is stating that they should not wait to make love, but go for it now. The line, Our sweetness up into one ball, defines the ball as a perfect shape showing the perfection of love. It could also be seen as a cannon ball that is trying to break through boundaries, as explained in the penultimate lines, And tear our pleasures like rough strife Through the iron gates of life; shows that he will break through any barriers to get to what they want. This is a striking use of military imagery and is similar to the previous poem, The Fair Singer In the final line, Thus, though we can not make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. once again stating that even though you can not stop time, you can make it race, and commit to love as quickly as possible, in contrast to the way John Donne uses the sun in his poem, as he suggests that the sun does not need to move In his poem, The Sun Rising, Donne places the reader into his altered reality with a talking to for the sun busy old fool, unruly sun that through curtains calls upon him, seizing him from the bliss which no season knows. This bliss, a passionate love, stimulates him to create his own world in which he and his lover are the only important people. In this poem the narrator of the poem has got his woman unlike in the other two poems. He feels that because he is in love time does not apply to them. He suggests, while still talking to the sun, that it should go and wake people that need to be up early, Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court huntsmen that the King will ride, He shows that he feels he and his lover are important and that the sun should go and Call country ants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no seasons knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Donne writes that love doesnt know the seasons and that love makes time stand still. He wants the sun to leave him alone. This is a humorous use of personification because the sun is not controlled by anyone, it cannot move anyway. In the time that this poem was written, people had a Ptolemaic view of the universe. It was thought that the sun revolved around the Earth. Donne then begins the next stanza with a joke, Thy beams so reverend and strong why shouldst thou think? The sun does not believe it is more important than anything else, which is what he is suggesting. I could eclipse them and cloud them with a wink, Donne shows how he can out-smart the sun, by closing his eyes; this is meant to be amusing as it has no brain. This then allows him to flatter his lover by saying he wants to see her, But that I would not lose her sight so long: Donne shows his wit again by flipping reality on its head, If her eyes have not blinded thine, in actuality the sun could blind her if she were to look directly at it. Later in the stanza the narrator reworks the view and replaces the earth with the bed that he is laying on, Whether both thIndias of Spice and Myne be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me. Although egotistical, Donne writes that the narrator and his lover are the centre of the universe. At the beginning of the third stanza the narrator says that he and his partner make up the whole world; She is all States, and all Princes, I nothing else is I feel that this is a good analogy because a State without a ruler could not last and a prince without land is incomplete. The speaker then admits that there are other people in the world but still believes that they are unimportant, Princes do but play us; He sees himself and his lover as more important than everyone else, even Princes who need to copy them. He reinforces this point in the next line, All honours mimic; all wealth alchemy. Here the narrator feels that he and his partner are gold and that everything else is some other worthless metal. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere. Donne ends the poem with the narrator suggesting that the sun does not need to move because it only needs to warm the world and his bed is the whole Earth. This contradicts both the start of this poem and the end of To His Coy Mistress. Overall I think that the three poems used strange techniques, only one was addressed to the adored female although horrific and negative images were chosen. I feel that in modern times people have a more pessimistic view of love and less and less people would be willing to write a love poem, which would also be written very differently to these three poems. I think that the most interesting thing I found was that the poems were so odd and yet I also enjoyed how different people and their beliefs were in the seventeenth century.