Coy Mistress

David Sanchez

Professor Beers

English 231

1 November 2016

To His Coy Mistress

        This poem may likely be my favorite piece of material we have read thus far. Andrew Marvell composes a clear and concise argument to his love interest, while also filling the poem with much humor. What I enjoyed most about this poem was Marvell’s honesty towards his intentions. He is clearly not trying to hide the fact that he only wants to lay with his women. I found his honesty and humor to be a refreshing element when contrasted with many of the other love style poems we have read thus far. One may call me a cynic, and they may even be right, but I feel many of the other authors of most of the love poems we have read are full of bologna in their intentions. This is the reason why I can respect Marvell’s intentions, because they are truly honest. In addition, Marvell has a couple themes that are present throughout the poem. The first theme I noticed was time. To illustrate, in the first lines of the poem Marvell states that “Had we but world enough, and time, this coyness, lady were no crime”. This is but a small example of Marvell’s allusion to time throughout the poem and him creating a sense of urgency for her to agree to lay with him. I also found his strategy to be quite clever due to the fact that he is essentially selling himself to her and one of the biggest rules in sales is to always create a sense of urgency for the buyer. The next theme I found present in this piece was the theme of sex. For example, Marvell alludes to the fact that if she does not have sex with him than her virginity will be taken by the worms. Marvell is virtually saying that if she does not succumb to his sexual prowess now than she will die a virgin which seems to hold the same stigma in society then as it does today. The last theme to be covered is the theme of persuasion. Persuasion is found throughout the poem. Marvell creates a logistic argument of persuasion broken down into three different stanzas. This makes his poetry easy to follow and comprehend.

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