"To His Coy Mistress"
One must analyze tone, metaphor, diction, imagery and alliteration to understand the meaning of, "To His Coy Mistress." Andrew Marvell uses all five tools to convey just how much passion the speaker has for his mistress, Marvell uses all five tools in very tactful ways to convey his meaning. To fully understand "To his Coy Mistress," one must understand what the tone of the poem is. Yet to be clear there is no overlaying tone, there are three within the poem. Starting with the first section of the poem the speaker begins to flatter his mistress, he flatters her to an almost outrageous extent, "An hundred years should go to praise / Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; / Two hundred to adore each breast, / But thirty thousand to the rest" (Lines: 13-16). His tone seems to coax and cajole his mistress. One can find that he may be overdoing it when he promises to adore each part of her for an outrageous amount of time. Not to mention he promises to adore each breast twice as long as her eyes. The tone found in the second section is in sharp contrast to section one. His tone becomes sincere, he speaks of death and limited time, "And your quaint honor turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lu
Each devise is used for a certain reason, and that truly helps convey the message to his mistress and the anyone who may read this poem. In the second section his diction changes to telling his mistress that they do not have forever to live. His passions for his mistress, through imagery, is shown in section three, "And now, like amorous birds of prey, /Rather at once our time devour" (Lines 38-39). This could be done to bring the poem to the end, to close with a bang. Through all the imagery used a true eternal love is show for his mistress, many may be confused by the images of death but don't be, he is simply telling his mistress that they must live in the moment because death is coming soon. Still in the first section he begins to flatter her by telling her it would take, "An hundred years should go to praise / Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze; / Two hundred to adore each breast, / But thirty thousand to the rest" (Lines: 13-16), here his word choices revolve around time. In the first section his diction revolves around showing his mistress that he is well educated and knows of far off places like, "the Indian Ganges" (Line5). He is not being just playful any longer. The imagery used in section one reminds one of eternity, but that imagery abruptly stops in section two with imagery like, "Thy beauty shall no more be found" (Line 25), "And your quaint honor turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lust" (Lines: 29-30). Through all the devices used it is shown that he loves his mistress enough to flatter, and impress her. Another aspect to the poem that is very important to the meaning as a whole is the imagery used. And lastly through alliteration emphasis is put on important parts of the poem. Then lastly in the third section, word choices revert back to being happy, and sweet, as shown in line thirty-four "Sits on the skin like a morning dew" (Line 34), and line thirty-three, " youthful hew" (Line 33). This may be done to get his mistress' attention; again he may be using eloquent high style language to impress her.
Common topics in this essay:
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Jews Line10,
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,
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/ hundred adore,
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