To His Coy Mistress
"Seize the day." In To His Coy Mistress, Marvell creates a timeless land of paradise and contrasts it to the harsh realities of the real world. If there were enough time, the speaker would continue on court his mistress forever, but time is disappearing fast, so they must take advantage of the moments they currently have and express their love for one another before death comes to claim them; there is no time to be coy. Through allusion, metaphor, and imagery Marvell successfully conveys his theme of time and seduction. In the first stanza the speaker is basically telling his mistress to live and love, because time is short and life is passing. Centuries seem to pass by in minutes for the speaker; why el
They must choose to be the "amorous birds of prey" and devour time or be the victims in which time will slowly eat them away. Marvell's effective literary techniques all help to convey his themes of time and seduction. The speaker warns his mistress of not ever having loved before facing death, picturing their graves where they will turn to dust and that his lust would turn into ashes. The eternity that had earlier been offered to his mistress now becomes a vast enormous desert. se would one devote "an hundred years. The speaker gives a vision into the future, which leads into nothing but dust after the worms have done their work. to praise thine eyes" and "two hundred to adore each breast"? These hyperboles greatly exaggerate time for greater effect in the speaker's love for the mistress, saying that he would "love [her] ten years before the Flood. In the last few stanzas, Marvell includes a variety of images and argues again to his mistress to "seize the moment. " There is a sense of urgency in exploiting the "youthful hue" that exists now. "To his coy mistress" explains how time is something that time is short but it can be enjoyable. Marvell then offers a way of fighting against time, which is summarized in the last two lines of the poem: even though the lovers cannot command time to "stand still", time can not have control over their love.
Common topics in this essay:
Mistress Marvell,
,
love grow,
real world,
warns mistress,
coy mistress,
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