Critical analysis Coy Mistress - Essay Example

While there is an element of truth to this argument, it is also true that poets like John Donne and Andrew Marvell can hardly be limited to these concerns (Donne 98). In Marvell’s poem, “To his Coy Mistress”, while the narrator constantly objectifies his lover, the poem also offers an insight into the mind of a man and the manner in which he expresses his love. The male narrator talks about the feats that he intends to achieve for the fulfillment of his lust. Characterized by temporal and spatial grandeur, the narrator’s intentions defy logic and human power: …….

 I would  Love you ten years before the Flood,  And you should, if you please, refuse  Till the conversion of the Jews.  My vegetable love should grow  Vaster than empires, and more slow; (Marvell) These comments made by the narrator makes one wonder whether the narrator’s reasons for wooing the “lady” (Marvell) are those of love, or lust. Can the two of these emotions co-exist or are they independent of each other, seems to be the question that seems to be foremost on Marvell’s mind.

Contemporary psychology seems to say that both cases are possibilities. While love and lust are emotions that may find expression together, the possibility of them existing separately are also equally true (Barry). In the poetry of Marvell, both these possibilities are accommodated. The speaker in the poem, while talking about the eternal love that he bears for the lady that he talks of, also reminds her of the immediacy of his needs. Marvell’s poetry sees an integration of the emotions of love and lust through the integration of the motifs of eternal love and “carpe diem”- these words of Horace are usually translated as “seize the day”().

The character in the poem attempts to convince the lady to enter into a sexual union with him; at the same time by referring to her worthiness to be loved for eternity he also seems to be making a reference to the truth of his love. However, it would not be wrong for one to conclude that the foremost concern of the narrator of the poem seems to be to trick the woman that he is talking about, so as to fulfill his sexual desire. This satiation, which is at the top of the man’s list of priorities, can be seen in the latter half of the poem, where he talks of the worms that would invade the “long preserved virginity” of the woman, even if she were to guard it religiously, in a desperate attempt to persuade her of the futility of her holiness and chastity.

This gets reflected in the impatient images that are used to represent the love of the lover. A psychoanalytic reading of the poem would make it clear how words such as “amorous birds of prey” figure in the course of things in Marvell’s poem. This would be a representation of the speaker’s state of mind through which his desire to figuratively devour his lover is shown. This is very much a representation of the carnal male desire towards his lover that the speaker lets slip. Throughout this poem, during which the speaker tries to persuade his lover to enter into a sexual union with him, he plays on the aspirations that characterize women and what they desire of a partner.

This, psychologists argue is a result of an inbuilt defense mechanism that helps women target those males that they feel are likely to help them raise their children and not just enter into a relationship for the