To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and the Flea by John Donne - Research Paper Example

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell and the Flea by John Donne Both poems have a similar theme, “love”, and, at the beginning of both the poems, this love seems to be pure in its approach and address. On closer observation, the underlying meaning changes altogether, letting the reader see the erotic nature of love, where the beloved is urged to give up her chastity, her virginity. Both speakers in the poem expect the beloved to give in to their lustful desire, as if the woman is supposed to be readily available to satisfy man’s desire in the naked flesh. The setting of the poems is seventeenth Century England, an era of metaphysical poetry, Donne being a pioneer. Both Marvell and Donne composed beautiful poetry with stunning heightened imagery. The underlying message in both poems is to capture time and make the most of it (Boros, Herman, and Martin 132-154). In other words, life should be enjoyed to the fullest, without any worries of what lies ahead, it seems to say. The irony in both poems is that though the speaker’s main concern is to get his beloved into bed with him, he takes a long-winding way to try to reach his destination, fulfillment of carnal desire. Starting with Platonic love, both the poems end by focusing on the fact that life should be enjoyed to the fullest, and such enjoyment, as reflected in the poems, is satisfaction of carnal desire. John Donne’s “The Flea” is a three-stanza poem, each stanza having nine lines. It is predominantly in iambic rhythm. The initial six lines bear interchanging pentameter in addition to tetrameter. The seventh line is in tetrameter and the eighth line is in pentameter. The rhyme design is AABBCCDDD. Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” has three stanzas too. It is in Iambic tetrameter, with eight syllables per line (Bloom 46-53). The rhyme design is ABAB. The two poets belong to the period when metaphysical poetry was being used by poets of that era. Seen from this perspective, it becomes even more necessary to study and compare the two poems very carefully. As the reader can see, Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” is in three stanzas, and the mood, too, changes. The first stanza centers on the admiration of the speaker for his darling. In an exaggerated manner, he describes his love for the lady, and how this love could take up all the time in the world to admire it with complete submission to love. If only time could be in his control! At this point, the poem has a Platonic flavor in it, but in the very next stanza, the mood changes and the speaker focuses on the fleeting nature of time, “But at my back I always hear, Times winged Chariot hurrying near” (Jokinen stanza 2). Men know how conscious most women, if not all, are about their looks, and the speaker uses that issue as a bait to snare the chaste lady, to make her submit to his animal passion. He points out how the beloved’s beauty would fade, and in the grave, she would be deprived of grace. A ghastly picture of ants crawling over her ‘virginity’ is drawn, which is rather cruel of a lover to point out! “That long preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust,” (Jokinen stanza 2) Holding on to her chastity would have no meaning, as with death, all that she held on to, honor and self-esteem, would mingle with the dust, and she would be all alone there. He is trying to impregnate his beloved’s mind with the fear of death and decay, to which all matter on this earth have to succumb sooner or later. He also tries to soften her by saying that her death would destroy him too, for he could love no more (Lee 89-97). In the final stanza, the speaker finally exposes his mind, which is filled with carnal desire. He urges her to unite with him physically, to live in the present only, for to them, that only mattered. “Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey” (Jokinen stanza 3). Time could not be a bar in their physical enjoyment. No sense of loss or resentment would remain, and that is how time could be at their disposal, to do what they willed. The speaker wants the shy lady to come out of the cocoon of chastity and submit herself to him! Coming to the other poem, one can see that John Donne’s “The Flea” uses a far-fetched image, a tiny insect, the flea, as a medium for the speaker to convince his beloved why pre-marital sex was justified. He affirms that in the flea’s bite and blood-sucking, the two had united, for he was bitten before her, and the love-making was already done. She had not responded to the speaker’s love, in this case, carnal desire, but the flea had been more fortunate as it had sucked her blood. His imagination runs wild and he claims that since the flea had sucked his blood before it sucked hers, the blood of the two had mingled, symbolizing their love-making. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; “(Poetry Foundation stanza 1).   It was through the flea that the two had managed to unite, he affirms. He even goes so far as to see reproduction of new life taking place, as seen in the line, “Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are” (Poetry Foundation stanza 2). When she kills the flea, he warns her of the penance that would fall heavily upon her. When she is not moved, it seems, by what he says, he comes to the core-point of his persuasion, and tries to make her see that fear works only in the mind, and it is of little significance. Her fear of sinning by losing her chastity was meaningless, he assures. He asks her to give in to his seduction, for she had already sinned, so what more could she lose? He entices her to give up her chastity which she seemed to have been guarding jealously, for she had nothing to lose, and much fulfillment to gain in their union. Eloquent in speech, in both poems, the speaker makes his transition in thoughts very smoothly. The reader cannot help being amused to see how cleverly, and with what patience the two women are wooed (Cuncun, and Mark 100-129). What seems like true love and, apparently, seems pure, finally shows its true nature, which is nothing short of lustful craving. Interesting to note here is that the speaker in ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is, at first, too rhetorical in his description of true love, then sadly declares that time would fall short to love her fully, for such love needed time infinite, and finally out comes the truth, his carnal desire! Very smoothly, the speaker goes for that gigantic leap, from the aesthetic to the erotic! These points to the baser nature of man, when reasoning is pushed aside. The orator in ‘The Flea’ seems to have less patience. Unlike the wooer in “ To His Coy Mistress, who gives ample proof of his aesthetic sense, the man in “The Flea” does not feel it is important to attract the lady with beautiful objects. He rather tends to see beauty in what others would declare as ugly. Though the reader could question his aesthetic sense, one has to admit that he is balanced in his persuasion (Ousby 65-73). His focus is constantly on the flea, and all his reasoning is based on that particular thing. The speaker in “To his Coy Mistress” is rather rhetorical in approach, professing ‘love’ in an exaggerated manner. He is patient and smoothly shifts his mood, from aesthetic love to concern about the fleeting nature of time; finally declaring that time could be conquered by the fulfillment in their physical union. In other words, only the present mattered, and the present was meant to be enjoyed, so why think of anything else? The poems are truly metaphysical in approach. Both the poems cry out for enjoying what the present offers, a common theme in poems of the seventeenth century. Physical union is the theme in both poems. The man is seen trying hard to break the woman’s chastity, but there is no sign of her submitting to the man’s desire (Volpp 77-117). Both poems are beautiful, no doubt, but where the theme is concerned, they are rather insulting to a feminist, for both poems smell of male chauvinism, and can in no way be acceptable to the liberated woman of today. A woman is not an object of enjoyment, and she holds chastity dear! A lot could be said against these men’s attitude toward women, how they view women, and the issue surely calls for debate. As for imagery, form, meter and rhyme scheme, the poems have been woven with craft and skill. It is in the artistic beauty, where even the ugliness is described with ornamentation, that makes the style so eloquent, and the reader is left satisfied with the poet’s craftsmanship. Both poems, in symbolism, style and presentation, reflect seventeenth Century poetry. Works cited Bloom, Harold, ed. Modern Critical Views: Andrew Marvell. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. Print. Boros, Gábor, Herman De Dijn, and Martin Moors. The concept of love in 17th and 18th century philosophy. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007. Print. Cuncun, Wu, and Mark Stevenson. "Speaking of Flowers: Theatre, Public Culture, and Homoerotic Writing in Nineteenth-Century Beijing." Asian Theatre Journal 27.1 (2010): 100-129. Jokinen, Anniina. To his Coy Mistress: by Andrew Marvell. 1999. Web. 19 April 2013. Lee, Michelle.“To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell.” Poetry Criticism. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Ousby, Ian. The Cambridge guide to literature in English. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Print. Poetry Foundation. The Flea: By John Donne. 2013. Web. 19 April 2013. Volpp, Sophie. "Classifying lust: The seventeenth-century vogue for male love." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61.1 (2001): 77-117. Read More