The Renaissance Period in English Poetry - Research Paper Example

The renaissance period in English poetry mainly comprises the (a) Elizabethan period where there was a form of courtly poetry largely centred aroundthe figure and persona of the monarch (b) classical, where the main themes of the poetry dealt with classical themes and figures from mythology and (c) metaphysical, where poetry moved towards elements that were greater than what could be gleaned purely through the senses. Love is a common metaphysical subject explored in later renaissance poetry, especially in terms of how desire impacts upon the poet individual and consumes him/her in its intensity so that the object of desire potentially becomes a part of the poet. Two poems are examined in this essay, namely “To his coy mistress” by Andrew Marvell and “The Good Morrow” by John Donne, to examine how the themes of love and desire have produced a result wherein the identity of both the subject and object of desire are threatened. Both Marvell and Donne poets belong to the later, metaphysical period in English renaissance poetry, but their works differ in their approach to the object of desire and the objectives that the poet in each case, seeks to achieve. Donne’s work is a celebration of the intensity and passion of love where the lovers have become so close that they are almost one; hence it results in a loss of individual identity because their combined identity generated through their love is equal and proportional and therefore gives them victory over death. Marvell’s poem on the other hand, is also about the loss of identity; but deals with a lover who seeks to achieve a union among two people and therefore a destruction of individual identities; not necessarily for the fulfilment of a true love but rather to achieve sexual satisfaction. In the process of moving his beloved towards that sexual satisfaction, Marvell’s poem also presents a destruction of identity that leads ultimately to death. But this death is eternal and the lovers in this instance, are not successful in achieving a victory over death. Petrarchism is a characteristic feature of the Renaissance period and is well assimilated into English renaissance culture, and it also forms a part of both these poems. The Petrarchan tradition originated in the poems of Francesca Petrarch and deals with the theme of unrequited love and desire where the poet thirsts and longs fervently for the object of his/her desire and this poetry about unfulfilled love is written in the form of sonnets (Ruhnke, 2007:6). The two poems selected for this study also follow in the same format. Donne’s poem however deals with lovers who have been able to fulfil their love for each other and are lying in each other’s arms the next morning, after their union, but the subject of the poem is still the desire and love that unites the couple. The intensity of the desire that bonds the two lovers in Donne’s poem and the closeness of the bond that unites them may be noted clearly in lines 8 to 10: “And now good morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; for love, all love of other sights controls.” (Donne, 2: 8-10) The expression that love controls other sights further appears to indicate the degree of exclusivity the lovers enjoy, because their love appears to have inhibited their desire to look upon anything else other than each other. The poet appears to indicate that their joining has been a union of souls that has emerged out of their strong desire for one another. Their closeness is further reinforced in the following lines: “My face in thine eye; thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest.” (Donne, 2: 15-16). This clearly illustrates how the identity of each of the lovers has become inextricably intertwined with the identity of the other. The desire existing between them has brought them so close together that their individual identity has in effect, been destroyed. At this point, the poet seems very contended with the new little world they have created together (Zaragoza, 2007), where the merging of the identities of the two lovers is suggested through the reflection of the image of each in the other’s eyes. In describing this blissful state of the two lovers, the poet earlier makes a reference to the lovers being in the “Seven Sleepers” den. This is a reference to the legend of the Seven Sleepers, dealing with the story of seven young Christians who were walled into a cave to die but fell into a miraculous sleep instead, to awaken years later. (Donne and Redpath, 3). This further reinforces the implication that the lovers are completely lost in each other, to the point where the rest of the world is walled out and they are submerged into each other, with the identity of the one being lost in an eternal sleep-like state of desire in the other. This poem thus demonstrates another important aspect associated with renaissance poetry, i.e, it mystically connects readers to the past and helps in the use of that past as a means to explore provocative issues associated with humanity. (www.botticellisvision.com). In this case, the poet seeks to convey the feeling of the lovers being wrapped up exclusively in each other, so that their identities are also wrapped up in terms of the love they feel for each other and their image of themselves as a couple deeply in love also conditions their identity of their individual selves as being a part of that couple. They are so wrapped up in each other that aeons may pass while they remain in that closely entwined state, with their individual identities shattered for ever by their desire, while their new identity as a couple can lead them into eternity and help them overcome death. The poem “To his coy Mistress” is a poem about the subject of the poet’s desire – a woman. The elements of the past have also been used liberally in this poem, but this past has been used to explore the provocative element of sexual desire. The poem makes it clear that what the poet is after is not necessarily the kind of soul joining love that Donne has presented, but sexual fulfilment. The identity of the poet’s expression is completely wrapped up in the throbbing desire he is consumed with. The identity of the lady in question is revealed purely through the vehicle of his desire; for instance we realize that she is coy, this coyness lady were no crime (Marvell:2), and that she is beautiful Thy beauty shall no more be found (Marvell:25) but this identity is a function of the desire of the poet. The poem “To His coy mistress” also follows the Renaissance tradition in that it follows the Petrarchan model of unrequited love, although this is turned around to present the provocative new perspective of sexual yearning (www.iopal.net). The poet uses exaggerated metaphors that also draw upon the past in order to appeal to his beloved and convince her to enter into a sexual relationship with him. For example, he states that he has loved her since ten years before the flood that is referred to in the Bible and will love her until the conversion of the Jews, which has not yet happened and is not expected to happen until Armageddon.(Marvell: 8,10). Drawing upon the elements of the past helps to emphasize the timeless quality of love itself, but in this instance, that love is not presented in the way it has been in the works from the past; rather it is presented in a form that would have been unacceptable in the past, i.e, sexual yearning and the very identity of the woman is presented through the filter of the poet’s sexual desire for her. The loss of identity of both the subject, i.e, the poet as well as the object of desire, i.e., the lover, are suggested in the poem “The Good Morrow” by the lines: “Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love just alike in all, None of these loves can die.” (Donne and Redpath :2). The implication is that love is eternal and does not die if it is contributed equally by both the lovers. The poet suggests that everything that perishes does so because it was not “mixed equally”, hence by inference, if the lovers retain their own identities and love each other unequally, then their love cannot be eternal and survive death. On the other hand, the poet states that if the “two loves be one”, or when the identity of the one is lost completely into the other, so that they are two equal being lost totally in each other by one loving the other just as intensely as the other, then they can effectively conquer death and will not die. There is an implicit assumption that the distinct and separate identity of the lovers has been destroyed by the onset of desire for each other, but through the process of living each other equally, both of them have surrendered their identity equally and this is what has enabled them to transcend death and conquer it. A similar idea that the is also presented in Marvell’s poem, but in this instance, it is the woman’s virginity that stands in the way of the eternity of the lovers. As a result, although their identity may be linked to the underlying desire and could potentially lead to a union that could provide them victory over death, the lack of fulfilment of that sexual desire inevitably leads them to an eternal death where the lack of a union has rendered the state akin to a desert. The poet presents the image of the object of desire within her grave and states that “worms shall try That long preserved virginity And your quaint honour turn to dust And into ashes all my lust.” (Marvell:27-29). The poet in this instance seeks a merging of the physical bodies as quickly as possible because sexual fulfilment is his ultimate goal. Throughout the poem, the objective of the poet’s ardour and declarations of praise for the beauty of the woman he desires are centred around sexual fulfilment and the elimination of the woman’s virginity; although it may take thousands of years, he would be willing to wait if the achievement of that goal could be assured (www.bluepete.com). The desire that the poet feels is fraught with the pain of longing and yearning and thus conforms closely with the Petrarchan model because it uses imagery to emphasize the personal tribulations that are associated to desire. In this respect, the very act of desiring has posed a threat to the poet’s identity by transforming him into a different person from the one that he was before he experienced desire. He has now become an individual whose mind is filled with thoughts of his beloved; his identity is not distinct and separate from her because he can spend ages and aeons sustaining his desire for her until she is ready to yield herself to him. The poem therefore suggests that the very act of desiring poses a threat to the existent identity of the poet. The poet then changes the pace to a breathtaking speed as he points out that time’s winged chariot is hurrying near and that if the union of the man and woman fails to take place, then all that lies before them are deserts of vast eternity. (Marvell, 22-24). Unlike the eternity in Donne’s poem, where the union of man and woman and their consequent loss of identity has helped them to conquer even death, eternity in Marvell’s poem is perceived as a dry arid desert where the individuality of both the not-yet-lovers is destroyed; hence the blissful state that could have ensued has not been attained. It is that state of desire and its consummation that could ultimately lead to a destruction of identity, of the kind that could potentially produce a victory over death. But the poet appears to be suggesting that since the desire remains unconsummated, the loss of identity that would come with death, as an individual grows old would not be the blissful or victorious state that it could be when the lovers con consummate their desire for each other. The threat to the identity of the lovers is however evident in Marvell’s poem as well, even when they are still alive and have not yet been sexually united, albeit in a different way. The poet states And now like amorous birds of prey, rather at once our time devour.” (Marvell, 37-38). The use of the term “devour” appears to indicate the element of destruction that is associated with amour or desire . The implication is that when birds of prey are consumed with desire for each other, they become capable of devouring or destroying life. In a similar way, the poet appears to be implying that when desire overtakes the couple and they yield to it, it has the power to transform them into beings that are capable of devouring time itself. The poet then follows these acts of devouring time with Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball (Marvell: 40-41). This is the act of union between the poet and his lover; the ultimate consummation of the desire that has been inflaming the poet and making him pursue the subject of his ardour with such fervour. Here again, there is a suggestion that the unification of the couple by giving in to the desire that is raging through them is producing a single person. The individual strength of each of the lovers is to be rolled into a single entity, one ball, thus leading to an inference that the unique essence of what makes every person an individual may be under threat through the act of giving in to the desire rolling through them. This unique essence is being combined into one entity, hence the individual identity and essence of each of the lovers is being destroyed, to yield in its place a different identity that is a combined one rather than their individual identities. As a result, the act of desire inevitably gives rise to a loss of individual identity. It is significant to note that the act of sexual union is also associated with the element of destruction in the way the poet portrays it, to tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life (Marvell 43-44). The poet has hitherto portrayed the act of desire as a tortuous wait and expressed his willingness to wait forever if need be, if it would only result in the sexual union he craves, but when the desire is actually consummated, he views the ensuing pleasure as a destructive act that tears and produces strife. Desire therefore appears to bring with it a concomitant threat of destruction. Furthermore, the strife that is generated also moves the lovers through the gates of life, speeding up the passage of time and taking them through into the portals of death. Hence, in essence the ultimate outcome of desire is a loss of the life of the lovers, the loss of their individuality and the loss of their very identity and existence in the world. In conclusion therefore, the notion that expressions of desire in Renaissance poetry always threatens the identity of both the subject and the object of desire, appear to be well substantiated. In both of the poems that are discussed above, the element of desire does appear to pose a threat to identity itself, although they are presented somewhat differently in each poem. While Donne’s poem presents desire as the ultimate aphrodisiac , which produces a loss of individual identity and thus threatens it, but nevertheless this loss of identity yields to something higher. When the desire and love shared by two people is equal, then the destruction of their individual identity can yield to a strength and power in a combined, integrated identity that could give them victory over death. In the case of Marvell’s poem, desire is the stimulus or catalyst that sets the poet onto a path where his mind and body are obsessed with the object of his desire and therefore destroy his existent identity because it suggests that a lustful man is prepared to be patient and wait to achieve the culmination of his desire. The very act of sexual consummation however also poses a threat, because the desire driving the lovers turns them into destructive beings, thereby doing away with their present identity. Furthermore, the poet also suggests that by giving in to desire, the two lovers will become one; as a result their individual identities will be submerged in their combined identity. Unlike Donne’s poem however, Marvell’s poem appears to be suggesting that this process of destruction of individual identity may not necessarily yield a victory over death, rather the act of sexual consummation may itself be equal to a kind of death. Since it is spurred by desire, and arises out of desire that the poet feels, it changes the poet irrevocably from the person he was earlier. The consummation of that desire sends him and his lover over the portals into death and as a result, destroys their identity for ever. This destruction of identity is not merely the poet’s, but affects both the lovers. This is also the case in Donne’s poem, where the destruction of identity that has resulted from the union of souls prompted by desire does not merely affect the poet but also his lover. Bibliography Donne, John and Redpath, Theodore, 1967. “The Good Morrow” IN “The songs and sonnets of John Donne”, Taylor and Francis at pp 2; available at: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bsYOAAAAQAAJ&dq=songs+and+sonets&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=kKZLPyq6Se&sig=H81S5r4-eW9Q-hOizpwQwFH82AQ&hl=en&ei=1dr2Sf-TNdTMjAfXq5HEDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#PPA2,M1; Quiller-Couch, Arthur, 1919. “To his Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell IN “The Oxford Book of English verse: 1250-1900”, http://www.bartleby.com/101/357.html; “Renaissance poetry explores new perspectives”, A http://www.botticellisvision.com/st%20francis%20web%20site/ibs5-Renaissance%20Poetry%20Explores%20Provocative%20New%20Perspectives.htmndrew Marvell (1621-1678); Runke, Stephen, 2007. “Shakespeare’s sonnets and the Petrarchan tradition”, E-book extract available at: http://www.grin.com/e-book/83552/shakespeare-s-sonnets-and-the-petrarchan-tradition#; “To His Coy Mistress: Analysis”, http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/CoyMistA.htm; Zaragoza, Dianna, 2007. “Seventeenth century Pillow Talk: A review of John Donne’s The Good Morrow”, http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Poetry/CoyMistA.htm "TO HIS COY MISTRESS" [Analysis - NO or YES.] Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. [A woman (more or less young), is the object of this older gentlemans eye. She could be a coquette, one who uses arts to gain the admiration and the affections of men, merely for the gratification of vanity or from a desire of conquest; and, without any intention of responding to the feelings aroused in her plaything. At any rate, it was more the convention in Marvels day for a pretty woman when she found herself interacting with an available man, to display shyness or reserve or unwillingness, at least for the first little while.] We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long loves day. Thou by the Indian Ganges side Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide [Remember the times of the poet, in this case Marvel: circa 1650. England was beginning its era of great exploration and the discovery of the exotic east.] Of Humber would complain, I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. [These lines stumped me, until I received this e-mail from margaux: "... the flood referring to Noah a part belonging to the Genesis in the Bible. So he would love her since ever. And then he adds Till the conversion of the Jews ... most Jews never have converted ... Those two religious references are just a way to tell her that he would love and praise her during a very very long time before getting into any kind of sexual intercourse with her, but ..." And another, "in your analysis of to his coy mistress: the flood part happened sometime after creation. The conversion of the jews is suppose to happen before Armageddon. Thats the allusion that Andrew Marvell is using." Well, OK. So, there we have it.] My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow ; ["Vegetable love": What do you suppose Marvel meant by this? One of my correspondents wrote, "A vegetable comes from the vegetative part of a plant, as opposed to a fruit, which comes from the reproductive part." At any rate, their love for one and the other may well grow slowly, for what ever reason; but it is a growing thing: deep, complex and vast. A lover is devoted to the loving business of praising his or her lover and is endlessly fascinated with the body and general presence of the other: this is part of being in love.] 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 ; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart ; [Nice bit, "the last age should show your heart." I remember it being said, that once the heat of sexual passion subsides, as it always does, then -- one will be left with a blemished person and the best that can be hoped is that one is left with a beloved who tells the truth, who shuns sham, who has a heart.] For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. [Sexually speaking our older lover could take things slowly with her; if that is what she wants, then, that, is what she should have; he is committed to the conquest, a conquest that can only come about as a result of him fully satisfying her; and, no doubt it is his goal to satisfy her, though it may take thousands of years; and, he would take pleasure throughout the long wait, if, if, only if, there is some prospect of sexual fulfillment. Now, take a breath, for, it is at this point that there appears the most dramatic shift in tempo that I have ever felt in a passage of poetry.] But at my back I always hear Times winged chariot hurrying near ; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. And your quaint honor turn to dust Thy beauty shall no more be found, Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song: then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And you quaint honor turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust : The graves a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now, therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour, Than languish in his slow-chapt power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life : Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run. [I just do not have the heart to break into any of those last lines of Marvels: they belong together and to be left uninterrupted, undisturbed. By God, this man wants this woman, this central focus point of his sexual passion. He cannot wait, he begs her not to put off sexual union. He eloquently points out that the cares of the moment do not much matter as time is slowly absorbing them both, as it does all things. Marvel displays in full glory his epicurean philosophy.] By A http://www.botticellisvision.com/st%20francis%20web%20site/ibs5-Renaissance%20Poetry%20Explores%20Provocative%20New%20Perspectives.htmndrew Marvell (1621-1678). With analysis by Blupete. Renaissance Poetry Explores Provocative New Perspectives      Another important aspect of Renaissance poetry is that it forces the reader to consider provocative new perspectives. This is beautifully exemplified in Shakespearean  Sonnets #27 and #29, which explore the intriguing dynamics of  human reflection and imagination. In these sonnets, we discover that imagination is the vehicle whereby we are transported to other dimensions of time and space to experience liberating adventures. The mental journeys of the imagination are replete with mystical elements, suggesting the superiority of the interior life of imagination and reflection over corporeal realities. According to Shakespeare, the interior life of mental journeys is not subject or limited to the natural laws of the material world: Weary with toil, I haste to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired, But then a journey begins in my head To work my mind, when bodys work expired. (S27, 1-4) Although the poets body is exhausted from toil, his mental faculties are free from such effects. He is able to experience a type of double-life where his mental journeys provide needed escapes.  Shakespeare unquestionably ascribes a profound power to mortal imagination. The human imagination is almost god-like in its ability to transcend limitations of nature, such as time and space.     As the sonnet develops, Shakespeare continues to expound on the motif of imagination. The poet asserts that through our imaginations we can experience mystical communion with others:    For then far from my thoughts (far from where I abide)  Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,  And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, (S27, 5-8) The poets "drooping eyes" that are "open wide" during his mental journeys express the exquisite beauty of the experience. Nothing can compare to the imaginary countenance of his beloved.        In Sonnet #29 Shakespeare focuses on the power of the imagination to bring healing and consolation to even the most desperate cases of emotional and psychological pain. As the poem opens, the reader is presented with a compelling portrait of  depression. Due to his misfortune, the poet experiences a dramatic crisis of consciousness. Additionally, for reasons not made clear in the sonnet, he is alienated from society. It appears that he is powerless to overcome his predicament: When in disgrace with Fortune and mens eyes I alone bewept my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, (S29, 1-4)  The goddess Fortuna, a deity of ancient Rome and Greece, has abandoned him. Scorned and rejected by society, the poet  must endure his woe alone. Ostensibly, there is no one to comfort him- not even the Christian god of heaven acknowledges his cries for help.       The situation, however, is not entirely bleak. In the next stage of the sonnet, the poet  reveals that he has discovered one thing capable of bringing him comfort. This "thing" is superior to any healing herb, balm or medicine- the human imagination: Yet in these myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state (Like to the lark at day of break arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heavens gate For thy sweet love remembred such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings. (S29, 9-14) The poet once again embarks on a mental journey to delight in the imaginary sight of his beloved. Imagination enables him to rise from the depths of depression into the glimmering light of hope.        During the Renaissance when Shakespeare and Spencer sat in their candle lit chambers, near the warm fires of blazing hearths, it is doubtful they imagined their works would endure through the twentieth century and beyond. However, their poetic works possess an eternal appeal because they mystically connect readers to the past, and help us to explore provocative issues of our humanity. In the study of Renaissance poetry, we have the exciting opportunity to participate in an exploration of human consciousness that spans many millennia, examining the important question of what it means, indeed, to be or not to be. http://iopal.net/forum/showthread.php?p=65758 Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”: A Feminist Reading Andrew Marvell’s speaker in “To His Coy Mistress” invokes Petrarchan convention, a poetic mode originating in the fourteenth century in which a male lover uses exaggerated metaphors to appeal to his female beloved. Yet Marvell alludes to such excessive—and disempowering—pining only to defy this tradition of unrequited love. Instead of respectful adulation, he offers lustful invitation; rather than anticipating rejection, he assumes sexual dominion over the eponymous “mistress.” The poem is as much a celebration of his rhetorical mastery as it is of his physical conquest. Through his verbal artistry, the speaker—perhaps a figure of the poet Marvell himself—manipulates his female subject, rendering her both as his idealized beloved and, eventually, as his vision of impending death. In the course of his invitation, he portrays her as alternately desirous and repulsive, but ultimately he identifies the female body itself as a loathsome symbol of human decay. Beginning in line 5, the speaker describes their love as a magnificent geographical expanse. While he would “by the tide/of Humber . . . complain,” creating laudatory verse at the river of his childhood home, she would leisurely “by the Indian Ganges side . . . rubies find.” Omnipotent and ubiquitous, they would be world travelers, traversing the world and enjoying its exotic riches. More than the acquisition of material goods, their relationship would be valuable for its immortality; he would indulge in such “complaints” and she would deny him in perpetuity. The speaker describes their love as an epic event, a romance that exists alongside the events of the bible itself. His “vegetable love” would grow between the flood in Genesis and the conversion of the Jews, which many seventeenth-century writers linked to the coming of the Messiah. Bookended by the two biblical allusions, which together signify the beginning and end of Judeo-Christian history, the speaker locates their romance within the timeline of this spiritual history. These allusions also point self-referentially to poetic aspiration: the speaker (and thus, Marvell himself) strive to create words that are as eternal as that of the biblical text. Here, desire is evocative of creative production; the beloved’s beauty will provide eternal fodder for his verse. The speaker’s initial tribute to his beloved mimics the excessive rhetoric of Petrarchan convention adopted by Renaissance poets such as Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser. He will solicit her love even if she does “refuse/Till the conversion of the Jews” (9-10). Yet the conditional phrasing of the poem’s first line betrays immediately his hypothetical context: “Had we but world enough, and time,/This coyness, lady, were no crime” (emphasis mine). He depicts her as flirtatiously resistant, and with the ambivalent consent of her “coyness” proceeds to describe how he would woo her properly. Because the conventional Petrarchan lover’s passion is unrequited, his verse becomes an exercise in futile pining; differently, Marvell’s speaker, confid ent of sexual acquisition, speaks with bravado as he crafts his persuasive argument. The “shoulds” and “woulds” that consistently punctuate the poem reach their pinnacle with the blazon beginning in line 13 as he describes how each part of her body “should” receive an appropriate number of years of homage: 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; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. (13-18) The genre of the blazon, a verbal inventory of a woman’s physical attributes, is certainly problematic for the way in which it objectifies the female body, and Marvell takes this objectification further by negating even the pretension of romantic sincerity that exists in the Petrarchan tradition. Beginning in line 21, the speaker reveals his mistress to be unworthy of such description and revises her instead as a harbinger of death. This drastic shift from the language of praise to that of threat, from lust to disgust, heightens the poem’s devaluation of its female subject as it showcases the speaker’s verbal adroitness. While virginal female beauty does not become the speaker’s inspiration as it does in other Renaissance verse, the image of a ravaged and ravished woman provides ample poetic material. In the latter half of the poem, the lover reveals the aforementioned “state” in which he will attribute “an age at least to every [body] part” to be illusory; his logic is not informed by visions of eternity, but rather by the insouciant logic of “carpe diem.” Extravagant praise and professions of eternal love are inappropriate because he hears the ominous sound of “Time’s winged chariot” (22), a reminder that they do not live in the “[d]eserts of vast eternity.” He paints this inauspicious picture of mortality through a metaphor of the beloved’s virginity, which he argues will only lose value with passing time: “worms shall try/That long-preserved virginity,/And your quaint honor turn to dust,/And into ashes all my lust” (27-30). The morbid description, and his warning that she best lose her virginity while she is still able to garner male attention, suggests that it is in fact her beauty itself that evokes in him such fears of “Time’s winged chariot.” With witty, erotic conceits, the speaker mocks contemporary notions of virginity and expresses disgust at the female body as a symbolic place of death. Rather than uphold the value of her virginity, he emphasizes its “quaint honor,” an oxymoron in which “honor” is negated by his use of “quaint,” a reference to female genitalia in medieval literature with which Marvell’s audience would have been familiar.1 Though he notes how her “willing soul transpires,” the reference is ironic: in the poem, there are no intimations of her honor and virtue, only bawdy physical description. Shakespeare in sonnet 130 satirizes Petrarchan convention when he declares that his mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Marvell similarly mocks this tradition and further imagines his coy mistress as a destructive force to be harnessed. Although she has yet to be enclosed within a “marble vault,” a “fine and private place” where “none . . . do there embrace,” his mistress is the subject of the speaker’s own fantasy of aggressive entrapment within the confines of his verse. Together they stand against the “slowchapped power” of time, and yet the speaker also associates the woman with these devouring jaws and the maggots who consume her at line 27. This decrepit female body penetrated by worms also evokes the desires of the speaker himself, and subsequently renders their love-making a crude confrontation with death. He relates how they will “like amorous birds of prey” devour one another, an image of sexual consumption that is also cannibalistic. His celebratory and lascivious cry to “[l]et us roll . . . [o]ur sweetness up into one ball” and “tear our pleasures with rough strife” evokes ecstasy as well as antagonistic fury. His final description of consummation is a triumphant “carpe diem” that is also, disturbingly, a violent indictment of the female subject. Read More