Specific Reference Should Be Made Essay Example

timeless issue of Time's impact on Love in the final quatrain. He personifies both Love and Time to highlight their ongoing battle, emphatically stating that Love cannot be destroyed by Time. Shakespeare reaffirms that "Love's not Time's fool"; Love cannot be subdued by time, and it endures eternally without fading.

Shakespeare likened time to the grim reaper, who symbolizes death and carries people to the afterlife with a sickle. However, the feeling of love cannot be diminished by the deterioration of our physical bodies.

Shakespeare employs enjambment in the lines "rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickle's compass come" to convey the relentless destruction of youth. The poet also emphasizes the endurance of true love, stating that it "alters not within his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom." This unyielding love is depicted as a certainty in the final couplet.

Shakespeare asserts that if his statement is incorrect, then no man has truly loved and he has not written the poem. This emphasizes the accuracy of his depiction of love, as he states, "If this be error, and upon me proved,I never writ, nor no man ever loved". Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" satirizes the 14th century literary convention of courtly love, which involved unrequited love and idealized relationships where chivalrous lovers would pledge love and honor to their distant, often married beloved. In this convention, men would write exaggerated poetry praising physical features like eyes, rosy cheeks, lips, and breasts. Marvell's persona utilizes this literary device to woo his shy mistress into making love with him immediately.

"To His Coy Mistress" by Marvell

depicts the persona's pursuit of a woman who appears resistant to his charm. The speaker adopts a detached perspective from the poem, observing another man's fascination with this beautiful woman. The persona expresses his desire for more time with his "mistress," sharing that he would spend eternity courting her properly if given the world enough and time. He mentions being willing to spend time with her in exotic banks like the Indian Ganges or humble localities such as the Humber if time permits.

Marvell's use of Biblical allusions highlights the profound length of time he would spend longing for his beloved. He invokes the Flood from the Old Testament as the starting point of his courtship, and The Conversion of the Jews from the New Testament as the moment when she may finally acquiesce to his desires: "...I would Love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews." Our speaker subtly suggests that his love is worth waiting for.

The Elizabethan audience would have appreciated the double meaning in the following lines by Marvell: "My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow." He playfully assures his hesitant mistress that he is willing to spend an ample amount of time admiring her beauty: "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." This satirical approach mocks the conventional courtly love found in literature. Although Marvell greatly admires his beloved and deems her deserving of such praise, he promptly undermines this statement

by saying, "Nor would I love at a lower rate." This insinuates a transactional aspect to their love. In the second stanza, his passion increases rapidly, contradicting Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 as there is no mention of eternal love.

In this poem, the speaker urges his mistress to have sex with him before it is too late. He uses the metaphor of Time as a charioteer named Phoebus, who reminds them that her beauty will fade over time. The speaker emphasizes the images of death, saying that if they do not act now, it may never happen. He adds that there is no point in preserving virginity in a cold grave. The poem uses vivid imagery such as "deserts of vast eternity" to convey a sense of the inevitability of time passing.

Marvell uses distressing imagery to persuade his lover to act now and experience the pleasure it brings. He quotes, "The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, there do embrace," emphasizing the need for action. Marvell believes they share the same desires and praises his Lady's perfection. He urges her to act at this moment while she is still young and willing, comparing them to "amorous birds of prey."

This reminds me of how eagles and hawks demonstrate their powerful and destructive ways when attacking their prey, fueled only by their own desires. Marvell cleverly hints at the act of sex using a double entendre, with the line "Let us roll up all our strength and all/ Our sweetness into one ball/ And tear our pleasures with rough strife/ Through the iron gates of life." The poem concludes with another witty remark, reminding

the reader that while they cannot stop time, they can make the most of it and enjoy pleasure along the way, with the line "Thus, though we cannot make our sun/ Stand still, yet we will make him run." In contrast, Shakespeare's poem focuses on the eternal nature of true love, suggesting that it will withstand anything. These two poems take vastly different approaches to the theme of love and use the genre of love poetry in very distinct ways. Marvell challenges traditional courtly love conventions to argue in favor of instant sexual gratification.

In different manners, both poets present an attractive perspective on the theme of love.