To His Coy Mistress Conceit and Metaphysical Features

To His Coy Mistress Conceit and Metaphysical Features

★ Summary of the poem  " To His Coy Mistress  ". 

" To His Coy Mistress " is a  notable love poem by Andrew Marvell.   In the poem, the poet requests his beloved to shake off her shyness and allow him to make love.   Poet's beloved lady is unwilling to allow his physical love. The poet tries to win his beloved's mind in various ways.  He urges her to enjoy the youthful pleasures of life.  He argues saying that her coyness would have been justified if they had enough space and time at their disposal. Using a series of metaphysical conceits,  he argues that if they had  enough time,  she could have occupied herself with rejecting him, and he would complain about his unfulfilled love. The poet says that if they had sufficient time on their hand,   he would spend hundreds and thousands of years in admiring various parts of her body. The lover boastfully assures his beloved that she really deserves so much praise and adoration.   But,  It's not possible to love her beloved for thousands of years because  Time is passing very quickly, and eventually both the lovers will have to die.  After some years,  her beauty will no longer be found on this earth. She will lie in her marble tomb.  In the grave,  worms will attack her long preserved virginity.   All her beauty will turn into dust and the poet's desire to make love to her will turn into ashes.  In the grave,  nobody has the feeling of making love.    Therefore,   it would be appropriate for both of them to enjoy the pleasures of love in the present moment without caring about the future.   Now they should enjoy the pleasures of love,  rather than suffer the pangs of unsatisfied love.   Actually,  in the poem,   the poet emphasizes the physical aspect of love.

Discuss the imagery and conceits traceable in "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Definition of Love"

A conceit is basically a simile or a comparison between two things of different kinds. In a conceit, the difference between the two things, compared, is so great that the reader is always fully conscious of it even while he agrees to the likeness, implied by the poet. According to Dr. Johnson, in a conceit, the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together. This kind of comparison is highly exaggerated, fantastic, and far-fetched, and it gives rise to an image. The metaphysical conceits startle and amuse the readers. They are a part of the poet's technique of communication, application, and persuasion. Discuss the imagery and conceits traceable in "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Definition of Love"?

imagery and conceits traceable 

Being a follower of Donne, Andrew Marvell could write in the metaphysical style of Donne without imitating his brutality, and he attained something of Herrick's witty delicacy without his affectation. Marvell was extraordinarily versatile. Donne only succeeded when he was grave, Herrick when he was gay, but Marvell wrote well in any mood. A remarkable example of this is found in " To His Coy Mistress", which begins in a mood of playful banter and ends in tragic fury. Whatever the mood is the poet is found dallying with poetic conceits in pure and natural English.

There are a number of concrete pictures in "To His Coy Mistress", and a whole series of metaphysical conceits. The very notion of the lover that, having enough space and time at their disposal, they would be able to wander as far apart as the Indian Ganges and the English Humber is fantastic. Then the lover's saying that he would spend hundreds and thousands of years admiring and adoring various parts of her body, constitutes another conceit. The picture of time's winged chariot hurrying near to overtake the lovers vividly brings before our minds the rapid passing of time. Here an abstract idea has been made concrete by means of a metaphor, and this is a realistic picture in contrast to the metaphysical conceits mentioned above, though there is a conceit in the image of Time as it has been compared to a winged chariot. The pictures of the woman lying in her grave and the worms attacking her long preserved virginity and her honor turning to dust are conceits because worms are here regarded as being capable of seducing a woman. In the concluding stanza also find conceits. The mistress's willing soul is depicted as giving out instant fires at every pore and the lovers are imagined as rolling their strength and their sweetness into one ball and tearing their pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life.

Similarly, there are a series of metaphysical conceits in "The Definition of Love". We discover a conceit when the poet says that his love was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility. The idea here simply is that the poet's love is unattainable, but in order to express this idea, he personifies Despair and Impossibility and imagines that his love was produced by their union. In the concluding stanza, there is remarkable conceit. A union between two perfect lovers would be a fatal blow to the power of Fate. So Fate has placed these two lovers as far apart from each other as the North Pole and the South pole are from each other. Their true love may be interpreted as the "conjunction of the mind/And opposition of the stars". They are the pivot around which the whole world of love revolves but they can never come together. To be more clear, their love represents the union of minds, and it signifies the opposition which exists between stars situated opposite each other.

To sum up, "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Definition of Love" contain a series of vivid and concrete images expressed by means of conceits. These conceits are not only fantastic but also highly intellectual.

Marvell is a great lyric poet. His love poems constitute an important division of his lyric poetry. The poem, “To His Coy Mistress” is the masterpiece of his love poetry. He has not written a good number of love poems, yet this poem is enough to mark him as a great poet of love. In this poem, the Petrarchan hyperbole and Elizabethan conceits combine with a metaphysical condemnation of style which is almost epigrammatic.

METAPHYSICAL CONCEITS IN MARVELL’S POETRY

Marvell beautifully establishes in several of his poems the metaphysical themes of the human soul

to the body, to this world, and to the world beyond. "A Dialogue between the Soul and Body" Vividly brings out the fundamental problems of nature, of the universe, and the main place in the

world.

A soul hung up, as ’twere, in chains

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;

Tortur’d, besides each other part,

In a vain head, and double heart.

 (Line 7 – 10) ―A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body‖

We can notice plenty -of physical conceit in this poem. The theme of the poem is metaphysical that

the soul and body are ''separate entities’’. The body feels the soul and on the other hand, the soul

treats itself as a prisoner inside the body. We fell amused by the manner in which the soul and the

body attack each other.

But physic yet could never reach

The maladies thou me dost teach;

Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,

And then the palsy shakes of fear;

 (Line 31- 34) ―A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body‖

In the debate between the soul and the body, the body certainly succeeds in building up a strong

case for itself, but the soul assets its superiority and its sublime nature with great self-confidence.

We can also see dramatic tone and form in this poem which is very much metaphysical. The

various speeches possess a dramatic quality in so far as they excite various strong emotions in us.

DISCUSSION

A number of Marvell's poems show the peculiar blend of passion and thought which a distinctive

mark of metaphysical poetry is. The most outstanding example of this is "To his coy Mistress", it

is one of Marvell's best-known love poems based upon a logically developed line of reasoning.

The poem narrates a fairly strong emotion and at the same time, it has an intellectual character. It

has an argumentative quality and the argument proceeds in a logical manner. This syllogistic

structural poem thus clearly portrays a successful fusion of deep passion and intellectual thought

in the last stanza where the poet gives a solution of what he and his beloved should do.

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:

 (Line 39-42) ―To His Coy Mistress‖

Marvell's poetry abounds in wit and metaphysical conceits."The Definition of Love "opens with

metaphysical conceits when the poet says that his love was ―begotten by despair upon

impossibility".

My love is of a birth as rare

As ’tis for object strange and high;

It was begotten by Despair

Upon Impossibility

 (Line 1- 4) ―The Definition of Love‖

There is a conceit in almost every stanza of the poem. Yet another conceit occurs in the stanza in

which the poet compares the love between him and his beloved to the parallel lines which can

never meet. Only oblique lines meet in all geometrical angles, and in the same way, only the

potion of guilty or adulterous lovers can be satisfied. This love is the "Conjunction of the mind,

and opposition of the stars " which is really remarkable and magnificent.

As lines, so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet;

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite can never meet.

(Line 25 – 28) ―The Definition of Love‖

"To His coy Mistress" is full of wonderful metaphysical conceits. When the poet compares his

love's growth with the growth of vegetables we become amused. This strange comparison evokes

our attention and wonder at the same time.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow;

(Line 11-12) ―To His Coy Mistress‖

The picture of Time’s a four-wheeled carriage chariot hurrying and coming closer and closer to

overtake the lovers vividly brings before another remarkable metaphysical conceit. The picture of

the woman lying in her grave and the worms attacking her long preserved virginity and her

honor turning to dust are also wonderful conceits showing the poet's wit.

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

(Line 21-23) ―To His Coy Mistress‖

Much of the imagery in Marvell's poetry is of the learned kind, and it is characterized also by that

vividness and concreteness which are among the marks of metaphysical poetry. The second half

of "The Definition of Love" has a learned kind of imagery. The poet imagines that fate has

placed their two lovers as far apart from each other as the North Pole and the South Pole. The poet

says that his love may be achieved if these two conditions are fulfilled.

Unless the giddy heaven falls,

And earth some new convulsion tear;

And, us to join, the world should all

Be cramp’d into a planisphere.

(Line 21-24) ―The Definition of Love‖

Next, he gives us a geometrical image which is then followed by an astronomical one.

Abrupt openings are another distinct feature of metaphysical poetry and some of Marvell's poems

have this dramatic quality. ―A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body‖ starts dramatically by the

soul's lament.

O who shall from this Dungeion raise

A soul inslavd so many ways ?"

(Line 1-2) ―A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body‖

Marvell's poetry is also remarkable for the terseness of its style Marvell shows a rare talent for

condensation is so extreme that we have to think very hard in order to understand the full meaning

and all the implications of certain lives. In the poem "To His coy Mistress" the following two

lines have a similar epigrammatic quality.

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

(Line 30-31) ―To His Coy Mistress‖

CONCLUSION

From the above analysis, we find Marvell as a perfect metaphysical poet in all senses. His poems

are more searching and intellectual, and it is more worldly-wise and witty than most romantic

poetry. From the poems that are discussed here, it should be clear that Marvell is a true metaphysical poet, not confronting any tradition but making use of all the metaphysical qualities to write poems that are unmistakably new and his own.

Metaphysical Features

Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is a typical metaphysical love poem. The originality of the Metaphysical theme and the metaphysical technique deserves special attention from the readers. Marvell is one of the exquisite poets in metaphysical verses for his wit, interesting argumentative skill, suggestive way of writing, and marvelously usage of metaphysical conceits. His most eminent poem "To His Coy Mistress" illuminates some of the most ascertained trails of a metaphysical way of writing in this piece of literary art.

      In the first place the poem beards out the typical precision of metaphysical poetry. The thought of the poem is very deep and serious but compressed within a confined range. With the blend of these characteristics, a fine piece of metaphysical literary art came to the audience.

     Secondly, the poem is replete with some extraordinary metaphysical conceits. For instance, such expressions as vegetable love, time winged chariot, and desert of vast eternity, have been given the status of some of the most marvelous metaphysical conceits. These imageries are considered highly adorable in the realm of metaphysics.

     Thirdly, the intellectual aspect of metaphysical poetry is fully revealed in the poem. Marvell's wit is diverting and deep which has enriched the poem with the rare gift of intellectual reflectiveness. For instance, there is found one of the wittiest and well-thought expressions, when the poet mentions that after the death of his beloved worm shell all the fleshes of her body, this imagery is very witty, at the same time grotesque.

     Finally, in the entire poem, Marvell's use of some of the most extraordinary metaphysical imageries deserves our attention, to highlight the fact that he has no time. Marvell has used the image of Desert of Vast Eternity, Time Winged Chariot, etc. At the same time the imageries such as vegetable love, iron gates of life, and amorous bird of prey, become some highly successful metaphysical imageries.