To His Coy Mistress Analysis

Love has always been a controversial topic between men and women. Analyzing Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, “My Letters! All Dead Paper” and Andrew Marvell’s, “To His Coy Mistress,” men and women vary in some expectations about love. Marvell’s character focuses on convincing the mistress to make love with him; Browning’s character is reviewing the letters from her lover and having reactions on the paper’s words. It is also important to pay close attention to the words used in Marvell’s poem because there are words that are no longer used in modern times, like “mistress” who refers to a young, pretty lady and “coy” which means shy. Although both poems talk about love as the main theme, Marvell’s poem has more seductive tone compared to Browning’s …show more content…
In “To His Coy Mistress,” Marvell uses hyperbole, metaphor, and carpe diem to show an insincere and convenient love for his mistress. In the first stanza, Marvell exaggerates his love promises by saying, “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, / (lines 13-18). The speaker promises to spend many years to praise, and to adore her eyes, gaze and breasts, to finally get to her heart. In line 18, Marvell uses a metaphor for the mistress’s heart, which means love and sex, “And the last age should show your heart.” This means the speaker’s love is not sincere because he will do all those things only to have sex with her. Then, Marvell goes to use carpe diem to convince his mistress. “Now let us sport us while we may, /And now, like amorous birds of prey/Rather at once our time devour” (lines 37-39). The speaker is now trying to persuade the mistress by telling her “seize the day” and let’s enjoy now that we are young because we do not know what will happen tomorrow. Still, the speaker’s main purpose is to have her in his