“The Flea” by John Donne and “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell are two poems classified as carpe diem. Carpe diem is Latin phrase for “Seize the day”. Both speakers use the ideals of carpe diem to persuade the auditor to live in the moment. They do this by saying that the auditor is young and beautiful and that they are meant to be. Although both speakers try their best to persuade the auditor to have sex with them, the speaker in “To his coy mistress” impresses the auditor the best. In “To his coy mistress”, Marvell says “Now therefore, while the youthful hue” (33), the speaker in the poem is trying to talk the auditor into having sex with him by saying that she won’t be long forever and that they don’t have enough time. The speaker talks the auditor into having sex by telling her:
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 your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace (Marvell 24-32). This verse from the poem is where the narrator is telling the auditor what will happen to her after she dies: her body will turn to ash and that her virginity will be given up to the worms who will essentially take over her. He also says that the grave is not a bad …show more content…
The speaker starts describing her as beautiful and young. Unlike in “The Flea”, the reader has a very clear understanding to how the auditor responds to the persuasion. “Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/ purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?” (Donne 19-20). Since the flea essentially represented their relationship, the auditor kills their love. The speaker continues by saying that because she killed the flea, she would also lose a piece of
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 your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace (Marvell 24-32). This verse from the poem is where the narrator is telling the auditor what will happen to her after she dies: her body will turn to ash and that her virginity will be given up to the worms who will essentially take over her. He also says that the grave is not a bad …show more content…
The speaker starts describing her as beautiful and young. Unlike in “The Flea”, the reader has a very clear understanding to how the auditor responds to the persuasion. “Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/ purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?” (Donne 19-20). Since the flea essentially represented their relationship, the auditor kills their love. The speaker continues by saying that because she killed the flea, she would also lose a piece of