by Stella Mcintyre

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: February 28, 2009

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell is basically a warning to women against the inflated flattery used by men to bed them. It was written in the 17th Century at a time when morals were not all they should be, when a woman at court's career plan would have been to secure a good marriage. Reputation was all; no-one was interested in used goods; so Marvell's warning was apt.

On the face of it, To His Coy Mistress reads like a love letter from an aspiring lover to his reluctant love interest. The poem appears to expound the command Carpe Diem (Seize the Day), but a close reading reveals Marvell's humorous take on the games played by couples. Women are criticized for their desire to be flattered and pursued, whilst men are exposed as being prepared to say anything to get their end away.

The titular adjective "coy" reflects the game played by women. There is a suggestion that the unwillingness to engage in sexual activity is pretence: sham shyness. However it is seen, by Marvell, as more than that. It is more likely that a woman wants to enjoy being desired without any notion of consummating the relationship. The man is also capable of playing games and the meaning of the word "coy" in this instance refers to the man's "belief" that the woman really does want to have sex and is only pretending to be unwilling for "form's" sake.

The poem can be divided into three sections. The first section from lines 1-20 sets up the way the man would want to court the lady; lines 21-32 present the problem and also a threat whilst lines 33-46 supply the resolution.

So let's take a section at a time and analyze exactly what is going on. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter in rhyming couplets. The effect created is one of speed and bounce. The pace of the poem is important to the content as so much of it relates to time and its passing. The bounce of the regular rhyme scheme should alert us to the idea that this is not meant to be taken seriously as a means of enticing a woman to bed.

So how does Marvell have this prospective lover state his case? Firstly the pronoun "we" repeated in the first three lines assumes a relationship between the speaker in the poem and its intended recipient. The phrase "and time" parenthetically isolated by commas at the end of the first line is doubly emphasized. The commas slow down the pace at which the line is read giving the impression of time passing slowly. The iambic meter and the rhyming couplets allow an emphasis on the word "time" which linked

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