Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

Student: Sir! Is he trying to get her clothes off….?
Me: ….
Student: It’s not gonna work is it?

If it’s not surprising that so many English poems seem to have a speaker, usually male, addressing someone, usually female, and trying to get them to undress, what is remarkable is how many of those speakers are doomed to failure if the poem is all they’ve got.

And this is one of the most famous examples. Was any woman ever seduced by being told; ‘You’ll be dead soon, in the grave, and the worms will be chomping on those body parts I’m currently obsessed by. So get your clothes off’?

Which should make people stop and realise that rather than an imagined speech, this is a rhetorical exercise. It moves very logically in three parts: If… However…Therefore. This is a poet giving a virtuoso performance. Creating brilliant phrases, memorable images, but not creating a speech that could be delivered to a human being to bring about a desired outcome.

However, even as a rhetorical exercise, it’s disturbing. It’s like a clever joke that has gone sour. If you pay attention, not only do the images seem inappropriate or disturbing, the ‘therefore’ seems to have slipped ….the poem begins with : ‘I want you’ as its purpose, but by the end the speaker’s purpose is to cheat time and his mistress is just a means to that end.

Marvell’s biographer could find no evidence for a mistress. Make of that what you will.