To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell Overview of the Poem

Starting off, I am not much of a poetry reader so understanding this poem was a bit challenging for me. It is clear enough to be understood as a poem written by a man to a women that he highly desires. Not much description is given about either character. My initial emotional reaction was curiosity, mostly to what exactly this poem was about. After reading it again a few more times the most prominent theme is sex. Just analyzing the poems structure and ignoring the words, it does have some identifiable features from the lesson. It maintains a rhythm that is pretty easy to follow and it also introduces new stanzas or poetic paragraphs.

The rhythm in the poem seems to follow a closed poetic form. I say this because the lines have a clear ending point and usually end with like-sounding syllables, for example: “An hundred years should go to praise / Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze” (Marvell 13-14.1).

With each new stanza, the author seems a bit more aggressive with his persistence to convince this women to lay with him. For example he tries to explain to her if she does not lose her virginity to him now, the worms will get it when she dies. “My echoing song; then worms shall try / That long-preserved virginity, / And your quaint honor turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lust” (26-30.3)