Literary CriticismGeorgia Perimeter College

Introduction Purpose: to discuss many ways to enjoy

the fullness of any literary piece through “To His Coy Mistress” Approaches

Textual Formalistic Genre Historical/Biographical Moral/Philosophical Mythological and Archetypal

Textual Approach Textual Analysis - the science of finding errors

in a text and the art of removing them. Text and “Coy Mistress”

Words Archaic transpires - breathes forth instant - now present both nearer the latin original than the 21st century

meaning Word “Mistakes”

glow; glew; dew 1st edition had glew

Formalistic Approach (Background)

Focus - the autonomous work itself; that is, the author’s life and times, and sociological, psychological, economic, political implications are extraneous.

Formalist’s Questions: What is the Literary work? What is its shape? What is its effect? How are the effects and forms achieved?

Formalistic Background II Answers: all answers come from the text All is unified in tone, character, etc. - form.

“Form alone takes, and holds, and preserves, substance - saves it from the welter of helpless verbiage that we swim in, as in a sea of tasteless pudding.

Content (idea) vs “achieved content”: art; the difference between the two is technique - or form. Form would include imagery, rhythm, character development, etc..

Formalistic Application Title - who is speaking to whom (mistress) Key Words - Preoccupation with the passing

of time; brevity of youth; need to experience young love’s delights in their proper time

Rhetorical features, section I: conditions and hyperbole had we but …; Ganges and Humber; flood

and conversion of the Jews; years adoring “her parts”

Formal. App. II

Rhetorical features, section II: Tone shift from exaggerated praise and love declarations to death’s certainty and flesh’s decay. Adds Understatement for emphasis; Honesty makes her unrealistic coyness

foolish, illogical, perhaps perverse “Therefore” to emphasize that this is a

argument

Genre Approach

Genre Considerations Type

Lyric • Short• Charm; polish; ease of expression• Imagination, wit• Sophistication

Level of Statement (“Paraphrasable content”) : a lyrical proposition

Historical Biographical Approach( Background)

Historical-Biographical: General Life and Times of the Author or the Characters

of the Work Piers Plowman - corruption in 14th century

English The Grapes of Wrath – the depression Oliver Twist – industrialization and child labor To Kill a Mockingbird – Jim Crowe laws and

practices

Hist/Bio Application Historical -Biographical and “Coy Mistress”

Marvell’s life and times and poem’s: logical argument; tone Logic - Son of Anglican priest; classically educated;

a Parliamentarian; admirer of Cromwell; writer of political satires

Tone - not pedantic, though. Courtly love, so she is an elevated goddess, so like one she is capricious and he must humor her (from the flood to the conversion of the Jews). But by the end he has stripped off modesty and divinity (1) her “willing soul”breathes forth passion; (2) kinesthetic ecstasy: tear our pleasures with rough strife/Through the iron gates of life (the virginal body.)

Hist & Bio. Application II

Historical, religious, classical, metaphysical allusions Flood; Conversion of the Jews; Time winged

chariot - the sun, moon, night, and time- and their course - tone still pleasing/humorous

Second stanza -images crude; Last stanza not playful at all “slow-chapped (slow-jawed) power: alludes to the cannibalism of time (Kronos)

Make the sun run: Joshua ; Phaeton(son of the sun) and his chariot ride; Zeus and Alcmeme

Breasts and “the rest”; lovers rolled up into a ball; amorous birds of prey; -all metaphysical revolt against too sweet Elizabethan love poetry.

Moral-Philosophical: Backgound Function to teach morality and probe philosophical

issuesThe Stranger- existentialism; Tom Jones - Christianity; Essay on Man - reason; The Scarlet Letter - secret sinMoral/Philo. Application

Carpe diem: seize the day; eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die.

Often called hedonistic stance Sex - essentially a pagan view of sex as physical

dalliance (“Now let us sport while we may”) that derives pleasure. A Cavalier view, not a Puritan one

Pessimism - perhaps a function of 17th century developments that led to a loss of a philosophical or moral view of life?

Moral and Philo. Application 2

Francis Bacon’s induction and scientific truth

Copernican theory - removed man and earth as the center of the universe

Thomas Hobbes - materialism and man as animal

Is the speaker honestly reflecting his view of life - pessimism - and advocating sensuality as the only way make the best of a bad situation - or is he just “typical male”?t