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Marvell's to his Coy MistressRaychel Haugrud Reiff aa University of WisconsinPublished online: 30 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Raychel Haugrud Reiff (2002) Marvell's to his Coy Mistress, TheExplicator, 60:4, 196-198

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2. The poem is titled “Of Religion” in the H 51 manuscript and ‘Uppon Religion’ in S 962 (Milgate 140).

WORKS CITED

Geneva Bible. 1587. Jenner, Mark S. R. “From conduit community to commercial network? Water in London,

1500-1725.’’ Ed. Paul Griffiths and Mark S. R . Jenner. Londonopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2ooO.

London Bridge Museum. 20 January 2002. <http://www.oldIondonbridge.com>. Milgate, W. John Donne: The Satires, Epigrums and Verse Letters. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1967.

Marvell’s TO HIS COY MISTRESS

Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” (1681), has been praised time and again as an example of a great poem. One aspect of its excellence is Marvell’s clever use of the first- and second-person pronouns to manipulate the tone and to help win over his coy mistress. The first-person pronouns vary between the singular, which emphasizes separation, and the plural, which evinces togeth- erness. The second-person singular pronoun has two forms: rhodrhee/thy and yodyour. In Marvell’s seventeenth century, to signify a close relationship, a speaker would address the listener using the endearing pronouns rhodfhee/fhy. To signify a polite but more distant relationship, a speaker would use the formal pronouns youlyour.’ Thus, Marvell’s speaker talks to his love with the endearing thou pronouns when he tries to make her believe that they should be lovers, but when he wants to show her how cold she is to him, he uses you.

Marvell’s skillful use of pronouns stands out immediately. In the first sec- tion of the poem, lines 1-20, when the would-be lover explains how he and his coy mistress could act if they had “world enough, and time” (line l), he uses both the formal and informal second-person pronouns, as well as the sin- gular and plural first-person pronouns, to demonstrate that, although he would like to have an intimate relationship with her, he will allow her to remain dis- tant and separate as long as time presents no problem. The speaker begins with the intimate pronoun thou, as he tenderly addresses his platonic lover: “Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side” (3, but changes to the formal second-per- son pronoun as he discusses their nonintimate relationship. Politely, he three times addresses her as you when telling her that she can remain distant and coy by rejecting him for a long, long time: “[. . .] I would J Love you ten years before the flood, I And you should, if you please, refuse J Till the conversion

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of the Jews” (7-10). Several lines later, as he reflects on her gorgeous body, he begins thinking about her in more affectionate terms and goes back to “Thine eyes” and “thy forehead” (14). He remembers her cold heart and changes back again to the formal you: “And the last age should show your heart” ( 1 8). He concludes this section with the formal second-person pronoun to show their distant relationship: “For, lady, you deserve this state” (19).

Marvell’s use of the singular and plural forms of the first-person pronoun also proves effective in section 1. He opens on a note of solidarity-the type of relationship he desires-referring to the mistress and himself as a couple with the words we ( I , 3) and our (4). Throughout the remainder of the section, however, he illustrates the distance between them by using only the singular 1 (6, 7, 20) and my ( 1 1). Thus section 1 ends in a formal manner of address, reflecting the separation of lovers who will woo forever and never go beyond the courtship stage.

In the second section of the poem, lines 21-32, the speaker looks at reality and marks that time passes quickly. To win her love, the speaker now must make his loved one understand that she cannot remain cold and distant, or time will pass them by. Therefore, he needs to establish an intimate relation- ship, which he does by addressing her in the personal second person, arguing to her that “thy beauty” (25) will not be found in “thy marble vault” (26). Only when he attributes her unwillingness to be his love to “your quaint honour” (28), does he choose the formal form of the second-person pronoun. He also uses the first-person pronoun creatively, twice selecting the singular I to show that he understands their real situation: “I” know that time passes quickly (21), and “I” know that no one loves in the grave (32). He uses the plural first per- son us (23) only once and then only to convince his reluctant mistress that “deserts of vast eternity” (24) face both of them. Thus, in section 2, Marvell’s pronouns show the lovers’ separate ways of thinking-his longing for her and her coldness to him.

The final section of the poem contains no formal second-person and no sin- gular first-person pronouns; by omitting them, the speaker reveals that there is no time for lovers to be coy or distant because time stops for no one. To help make his case, the speaker uses the intimate form of the second-person pro- noun, thy, telling his lady that he knows she wants to love him because he sees it, he says, through “thy skin”(33) and “thy willing soul” (34). After this affec- tionate talk, he uses no more singular pronouns because the lovers are no longer separate beings. They are joined passionately together, living their lives so energetically that even the sun has to run to catch up to them. Thus the speaker uses the first-person plural pronoun eleven times in the final ten lines of the poem, saying, “[. . .] let us sport us while we may” (37) and “at once our time devour” (39); “Let us roll all our strength and all / Our sweetness up into one ball, / And tear our pleasure with rough strife” (41-43). In the final two

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lines the first-person plural pronoun expresses their solidarity: “[. . .I though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run” (4546).

Thus, throughout the poem, Marvell carefully chooses his pronouns to help the speaker seduce his coy lady.

-RAYCHEL HAUGRUD REIFF, University of Wisconsin

NOTE

1. Starting in the late thirteenth century, English-speaking people had begun using the plural you for polite address to a single person. The use of thou was used to show either a close intima- cy or social distancing. See Baugh and Cable 236-238; Bolton 118; Myers and Hoffman 161-162; Pyles and Algeo 188-191; Strang 139-141; and Williams 248-249.

WORKS CITED

Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language. 4th ed. Englewood

Bolton, W. R. A Living Language: The History and Structure of English. New York: Random

Marvell, Andrew. “To His Coy Mistress.” The Norron Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H.

Myers, L. M., and Richard L. Hoffman. The Roofs of Modern English. 2nd ed. Boston: Little,

F‘yles, Thomas, and John Algeo. The Origins and Development of the English Language. 4th ed.

Strang, Barbara M. H. A History of English. London: Methuen, 1970.

Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993.

House, 1982.

Abrams. 7th ed. Vol. I . New York: Norton, 2000. 1691-92.

Brown, 1979.

Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.

Whitman’s CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun-hark

to the musical clank, Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to

drink, Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture,

the negligent rest on the saddles, Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just

entering the ford-while, Scarlet and blue and snowy white, The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

Like many Drum-Taps poems, “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” ( 1 865) exempli- fies Whitman’s extreme attention to prosody, despite his contrary statements concerning the topic throughout his poetic career. First, the extensive use of assonance and innedoff-rhyme (“hark,” “clank” and “drink,” “bank”) illus-

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