Andrew Marvell is an impressive robust in the metaphysical tradition not just for his copious use of characteristically metaphysical wit, conceit and imageries, his exhibition that affects one’s intellect as much as his emotion, but also for the argumentative and logical evolution of his lyrics that shows a peculiar blend of passion and thought, feeling and ratiocination. The trait is the most visible in To His Coy Mistress.
The poem, To HIs Coy Mistress, is itself an argument that presses itself towards a conclusion by seemingly logical steps. The subject and structure of To His Coy Mistress is conceived of and expressed by Marvell syllogistically. The logical structure of the poem is best understood from the manner in which the three stanzas open: “Had we but World enough, and Time,/ This coyness Lady were no crime…”
The dialect of the poem does not only reign supreme in the formal demonstration which is so explicit in the three strophes of the poem, the strophes that have a syllogistic relation to one another, but also in the apparent contrasts evoked by the imageries they include.
Marvell writes, “Had we but World enough, and Time…”. The “had” helps the poet to create a make-believe situation or condition which is actually the incipient, suppositious proposition, the first premise of his argument. The “Had” also enables him to grammatically establish his assertion that “we” do not have “World enough, and Time”, The vastness or infinitude of both time and space is again ingeniously verbalized in his witty reference to two Biblical allusions; the “Flood” mentioned in Old Testament and the “conversion of the Jews” to devout Christians just before the end of the world, i.e the Doomsday.
The first premise attains a climatic point with the poet’s use of metaphysical conceit in his lines : “My vegetable Love should grow/ Vaster than Empires, and more slow.” The “vegetable love” is a curious attribution to love. In short, the first stanza begins with a suppositious and the rest of it offers a series of hooks upon which Marvell hangs his hyperboles, conceits and wit to complement the premise.
The indispensable “But” with which the second strophe opens is just too sufficient not to repudiate or disown the make-believe condition the first strophe helps the poet build. With the abrupt introduction of the imagery of Time’s “winged chariot” the poet ushers in a turn and surprise in the incessant linear thought. The lover says the life in short and the time is fleeting, death is first approaching them. After death the lady-love will lie in the grave and the lover will not sing song to her. The worms will violate her chastity in the grave, her honour will be turned to dust and the desire of the sexual intercourse is impossible there: “The Grave’s a fine and private place,/ But none I think do there embrace.”
Therefore, it is the suggestion of the love to conclude that as the life is short and the time is fleeting, so the lady-love should give up false mantle of coyness and social honour for keeping her chastity intact and they should join sexual union without delay like “amorous birds of prey”. They will be fierce in their brutal sexual pleasure by rupture hymen. Thus, they can conquer time and death by their mutual love.
in conclusion, it is said that the general structure of Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress is syllogistic, but the poetic quality involves several non-syllogistic elements as well.
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