Compare and Contrast the Attitudes and Values of the Two Speakers of the Poems and How the Poets Have Used Language to Convey These Between "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell and "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning
Compare and contrast the attitudes and values of the two speakers of the poems and how the poets have used language to convey these between “To His Coy Mistress†by Andrew Marvel and “My Last Duchess†by Robert Browning
Both the poems have the theme of love, written from a man’s point of view, and explores the way men treat woman in relationships. The former does this by a male narrator writing a poem to a female, using imagery to entice her. The latter by using a duke, explaining the story of what happened to his previous wife whilst looking at her picture. Both the poems use imagery and other poetic devices but in different ways. The first uses them more often to impress her. The second uses them in a different sense as the better part of the poem is the description of his previous wife and how she died. Also they differ in their use of tone, language, style and devices.
The poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is an argument and therefore structured like one. The poem has three stanzas; the first and second are premises, whilst the last is used as a conclusion. This forms a logical argument; 1. ‘If we had’, 2. ‘But’, 3. ‘Therefore’. As the motive of the poem is to convince his mistress to have sex with him the quotation shows this as it is modelled as a persuasive argument. What this tells us about the narrator is that he will do anything to get what he wants even if the other person doesn’t. In the time it was written it was a crime in society for a woman to have sex before she gets married, in the poem she is not as she’s only his mistress. He is insensitive and selfish as he doesn’t respect her values, it would only be for his pleasure. In comparison ‘My Last Duchess’ is a dramatic monologue whilst using enjambment, “now; Fra Pandolf’s hands/Worked busily a day,†and is written in iambic pentameter. In the poem most of the
Both the poems have the theme of love, written from a man’s point of view, and explores the way men treat woman in relationships. The former does this by a male narrator writing a poem to a female, using imagery to entice her. The latter by using a duke, explaining the story of what happened to his previous wife whilst looking at her picture. Both the poems use imagery and other poetic devices but in different ways. The first uses them more often to impress her. The second uses them in a different sense as the better part of the poem is the description of his previous wife and how she died. Also they differ in their use of tone, language, style and devices.
The poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is an argument and therefore structured like one. The poem has three stanzas; the first and second are premises, whilst the last is used as a conclusion. This forms a logical argument; 1. ‘If we had’, 2. ‘But’, 3. ‘Therefore’. As the motive of the poem is to convince his mistress to have sex with him the quotation shows this as it is modelled as a persuasive argument. What this tells us about the narrator is that he will do anything to get what he wants even if the other person doesn’t. In the time it was written it was a crime in society for a woman to have sex before she gets married, in the poem she is not as she’s only his mistress. He is insensitive and selfish as he doesn’t respect her values, it would only be for his pleasure. In comparison ‘My Last Duchess’ is a dramatic monologue whilst using enjambment, “now; Fra Pandolf’s hands/Worked busily a day,†and is written in iambic pentameter. In the poem most of the