Sonnet 130' and 'To His Coy Mistress': Poem Analysis and Comparison

Poetry is literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or an emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound and rhythm. Poetry is a vast subject, as old as history, present wherever religion is present and possibly the primal form of language themselves. Poetry often employs rhyme and meter, in poetry words are strung together to form sounds, images and ideas that might be too complex or abstract to describe directly. Poetry is a form of writing that is vital to culture, art and life. Therefore, “Sonnet 130” and “To His Coy Mistress” are explained through poem analysis in this essay. 

An Englishman by the name of Andrew Marvell who is also a poet wrote the poem To His Coy Mistress. Scholars state that the poem was written in the 1650’s during the period where England was a republic, however his work was not printed until the 1680’s unfortunately post Marvell’s death. “To His Coy Mistress” is a carpe diem poem, which follows the example of a Roman poet such as Horace. In the poem To His Coy Mistress motivates a young woman to take advantage of the pleasures life has to offer before death. As a matter of fact the poem illustrates an attempt to seduce the “coy mistress” mentioned in the poem. However it is crucial to note that the poet seems to dwell on the intensity of death itself rather than focus on love. The poem took a turn whereby death seem to have been the main focus in the poem straying from the initial theme of love, misplacing the direction of the speaker’s dynamic and filling the poem with fear and perhaps a bit of anxiety.

Similarly Sonnet 130 by English poet William’s Shakespeare was also written during the early 1590’s and published in the early 1600s. Compared to numerous sonnets from this period, Shakespeare’s sonnet wrangles amidst enchantress, infatuation and desire. Williams Shakespeare attempts to find a more genuine, practical course of action to discuss this baggage in the sonnet. He also delightedly abandon the insincere poems of glorification his peers were writing at the time. Shakespeare’s work in sonnet 130 seem to depart from his initial formal structure intended.

In both Sonnet 130 and To His Coy Mistress the themes draw on the contrast of love. To His Coy Mistress is a descriptive poem of intimacy, it highlights beauty, illustrates detail of youth and profound sexual pleasure. The poet appears to jinx the topic of mortality. He imagines a type of love that seems impossible. He dreams of a slow love and states that it can take up to a millennium to accomplish. He therefore acknowledges that it cannot be accomplished before death and suggests that we enjoy pleasure as much as possible before death.

To Coy His Mistress illustrates a contrast between different kinds of love. The first being the overwhelming wealthy love that would seem possible if everyone lived forever. As well as the rushed yet dismay love that human beings are obligated to enjoy. This is evidenced by the first stanza in the poem where it asks the question to explore a world that is hypothetical. What would love be like if humans had infinite time to love? In response he imagines a world with limitless satisfaction. For example in To His Coy Mistress he describes his mistress finding precious stones on the banks of the Ganges. He describes himself spending two hundred years praising a single part of her body. Whereas in Sonnet 130 he compares the lover’s body to numerous inanimate things. The poet ultimately concludes that the mistress mentioned cannot be compared to the typical image any love poems can illustrate. He goes on describe his love as precious and real keeping in mind that his mistress will always be beautiful. Shakespeare wanted love to be something accepted as real and flawed, not just to be understood through abstract comparisons.

“Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.” In the first two lines of “To His Coy Mistress,” the poet creates a form along with the main concern. The poet directly addresses a special female whom he calls “Lady”, which introduced one of the poem’s key devices, which is an apostrophe. It refers to a speech or address to a person who is not present or to a personified object, for example Yorick’s skull in Hamlet. It is derived from the Greek word apostrephein which means “to turn away”. Throughout the poem the apostrophic is addressed to the lady. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” the speaker describes his mistress’s body, as far as he is aware it is rare no object can compare. This is crucial to the poet’s illustration of beauty, love and desire in the poem. Evidence of apostrophe in the poem is the sun in which he compares her beauty to. Whereas in Sonnet 130 the poetic devices utilized was a rhyme. The poem followed an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. As well as end rhyme, which the poet utilized to make the stanza harmonious. Evidence of rhyme in the poem is “sundun”, “rare compare”, “white, delight” and “knowgo”.

Focusing on the theme of these poems, Sonnet 130 also focuses on a theme of reality, and what love really is. Shakespeare deliberately eliminated the attention from the physical beauty of a woman, instead he focused on what society depicts or expects in terms of beauty. Some scholars even suggest that Sonnet 130 is a parody of the Dark Lady. Whereas To His Coy Mistress, the poem is carpe diem. The brevity of youth and carpe diem. The brevity of youth, the poem’s speaker emphasises that the age of youth, beauty and passion is short.

Where one poem utilizes a dramatic monologue at the beginning it then shifts to excitement, whereas the other poet tone seems sarcastic and satirical. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, illustrates a silent listener which is the mistress, there is a sense of awe, and gives the reader the impression like he is eavesdropping on what is supposed to be an intimate conversation. The poet makes a turn in tone from enthusiasm to compelling. There is an attempt to impress the mistress by toying with her feelings. There is another shift in tone throughout the poem again from an observer to deprive. Progressing through the poem, the speaker attempts to dramatically win over his mistress. In sonnet 130, the tone of the poem is also satirical, the speaker tend to utilize all the set traditions of elaborated comparisons available between one’s beloved and the symbol of beauty. Each line of the poem except for the last two lines attacks the said conventions. In the last two lines the poet described his love for his mistress.

To His Coy Mistress was written using iambic tetrameter, whereby the lines consist of four iambic feet. Usually the iambic pentameter is used, which has five iambic feet. The iamb is an unstressed syllable, which is then followed by a stressed syllable. What is worth noting that compared to Sonnet 130, To His Coy Mistress itself is written like a poetic thesis, with the problem presented at the forefront, which is then followed by the current predicament and ending with the solution. All from the point of view of the lovelorn gentleman who is trying to get his beloved’s affection. In the first lines it mimics a traditional format, although it is written in the form of a love poem it does not aspire to have such lofty heights. Ironically the gentleman wishes for his lady to surrender to his sexual advances and so the reason for the use of the traditional love elegy. Speaking based on ironically, the structure of this poem contains several literary devices to note. Two metaphors were used in this poem. The first is a hyperbole and is seen in the fourth line, “To walk, and pass our long love's day” where he compares the life span of his and his mistress to one day. The second is a metaphor which is used in the eleventh line, “My vegetable love should grow” where he compares his love with slow growth of vegetables.

Compared To His Coy Mistress, Sonnet 130 is more descriptive. In the first line of the poem there is an alliterative sound pattern identified where the poet mentions the word “My mistress’. The start shows the tone and urgency associated with it, it also illustrates his attempt to hook the audience. Alliteration is the repetition of the same starting consonant sound in a line. In the third line of the poem, the poet compares the colour of his mistress breasts to the colour of snow, emphasizing on the whiteness. There the two words “white, why” make another alliterative sound pattern. This device shows emphasis on the difference between the whiteness of the two. Evidenced in the fourth line, shows where the speaker compares his beloved’s hair to wires indicating two different alliterative patterns. The first pattern is indicated by the words “be” and “black,” while the second is made by the words “hair,” “her,” and “head.” This type of repetitive sound at the start of the words illustrates the disagreement of the speaker with this type of comparison. As seen in the eleventh line there is another exaggerated alliteration. In sonnet 130 the poet illustrates the flaws of his mistress to highlight his point. His argument in which he was trying to prove is that describing beauty through false or negative comparisons is wrong. In the fourth line, the poet spoke once again about his mistress hair and compared it to wire. Likewise in line eight, the poet said his mistress breath was awful, specifically he said that her breath reeks. He claimed that his sole purpose of such comparison was to dismantle the comparison to perfumes. At the beginning of the poem, the sound s was repeated at least three times, then the r sound was repeated four times in line four. Then it was repeated three times in line three. This is known as consonance, the repetition of the same consonant sound in a line. This clustering of similar sounds makes the poem appealing by giving it a rhyming effect capturing the audience.

While Andrew Marvells “To His Coy Mistress” and William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 both pursue the theme of love. However each poem describes a kind of love that is different from the other. While To His Coy Mistress seems to confront to Paz’s second type of love, eroticism, Sonnet 130 posits an alternative to all three of Paz’s types. However both “To His Coy Mistress” and “Sonnet 130” are both very descriptive and depict great imagery. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell utilized a traditional love language but still the thought of sex before marriage seemed controversial. His Coy Mistress captures the audience’s attention in a dominating yet controlling manner, just like marvell’s method to get his mistress to sleep with him. Contrasting Shakespeare’s sonnet with To His Coy Mistress, Shakespeare kept the traditional form instead of descriptive yet persuasive language. Structure in Shakespeare’s poem is very important as there is no stanzas as in To His Coy Mistress. Each section describes a new method to capture his mistress’s love.

The poem’s rhythm which stresses on every other syllable creates the convincing sense of urgency but actually, each section portrays time in a different manner, enforcing his argument even more. In fact, the rhythm is the same as Shakespeare’s sonnet but each poet has used the rhythm to convey different atmospheres. The first section of the poem describes ideal time. Marvell appears to have unconditional love for his mistress and uses exaggerated times to express his love: thirty thousand to the rest of her body parts. He says he will love her ’till the conversion of the Jews’ even if she refuses. This line suggests his undying love for her as ‘the conversion’ will never happen. Marvell’s first argument uses flattery. In contrast to Shakespeare’s sonnet where honest but unflattering descriptions are used, Marvell exaggerates his mistress’s beauty in his attempt to sweet-talk her – for example by describing the many years it would take to love and appreciate fully each part of her: ‘two hundred years to adore each breast’. The second section is created using fear as the main argument. Beginning with the word ‘but’, the reader is prepared for the following to be filled with negativity. Marvell talks of real time and what little there is. He creates striking images of a loveless death where she is in a grave where ‘none think do there embrace’