Compare Andrew Marvell s To His Coy Mistress with John Donne s The Flea
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The two poems address the same issue in two very different ways. They both address the theme of Carpe Diem (seize the day), in the context of fornication. While The Flea seems to be much more blunt and to the point, Marvell's To His Coy Mistress is gentle and loving, building up by talking about his love for her throughout the first two 'stanzas' (by stanzas I mean lines 1-20 as the first, 21-32 as the second and 33-46 as the last). Donne, however, immediately insinuates sex through the vehicle of a flea, whereas Marvell only brings sex into the poem at around line 27.
To His Coy Mistress begins with an image of an ideal place and time where the two lovers could spend forever together. It mentions the 'Indian Ganges' and since neither is likely to have been there, it would seem to them a sort of distant fantasy paradise that one reads of in books. He also calls his love 'vegetable love', demonstrating how natural it is and how it is fate that he should love her. Lines 13-20 praise and compliment her beauty.
The next stanza is slightly more urgent. The rhythm and speed intensify and the content is more urgent and focused less on love and beauty and more on lust...