© Journal of Language and Literature, ISSN: 2078-0303, May, 2010
THE TRIUMPH OF ID OVER EGO AND SUPEREGO IN
TO HIS COY MISTRESS
Hammad Mushtaq
Department of English, Foundation University Islamabad (PAKISTAN)
E-mail: hamaadhashmi@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
The researcher has carried out textual analysis of Andrew Marvell’s poem `To His Coy Mistress’ from the
view point of psychoanalytical criticism in order to assert that in the fight of id, ego, and superego, in the lover’s
psyche, id becomes triumphant. For this, the researcher has used close-text analysis technique. Psychoanalytical
criticism is based on the assumption that literary works are like dreams of the authors or of the characters created
by the authors in these works. In the present article, the researcher has focused on the main character of the
poem, i.e. a passionate lover. The researcher has developed the argument that the poem is a battle ground of
three aspects of the lover’s personality i.e. Id, Ego, and Superego. Though, Ego and Superego appear to be
functional in the first two parts of the poem, they subside and sink into nothingness in the final part of the poem.
Id, on the other hand remains somewhat dormant in the first two parts but it forcefully makes its way towards the
surface and becomes dominant in the final part of the poem. `To His Coy Mistress’, thus, can be read as a battle
ground of Id, Ego, and Superego, where the final victory is snatched by Id.
Key words: Psychoanalysis, Andrew Marvell’s poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’, Ego and Superego, Id
1. INTRODUCTION
Psychoanalytic criticism analyses a piece of literature considering it a dream of the writer or the unconscious of
the writer. Analysis of a literary piece of work on the bases of Sigmund Freud's concepts of id, ego, superego, libido,
complexes, unconscious desires and sexual repression is an interesting way of literary analysis. Understanding of the
unconscious of the writer or the characters presented by a writer in a literary work is vital in psychoanalytical criticism.
Study of the unconscious mind is mainly based on the theories of psychologists Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan.
“Unconscious” says Harland (1999), “constitutes the reject bin...for images and impulses now excluded by
consciousness…the energy in the unconscious continues to seek to manifest itself, with an urge to self expression”
(130-31).
Study of the unconscious mind of either the author or the central character in a literary piece is usually the focal
point in any psychoanalytical criticism. In the present study the researcher has tried to uncover the unconscious of a
character, created by Marvell in his poem To His Coy Mistress. The lover’s psyche is revealed in three stages which
are in fact the three parts of the poem. The focus of the study is the relationship and working of id, ego and the
superego in the lover’s psyche.
2. PSYCHOANALYTICAL STUDY OF ‘TO HIS COY MISTRESS’
a)
Literary Critics on Psychoanalytical Criticism
Freud, as stated by Bertens (159) and Barry (102), believes that the unconscious manifests itself implicitly in
figurative language and expresses the hidden desires, of an author or a character, through images, symbols,
metaphors, and allusions etc. Bertens further states that “the unconscious can for instance hide a repressed desire
behind an image that would seem to be harmless….” (159). He believes that the real interest of psychoanalytical
criticism “is in the hidden agenda of the language that the text employs” (160). Norman Holland, as quoted by Ray (6364), in his first work of theory The Dynamics of Literary Response explains the process of the transformation of
unconscious thoughts into literary text: “All stories—and all literature—have this basic way of meaning: they transform
the unconscious fantasy discoverable through psychoanalysis into the conscious meanings discoverable by
conventional interpretations.” Barry (2002), however, believes that there is always a “judgemental” element involved in
discovering the unconscious meanings of literary texts and “in consequence psychoanalytic interpretations of literature
are often controversial” (102). Harland (1999), while discussing the ways of psychoanalytical criticism, asserts that the
unconscious is an abode of meaning and it wishes to express these hidden meanings through conscious:
“unconscious is a kind of thinking, it works with meaning; in so far as it seeks to express itself, it strives to make those
meanings emerge through the socially dominant level of consciously controlled meaning.” (131). Literary characters
are discussed and their personalities are analysed as if they are real human beings and that is why any theory
applicable to human beings can be applied to the literary characters. These characters are can also be analysed in
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© Journal of Language and Literature, ISSN: 2078-0303, May, 2010
light of the writer’s own personality or in light of his conscious of unconscious desires expressed in a literary piece
created by that writer.
b) Id, Ego, Superego defined
There is an antagonistic relationship among id, ego and, superego in Andrew Marvell’s (1621-1678) poem To
His Coy Mistress. Freud (1991) believes that Id wants to fulfil the instinctual needs on the basis of “pleasure principle”
and is:
Filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but
only a striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance of the pleasure
principle. The logical laws of thought do not apply in the id [….] There is nothing in the id that corresponds to the
idea of time; there is no recognition of the passage of time […] impressions […] which have been sunk into the
id by repression, are virtually immortal. (106)
The superego, however, is a force which represents ideal standards of morality. When it applies its principles
on ego, the moral sense of guilt is generated and a tension is caused between ego and superego. In Freud’s (1991)
words, “The superego applies the strictest moral standard to the helpless ego which is at its mercy; in general it
represents the claims of morality, and we realize all at once that our moral sense of guilt is the expression of the
tension between the ego and the superego.” (92).
c) Force of Desire in `To His Coy Mistress’
There is a clear development in the heart and mind of the lover in To His Coy Mistress. The lover’s psyche
progresses through the constraints of ego and superego but in the end it allows id to overcome ego and superego i.e.
to fulfil his desire regardless of social and moral constraints. Duyfhuizen (414) has shed some light on this
development of the lover’s desire in To His Coy Mistress:
"A pre-critical response to the structure of 'Coy Mistress' could certainly involve recognition of the
heightening in intensity stanza by stanza, of the lover's suit from the proper and conventional complimentary
'forms' of verbal courting to more serious 'arguments' about the brevity of life and finally, to the bold and
undisguised affirmation that sexual joy is 'what it is all about'".
The third stanza is particularly written in an amoral and erotic strand where Duyfhuizen (414) believes: “the
atmosphere becomes electric and potentially physical as the diction becomes explicitly erotic.” He considers the worms
(line 27) as a sexual metaphor: “Marvell's worm-laden vaginal image can be read as a Medusa image that the speaker
wants to subdue by his "echoing song" [….] The fires of passion again assert themselves in the last stanza and
culminate in the violent rape imagery of the penultimate couplet.” (420) (see lines 43-44). The lover seems to have fully
subdued his ego in the third stanza, his desire to have physical interaction with his beloved seems to have become so
strong that now he cannot even think about the social, religious or ethical implications of what Id wants him to do.
Duyfhuizen (421) even asserts that the lover not only wants to break the virginity of the mistress but also has the
capability of making her pregnant: "The iron gates of life" represent the hymenal barrier the speaker seeks to break,
but it also represents the birth canal that may give issue to a second edition.” The poem, thus, clearly bears the sings
of an intense sexual desire driven by id and the ‘pleasure principle’; this forces the lover to fulfil his strong sexual urge
without any regard to social, moral or religious norms and thus id appears to be the strongest force in the lover’s desire
structure.
Fig. 1. Heightening of the Intensity of Desire
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d) Dominance of Ego and Superego in Stanzas 1 and 2
To His Coy mistress provides an interesting study of the psychic model of the lover consisting three
components. The poem presents the working of Id, Ego, and Superego in a vivid manner. The word “coy” in the title
and the word “coyness” in line-2 have a significant suggestiveness. Microsoft Encarta (2008) defines the word “coy” as
someone who is “pretending, in a teasing or provocative way, to be reserved or modest” or someone who is “shy or
reserved in social situations”. We can assume that when the writer’s character represented by the word “his” in the
title, considers the mistress provocative, he definitely is provoked by the beauty and behaviour of the mistress. A
strong activity of Id becomes apparent when the lover tries to convince the mistress that they do not have much time
for flirtation, coquetry, or “coyness”. The argument begins in the very first two lines of the poem “had we but world
enough and time/this coyness, lady, were no crime.” The development of argument after these lines seems to end up
in line 37 where the lover comes up with an open offer of having physical interaction: “now let us sport us while we
may” or in lines 41- 42 “Let us roll all our strength and all/Our sweetness up into one ball.” These lines show an urgent
and instinctive desire to make sex with the mistress; this urgency of having sensual pleasure becomes more severe in
the final stanza of the poem. The instinctive desire is always animalistic, strong and amoral which represents the
uncontrollable and wild libidinal desires residing in Id. “The id” asserts Freud (1991), “of course knows no judgements
of value: no good and evil, no morality. The economic or, if you prefer, the quantitative factor, which is intimately linked
to the pleasure principle, dominates all its processes.” (107). The ‘pleasure principle’ seems to dominate and control all
the mental and emotional faculties of the lover in the third stanza of the poem where the role of ego and superego
seems to have been completely annihilated in the lover’s psyche.
Id, though, seems to work too strongly in the psyche of the lover, yet his psyche is not completely void of the
workings of Ego and Superego. Ego and superego assert themselves in the first two parts of the poem where the
lover’s argument tends more towards spiritualism and the lover limits his assertion to high praise and some threatening
about death and its aftermath. Freud (1991) describes the relationship of ego with id and superego in an interesting
way:
The Ego controls the approaches to motility under the id’s orders; but between a need and an action it
has interposed a postponement in the form of the activity of thought, during which it makes use of the mnemic
residues of experience. In that way it has dethroned the pleasure principle which dominates the course of
events in the id without any restriction and has replaced it by the reality principle, which promises more
certainty and greater success […] we might say that the ego stands for reason and good sense while the id
stands for the untamed passions [….] The ego’s relation to the id might be compared with that of a rider to his
horse. The horse supplies the locomotive energy, while the rider has the privilege of deciding on the goal and
of guiding the powerful animal’s movement. (108, 109)
The horse of Id in the first and second stanza is under control of the rider Ego because the lover is only
pleading, praising and threatening to entrap the beloved; this type of behaviour is socially and morally acceptable. Ego
provides the “reality principle” to the lover in the initial two stanzas and instructs him to persuade the mistress in a way
which may not arouse social disapproval. Id, however, does not let the lover think in terms of moral standards and
drags him towards the fulfilment of the “pleasure principle” in stanza 3.
e) The Three Forces at War
There are certain words and expressions uttered by the lover which suggest a state of fight between Id and Ego
in his unconscious. The word `crime’ in line two suggests the social, cultural, and religious restrictions imposed on
sexual freedom or, in other words, on free play of libido. The unconscious recognition of these restrictions seems to
reside in the lover’s Ego. In part one, he starts the flattering and exaggerated account of his desire to adore various
parts of his mistress’ body with adoration of her “eyes” (line 14), then he mentions the “forehead” (line 14), then her
“each breast” (line 15) and “every part” (line 17), and in the end her “heart” (line 18). All these words, except “each
breast” and “every part”, suggest that the lover’s animal desires are suppressed because of the restrictions imposed by
his superego or the “ego ideal”. He pretends to have somewhat spiritual hankering for the mistress; his love appears to
be a bit platonic in nature because he seems content with visualizing and praising her eyes, forehead and heart. The
desire to admire her breast and “other parts” of her body, however, is obviously more sensual and erotic, yet, it is
apparently a desire to praise rather than a desire of physical contact with them. The lover calls his love “vegetable
love” (line 11) which indicates an immeasurable growth in his love and strengthening of id. The intensity of the lover’s
desire is emphasised more when he expresses the desire that his love must grow `vaster than empires’ (line 12). This
desire for expansion and vastness makes his love look more physical and mundane.
The seductive intent of the lover becomes more obvious in the end of the first stanza as well as in the second
part of the poem. The flattering admiration of the lover reaches to the extreme in the last two lines of part one: “For,
lady, you deserve this state;/ Nor would I love at lower rate” (lines 19-20). Here the height of flattery suggests that the
lover is not sincere to the beloved, he rather seems to seduce her through extreme blandishment only for physical
reasons. The second stanza, however, depicts a strategic change on part of the lover. It comprises of a warning which
the lover brings forward only to lure the mistress into his seductive snare. The warning about the quick passage of time
and decay of human figure, which culminates into death and a more horrible type of decay after death, has been
described by the lover through a variety of images. The images of `marble vault’ (line 26), `worms’ trying the `long
preserved virginity’ (line 28), `quaint honour’ turning into `dust’ (line 29), `ashes’ (line 30), and `grave’ (line 31) are both
threatening and frightful. The lover tries to arouse fear of getting old and fear of death in his beloved in order to
convince her to have a relationship with him as quickly as possible: “Thy beauty shall no more be found/….than worms
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shall try/That long preserved virginity;/And your quaint honour turn to dust” (27-29). At this point the lover tries to
convince his mistress that if she does not decide to act immediately, they will be caught in a fix where Time’s fast
paces will be on one side and eternity’s slow striding cart on the other. Hartwig (574) uses the image of a vise to
explain this situation by saying that the lover “forces her to recognize that they are caught in a vise: time's hurrying on
one side, eter-nity's motionlessness on the other.”
The use of high blandishment in part one and the use of dreadful warning in part two indicate that the lover
cannot wait; the driving force of this strong instinctive desire is libido which itself resides in the psychic arena of Id.
However, we can say that Id has yet not been able to overcome the lover’s psyche because Superego is at work in
some hidden corners of the lover’s unconscious; that is why the lover, instead of directly and forcefully demanding a
sexual contact with the mistress, tries to seduce the mistress through adulation and a dreadful warning (of getting old
or being dead very soon).
Human psyche can be called a battlefield where id and superego have a fight with ego. In this fight, Freud
(1933) believes, ego quite often fails because it has to face three strongly opposing forces. He calls these three forces
three-tyrannical-masters:
We are warned by a proverb against serving two masters at the same time. The poor ego has things
even worse: it serves three severe masters and does what it can to bring their claims and demands into
harmony with one another. These claims are always divergent and often seem incompatible. No wonder that
the ego so often fails in its task. Its three tyrannical masters are the external world, the superego and the id.
(110)
However, we can say that in the first two parts of the poem, the encounter of Id, Ego, and Superego is not so
severe. Id wants to win a youthful body amorally; ego tries to stop the advances of id by making it realize the value of
social norms; superego, however, comes up with a suitable plan which is acceptable for both Id and Ego. In other
words, Id tries to persuade the lover, to have physical relationship with his mistress, through a strong instinctive,
animalistic, unscrupulous, and amoral desire but his Ego protects him from indulgence into this kind of behaviour by
warning him about the expected reaction of the society. The wild horse appears to be in control of the rider. At this
point, the conflict between the priorities of Id and Ego cannot be denied completely, yet, superego seems to have
come forward as a mediator directing the lover to go for some socially more acceptable way of dealing with the
situation. The lover seems quite in control of the advice of superego because instead of behaving like a mere animal
(i.e. following the pro-Id behaviour) he tries to seduce the mistress with the tools of flattery and warning.
f) The Triumph of Id over Ego and Superego
Id, however, becomes forceful, dominant and quite victorious in part three of the poem. Its triumph over Ego
and Superego makes itself appear like a powerful gladiator who proudly comes out of the arena leaving two dead
bodies and a violently applauding public behind him. Ego’s `reality principal’ loses its strength and the `pleasure
principle’ of Id becomes more vivid and in turn makes the animalistic intent of the lover more naked and more obvious:
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning <dew>,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r,
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife;
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, through the Iron gates our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run. (Lines 33-46)
The desire of gazing at and adoring `each breast’ and `every part’ and having `vegetable love’ that `should grow
vaster than empires’ (lines 11, 12) now turns into a more wild, untamed and direct desire of having `sport’ (line 37).
The lover has now more bluntly fixed his eyes on the `youthful hue’ of his mistress’ `skin’ which appears to be `like
morning due’ (lines 33, 34). The lover uses words like `transpires’ and `instant fires’ to demonstrate the pressure and
exigency of libidinal power and desire, mustered up by the psychic energy of Id. The force of desire and escalates to
its highest point when the lover asserts `Now let us sport us while we may/And now, like amorous birds of prey/Rather
at once our time devour’ (lines 37-39). The word `sport’ quite obviously suggests a desire for a sustained physical
activity; an unscrupulous, amoral erotic activity which is then compared with the activity of `amorous birds of prey’. The
image of `birds of prey’ makes the desired activity more wild and animalistic rather more basic and instinctive. Joan
Hartwig has elaborated the birds through a beautiful mythical imagery: “The “birds of prey" image may be meant to
intensify action even further. According to a long-standing myth, eagles, or hawks, when they copulate, soar high into
the air, unite into a ball, and plummet through the air, breaking apart before colliding with the earth” (575). Here, we
may say that Id has assumed such a powerful role in the lover’s psyche that Ego seems to have subsided together
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with the mediatory Superego. The word `devour' (line 39) can be related the word `lust’ (line 30); both the words
suggest greed and eagerness which is powered by libidinal strength. Some more words represent the working of Id
factor in the unconscious of the lover these include `languish’, `slow-chapped’, `tear’, and `rough strife’ (lines 39-43).
Skin, especially of lips, becomes slow-chapped or roughened after a prolonged sexual activity and after such activity
the two parties may feel feebleness which has been represented by the world `languish’. A `rough strife’ is more
obviously indicative of a wild and rough sexual interaction which results out of a passionate and highly erotic love. The
last line bears the last indication of the urgency of fulfilment of the lover’s wild desire. The lover ends his argument by
saying, `yet we will make him (the sun) run’; here, there is pun of the word ‘sun’. The poet, after copulation, will have a
control over the sun and have a son as well. The two lovers have overcome the problem of time and are now united;
“Marvell's final triumph, then, is a re-placement of the instrument of time's measure with the sun which the lovers form
in their act of consummation ("our Sun").” (Hartwig 575). Here, the forces of Ego and Superego seem to have subsided
and Id appears to have overcome the unconscious atmosphere of the lover. His desire to seduce the mistress
immediately into an erotic encounter has grown large enough to leave any space for Ego or socio-moral considerations. The id triumphantly waves hands towards the galleries in the arena of the final stanza.
3. RECOMMENDATIONS
The present research is limited to the workings of the unconscious of the character or the lover presented by
Marvell in `To His Coy Mistress’; future researchers, however, may explore the poem for discovering the unconscious
of the poet himself.
Future researcher may also focus on the two processes of dream-symbolisation called displacement and
condensation. This would, however, require an in-depth study of Marvell’s personal and professional life history.
REFERENCES
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2.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester: Manchester U.P. Manchester, 2002.
Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2001.
Duyfhuizen, Bernard. Textual Harassment of Marvell's Coy Mistress: The Institutionalization of
Masculine Criticism. College English, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Apr., 1988), pp. 411-423. National Council of
Teachers of English Stable. 25.12.2008. URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/377620
Freud, Sigmund. New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. London: Panguin Books, 1991.
Grierson, Herbert J.C.(Ed.). Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of The Seventeenth Century: Donne to
Butler. Glasgow: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Harland, Richard. Literary Theory from Palto to Barthes: An Introductory History. Hong Kong:
Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999.
Hartwig, Joan. The Principle of Measure in "To His Coy Mistress". College English, Vol. 25, No. 8
(May, 1964), pp. 572-575. National Council of Teachers of English. 25.12.2008.
URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/373126
“Coy.” Microsoft Encarta. DVD-ROM. Microsoft Corporation 2008.
Ray, William. Literary Meaning: From Phenomenology to Deconstruction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd,
1985.
Appendix I
To His Coy Mistress*
Andrew Marvell
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
12
Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Love's Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side
Should’st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews;
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than Empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze;
Two hundred to adore each Breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this state;
Nor would I love at lower rate.
© Journal of Language and Literature, ISSN: 2078-0303, May, 2010
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged Chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lye
Deserts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My echoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv’d Virginity;
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my Lust:
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning <dew>,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow’r,
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife;
Thorough the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, through the Iron gates our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
*Grierson, Herbert J.C.(Ed.). Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of The Seventeenth
Century: Donne to Butler. Glasgow: Oxford University Press, 1958.
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