Tarvin 1
ANDREW MARVELL
“TO HIS COY MISTRESS”
This handout was prepared by Dr. William Tarvin, a retired professor of literature.
Please visit my free website www.tarvinlit.com. Over 500 works of American and British
literature are analyzed there for free.
AN ANSWER KEY IS PROVIDED AT THE END OF THIS HANDOUT (P. 3).
1. NOTE: In this poem, “mistress” means “sweetheart,” that is, a woman whom a man e
likes very much. The “mistress” of this poem, the speaker makes clear, is a virgin.
2. STRUCTURE: This poem has a three-part structure:
(1) Lines 1-20: What is the speaker’s argument in the first section? The speaker
argues that if he had “__________” and “_______” “___________” (1), he would
extravagantly and
lengthily celebrate his mistress's charms. Concerning place
("world"), the lovers could leisurely roam the entire world, from nearby Humber to faroff India, traversing vast “_____________” (12).
If they were not bound by “time,” their love could span from a time before
the Biblical ________ to the very end of time. The speaker says he could spend
hundreds of years praising each aspect of his _____________.
(2) Lines 21-32: What is the speaker's realization in the second section? That
they live in a real world, where “time” is pressing down on them.
Their
“______________” (24) will be spent in a “____________” (30), where there is no
love.
(3) Lines 33-46: What is the speaker's conclusion in the third section? Having
contrasted the hypothetical world of the first section with the ______ world of the
second section, the speaker brings his argument to a conclusion with a call to action.
The conjunctive adverb “__________” (33) signals this conclusion: Since the lovers
live in the real world (not the __________ world of the first section), they must seize
the ________, living (and loving) for ________.
3. What is the THEME of the poem?
The last section suggests that the speaker is advocating the __________ to “live
for the moment.” This THEME is called the CARPE DIEM theme, a Latin term which
literally means “seize [carpe] the day [diem]” since life is brief.
Tarvin 2
4. A HYPERBOLE or OVERSTATEMENT is a statement in which exaggeration is
used by saying more than is actually meant. Point out three examples of HYPERBOLE
in the first section?
(1) The time frame is exaggerated; it covers from “before the ________” (the
beginning of time in the Bible) to the end of time when, Christians held, Jews would be
converted to Christianity.
(2) The speaker brags about how much time he could spent on praising parts of
his mistress: a hundred years on her “_____” (13-14); ____ hundred years “to adore
each breast” (15); and “thirty _________” years “on the rest” (16).
(3) Space ranges from the nearby, the _________ River (7) along which
Marvell lived, to the far away, the _____________ River in India (5).
5. In the second section, how are “Time's winged chariot” (22) and “Deserts” (24)
METAPHORS, the comparison of two things not in the same class or group? Which of
the two is also a personification?
(1) The rapid movement of time is compared with the rapid movement of a flying
“_________” (22).
(2) Eternity is compared to a wastelands or “____________” (24).
(3) A PERSONIFICATION is a word or phrase in which human qualities are
given to something inanimate, to an animal, or to an abstract idea. In Marvell’s poem,
time (an abstraction) is personified as a ________ driver.
6. In the third section, copy the SIMILES in lines 34 and 38, explaining what is being
compared.
(1) Lines 33-34: “while the youthful hue / Sits on thy skin like morning dew”:
The youth of a person is compared to “______________,” the earliest part of a day.
(2) Line 38: “like amorous birds of prey”: The lovers are compared to mating
birds, but “______” also suggests that they must devour time before it devours them.
Marvell is doubtlessly punning on the religious word “pray.”
7. How are “into one ball” (42) and “the iron gates of life” (44) METAPHORS?
(1) Line 42: The lovers, who are divided at the beginning of the poem, should
unite at the poem’s end; this union is compared with a “________.”
(2) Line 44: The ________ gates of life may mean the adversities of life or the
bounded space of life which love between two people can overcome. There is also a
sexual connotation in the line.
8. What is the PERSONIFICATION in lines 45-46? The word “run” gives human
qualities to the ______, thus personifying it. The _____, a SYMBOL of time, is made
to “______,” either like an old man trying to keep up with the young lovers, or like a
soldier, running from the battlefield in defeat, having been overcome by the logic of the
speaker
Tarvin 3
ANSWER KEY
2. (1) world; time; enough; empires; Flood; mistress.
(2) eternity; grave.
(3) real; therefore; fantasy; movement; today.
3. Lovers.
4. (1) Flood.
(2) eyes; Two; thousand.
(3) Humber; Ganges.
5. (1) chariot.
(2) deserts.
(3) chariot.
6. (1) morning.
(2) prey.
7. (1) ball.
(2) iron.
8. sun; sun; run.