Essay on “The Coy Mistress” and “Corinna’s going A-Maying” Poems
Judging from the structure of the two poems at first glance they look very much different but in terms of context we can conclude that the stories beneath the words are almost alike. To compare the poems we must look at the technical side of the contents and how the meanings were delivered by the sentence structure. First the poem “The Coy Mistress” written by Andrew Marvell talks about a woman who is quite slow in responding to the author’s sexual advances. At the first part of the poem he emphasized how he would love the woman if only they had enough time together. While the poem “Corinna’s going A-Maying” written by Robert Herrick is pointing out ways on how to enjoy life’s pleasures before it passes by.
The context of the story inside the two poems are different but the common element they both have is that the poem are both being addressed to a woman, Robert Herrick’s describes how he would want Corinna to come with him and enjoy the delights brought by the morning springs. This thought came to the writer while on “the light hangs on the dew locks of the night”. It means that it is not a good idea to stay indoors in a very fine day. Now, Andrew Marvell’s poem is in a more persuasive manner thus, remember how he would admire the woman’s body even if he spend a century not even the woman’s refusal fazes him.
There is also a sad manifestation in Andrew’s poem because of the stanza wherein he mentioned about how short life is and that when the time is over the opportunity of enjoying each other’s company is too late, because you can no longer embrace in the graves. Given that idea, the speaker gives a strong persuasion for the woman to comply with his request because of the fact that life is short and they should make the most out of it.
The structure of “To his Coy Mistress” was based on Iambic Tetrameter and used couplets in rhythm. Notice that the first stanza used “Had we…” and that is ten couplets in all. The same pattern was used for the second, six, and the third stanzas, although it was written in tetrameter, the writer is also known for iambic pentameter writing. The theme of the poem followed the traditional conventions of carpe diem love poetry.
Talking about the “Corinna’s going A-Maying” Poem, it is more on a positive perspective wherein the young man wants to take the young woman on an engagement and waste no time to enjoy their life together. The poem may sound similar to the context to that of Andrew Marvell, but entirely different in terms of structure and theme selected. It is also in carpe diem conventional style. When we say carpe diem it simply means capture the day instead of placing your trust in the coming days or the future.
Robert Herrick’s work captures a different tone in his portrayal of a story; it uses a positive and happy tone with a bit of exuberant and joyful tone and with a lot of anticipation to the happy future. The poem also uses a couplet rhyme, but the only difference is that this poem ends in masculine rhyme with only one syllable per couplet except for the final couplet. The structure of the poem is in iambic pentameter with a combination of iambic tetrameter. The lines used in pentameter are consisting of five pairs of syllables or in other term five feet. On the other hand the tetrameter lines used four pairs of syllables.
