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A Simple, Passionate and Sublime Request in Pursuit of Happi

 

            A Simple, Passionate and Sublime Request in Pursuit of Happiness: an in depth look at Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress".
             Many writers have attempted to write poetry alluding to the common phrase, Carpe Diem, seize the moment. Few writers have executed this effort with such gracefulness and literary beauty as Andrew Marvell. Marvell illustrates this saying by using a straw man argument (a method of debate that sets up a possible rebuttal and later knocks it down) to persuade his love to bring to an end her extraneously coy ways. Within his argument, Marvell uses many literary devices to convey his thoughts.
             As his love is extremely shy, she wastes precious time lingering in her bashfulness. Marvell therefore displays many of the endless possibilities that life may hold if she had infinite time at her disposal so that she could continue in her diffidence and still capture all that life has to offer and her bashfulness would have no negative consequence: "Had we but world enough, and time,/ This coyness, lady, were no crime"(1-2). If they had all the time that the world possesses, there would be nothing wrong with her shyness. With this immeasurable amount of time, they could do anything imaginable like going to the corners of the world in search of riches, "Thou by the Indian Ganges' side/ Should'st rubies find" (5-6). She could continue in her shyness if they were alive until the "conversion of the Jews", a religious allusion to the common Christian belief that all Jews will convert directly before the end of time (10). If they had that time, she could afford to continue in her shyness and if he had that time, his love would grow to infinite capacity. This is because he could set aside time to praise every aspect of her being: "A 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.


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