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His Coy Mistress To Mr. Marvell Analysis

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“His Coy Mistress” by Annie Finch and “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell” by A.D. Hope are both well-known response poems to the infamous poem, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell. “To His Coy Mistress” displays Marvell’s desire for some unnamed “mistress” to give him her virginity through topics such as seduction and time. These response poems are Hope’s and Finch’s replies as women or more particularly “a mistress” to Marvell’s request. In comparison to Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, these response poems convey two different viewpoints from the mistress and in my reasoned opinion, provide a deeper scope to the objectification and mistreatment of women in poetry. This can be seen through evidence and supported by exposing the overall attitude of the speakers, issues of gender in each work, each poem’s language, the overall tone of each work, the form of each poem, and through each speaker’s responses to “Big Famous Lines” presented in “To His Coy Mistress”. …show more content…

Marvell” are both different than the other. However, they do take an opposing side in response to Marvell’s poem. For example, in “His Coy Mistress”, the speaker’s overall attitude is speaking up for herself and telling her lover how she wants to be more than someone to be used for his needs. You can see this as early as lines 1 and 2 where Finch writes, “Sir, I am not a bird of prey:/a Lady does not seize the day.” This comparison as herself, to a “bird of prey” shows how low Marvell ranks a woman compared to himself. However, in Finch’s work the mistress shows an openness to accepting Marvell’s love. For instance, in lines 15 and 16 she writes, “You have praised my eyes, forehead, breast:/ you’ve all our lives to praise the

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