To His Coy Mistress And Herrick

“To His Coy Mistress” and “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” were written during the 15th century. Andrew Marvell the author of “To His Coy Mistress”, and Robert Herrick the author of “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” both were born in the United Kingdom, and in their poems they deal with similar topics. In their poems, they talk about a women’s youth, but for different reasons. Both authors also use different and similar rhyme patterns that consist of perfect rhymes, and different sets of meters. In addition, Marvel and Herrick use different types of literary devices to portray their intentions in their poems. Furthermore, “To His Coy Mistress” written by Andrew Marvell and “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick

For example, both of the poems are similar in the way that they start with a trochee line. Herrick begins the poem with, “Gather ye rosebuds ye may.”(Line 1) This line in the poem is a trochee because the ‘ga’ in gather is stressed, with all the other first syllables in the line. Similar to Herrick, Marvel starts his poem with a trochee, stressing the first syllables of every word. Another similarity in the poems are that the majority of the pieces are iambic meter. However, even though these poems begin with a trochee meter and continue with iambic, the pattern of the poems are significantly different. For instance, Marvell’s poem is written in couplets and throughout the poem, the rhyme changes every two lines. Marvell ends lines one and two with the words “time” and “crime”, and then continues in line three and four with “way” and “day”. Herrick’s poem on the other hand is using an alternate rhyme. In lines one through four he ends the lines with “may”, “flying”, ”today”, and “dying”. This creates an a-b-a-b rhyme. Moreover, the meter is somewhat similar in both poems. Both poems use tetrameter in their poems. Marvell uses tetrameter throughout his whole poem, “an age at least to every part,” for example has four feet (Line 17). In Herrick’s poem he uses tetrameter as well but only in the odd numbered lines, because he uses a trimeter pattern in the even line as seen in, “Tomorrow will be dying” (Line 4). In sum,

Comparatively, both authors discuss how youth is a women’s prime, and how old age is coming closer. Herrick for instance, wrote how “that age is best which is the first, when youth and blood are warmer” (Line 9-10). In addition, Marvell writes that “time’s winged chariot is hurrying near” (Line 22). The authors used different symbolisms such as time and blood to get their point across. Time was constantly used throughout the poems through personification. Correspondingly, a similar symbol in both the poems is the sun. Marvell, for example says, “though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.” Furthermore, Herrick uses the sun similarly, “the sun, the higher he’s a-getting, the sooner will his race be run, and nearer he’s to setting.” (Line 5-8). Both men personified the sun to explain why a woman should give her virtue of virginity at a young age. In sum, the symbolism in the poems revolve around personification in order to represent time and to persuade young women to give their virtue.
Moreover, “To his Coy Mistress” and “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” are two honorable and great literary pieces. Although they both deal with the similar theme of carpe diem, they are different because the narrators are trying to portray the theme for different reasons. Moreover, the poems are similar in meter,