What is the tone and mood of To His Coy Mistress?
The prevailing mood of To His Coy Mistress is playful, almost satirical.
What argument does the speaker make in To His Coy Mistress?
Does the speaker seem like he knows a lot about time, or does he make it up as he goes along? The speaker argues that, if his mistress has sex with him, they will have more control over time.
What does the speaker in Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress want?
“To His Coy Mistress” is a carpe diem poem: following the example of Roman poets like Horace, it urges a young woman to enjoy the pleasures of life before death claims her. Death seems to take over the poem, displacing the speaker’s erotic energy and filling the poem with dread.
What is the speaker trying to tell his mistress about time?
Answer: In the poem, the speaker is trying to persuade his mistress that such coyness is a waste of time, and that she should give in to her desires and sleep with him.
What determines a poem’s tone?
The poet’s attitude toward the poem’s speaker, reader, and subject matter, as interpreted by the reader. Often described as a “mood” that pervades the experience of reading the poem, it is created by the poem’s vocabulary, metrical regularity or irregularity, syntax, use of figurative language, and rhyme.
Why does the speaker mention the Ganges and the Humber?
Why does the speaker mention the Ganges and the Humber? The two rivers are far apart geographically, thus representing a great or infinite amount of space.
What is the argument being made in this poem to whom is the speaker making this argument?
Unlock This Study Guide Now Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” is a carpe diem poem in which the speaker urges his mistress to submit to desire and sleep with him. He argues that if she continues in her coy behaviors, they will grow too old for love—and Time, whom Marvell personifies, will defeat them.
What does the speaker mean by describing his mistress as coy?
Now, for “coy.” Most commonly, if a person is coy, he or she pretends to be shy, quiet, and reserved. (Early uses of the word imply actual shyness, quietness, and reserve.) The poem’s title then suggests then that the speaker’s mistress only pretends not to want to have sex with him.
What is the speaker trying to convince his mistress to do in To His Coy Mistress?
The speaker in “To His Coy Mistress” is trying to persuade the woman he’s addressing to stop being coy—meaning specifically that she should stop being shy about sex. Even more specifically, he wants her to stop being shy about having sex with him.
What is the speaker’s attitude about the poem?
What is attitude in a poem?
In literature, attitude refers to the tone a writer takes on whatever they are writing. It can come through in a character’s intentions, histories, emotions, and actions. The design of the story, the language, and the mood/atmosphere all play into how the writer’s attitude is interpreted by the reader.
What can you infer about the relationship between the speaker and his lover from these final lines from a valediction forbidding mourning?
What can you infer from these final lines of the compass comparison that ends “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”? The speaker and his lover are bound, thought they may be apart.