Andrew Marvell’s most famous poem, “To his Coy Mistress,” is thought of by critics as an epitome of the carpe diem poem (Wheeler 90). The carpe diem style of poetry dates back to Horace’s Odes, where the phrase “seize the day” is thought by critics to have originated, and was rediscovered and made popular in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth century by writers such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Robert Herrick. The idea began as simply “seize the day” but was transformed during the renaissance into a mix of a carpe diem poem and a lover’s complaint, as many were used in attempt to persuade a young lady to yield to the speaker’s sexual advances (Scruton). “To his Coy Mistress” is similar in the way that the speaker is using the basis of “carpe diem” to convince his “lady” into engaging in sexual activity with him. However, many analyses of this poem simply accept the speaker’s logic of “we must make love because we will one day die” but do not delve into the motivations of the speaker. Why is it so vital that he has sex with this woman? Why does his argument fail if it is logically correct? In my essay, I am going to apply a psychoanalytic lens to the poem and uncover the unconscious motivations of Marvell’s speaker through connotation, metaphor, and symbolism.
The id is the unconscious part of the personality that strives to reduce one’s tensions caused from the needs of one’s instinctual drive. The need for immediate gratification despite consequence is called the “pleasure principle.” This concept of immediate gratification is a part of the overall idea of carpe diem, get what you can while you can get it, and Marvell’s speaker definitely expresses this need. In the first stanza, the connotation of the word choice gives off a slow, leisurely feel:
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day. (lines 1 - 4)
In Freudian theory, a person’s life force is called their libido, a storehouse of dynamic energy that continuously discharges and replenishes through seeking and fulfilling needs, such as food, water, sex, and love. The libido is driven by two instincts: Eros (the life instinct) and Thanatos (the death instinct). The Eros represents life, growth, sexuality, and an increase in tension caused by the instinct to fulfil a need. The slow buildup of tension in the first stanza reinforces the idea that the speaker is being driven by his Eros. If the couple were immortal, they would laze the day away, walking around, thinking, pick rubies by the riverside (line 5 - 6), his love would grow “vast… and more slow” (line 12), he would adore each part of her body for hundreds of years (lines 13 -16), and he would love her at no “lower rate” (line 20). The grand metaphors and allusions and the blazon, a feature not seen in carpe diem poetry but more often in romantic sonnets, build a tension that seems to agonize the speaker into being unable to think of anything else; the first stanza seems to be civil and under the control of the speaker’s superego, but at second glance, there are double meanings behind some of the words exude sex. For example, the term “vegetable love” in line 11 can mean vegetable as in natural, or slow to act, which would make the speaker’s intentions seem honest and loving, but vegetable also brings to mind actual vegetables, of which many take a phallic form (cucumbers, squash, eggplant, etc.). The latter interpretation would make the lines “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires and more slow” (italics added for emphasis) overtly sexual references to how the male genitalia enlarges when aroused. Lines 18 - 20, the final lines of stanza one, also contain underlying connotations of sex:
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
“Show your heart” is a metaphor for sex and “lower rate” brings to mind one’s heart rate. Marvell chose the specific words he did on purpose to show his speaker’s levels of personality; the double entendres allow us as readers to understand the speaker’s motivations on an unconscious level, and that his love is really lust.
The second stanza is when the speaker’s Thanatos instinct becomes blatant, whereas it was simply introduced in the opening lines of stanza one. The Thanatos instinct aims to reach homeostasis, or the elimination of all tension, and it is motivated by negation and death. It is obvious that Marvell’s speaker is well aware of his impending death and he is attempting to use this to persuade the lady of their minimal time together, but the opening couplet of this stanza, “But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (lines 21 -22), is what most critics deem the exact point at when the speaker loses his argument (Wheeler 92). In chapter six of his book Andrew Marvell Revisited, Thomas Wheeler states “Marvell’s poem stands out only because of its grim vision of the grave and its passionate urging of the lover’s case. In other words, it does what a typical carpe diem poem does, but it does so with unparalleled power” (90). The power of the second stanza, that Wheeler is referring to, not only overwhelms us as readers, leaving us to contemplate our own futures, but it overwhelms the speaker’s object, the lady:
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust (lines 26 -30)
There are double entendres in this stanza as well, but “the wit that previously was playful is here sardonic” (Wheeler 92). “Marble vault” is meant to be taken literally, but it can also double as a reference to the lady’s strict chastity, where vault being virginity which is “marble” in the sense that they are “unbreakable,” or inaccessible, which would mean the speaker’s “echoing song” is another overexaggerated reference to his own genitals. Marvell also plays on the meaning of the word “try” in line 27; “try,” at face value, means to test or to “make a trial of” (Wheeler 92), but it also means “to taste.” In lines 29 -30, quaint is a pun on “out of date” but it also is a reference to the early English meaning of the word queynte, a term for the female genitals, which would make the speaker’s “lust” another reference to his own anatomy. So, not only does Marvell say that their genitals will soon turn to literal dust when they are dead, but he also uses the gross, phallic image of the worms who will literally eat every part of the lady, including her “marble vault.” According to Freudian theory, the unconscious mind contains information that is repressed and is not readily available in our memories, and one of the most popular repressed thoughts is the idea that one’s death is imminent. By mixing his Eros with a strong dose of his Thanatos, Marvell’s speaker has created an imbalance between the two, resulting in frightening instead of persuading both us as readers and his lady.
The final stanza is the most overtly sexual of the three and it mixes this sex with extreme violence:
...now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life (lines 38 -44)
The speaker and his lady will be like “birds of prey” rolling into one ball, tearing their pleasures with rough strife from the jaws of time and through the “iron gates of life.” This violent imagery associated with what is assumed to be the lady’s first experience with sex, and the speaker’s first instance with this particular woman, causes us as readers to push the poem a little further away on our desks and wonder why Marvell’s speaker comes to this brutally aggressive conclusion. Wheeler says in his book that “the conclusion of all carpe diem poems [is] the lovers must take their pleasure now before they become time’s victims. But no other poem of this type presents the lovers’ actions in such violent terms” (92). Eros and Thanatos are most predominant in one’s early stages of life, specifically Freud’s oral, anal, and phallic stages. However, malformation of a child’s personality during these stages creates a child who doesn’t realize they cannot control their environment and that gratification isn’t immediate, which leads to a self-indulgent, aggressive, and vain adult. Marvell may have been calling upon some of his own personality when writing this piece, but most critics speculate that it is an entirely made up character, not only because the title reads “To His Coy Mistress” not “To My Coy Mistress” despite the usage of first person pronouns throughout the poem, but it also deviates from any other Marvell poem (Wheeler 90).
Andrew Marvell’s poem is rightfully noted as his most famous because it is his most relatable; every human being has instincts, but how we handle them is what makes the difference. In the title of this essay, I used a quote from Marvin Gaye’s popular song “Let’s Get it On,” but I debated between Gaye and Robin Thicke’s newer song “Blurred Lines.” Both songs, like “To His Coy Mistress,” deal with a woman who they think is putting on a pretense of shyness to attract them and their lyrics are meant to persuade them into intercourse, but do so a little more blatantly: “I know you want it / But you're a good girl / The way you grab me / Must wanna get nasty” (Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines) and “I'm asking you baby to get it on with me / I ain't gonna worry / I ain't gonna push, I won't push you baby /So c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, baby / Stop beatin' 'round the bush” (Marvin Gaye - Lets Get it On). However, through a psychoanalytic perspective, we can better understand the motivations of Marvell’s speaker and his uncontrollable haste and perverted sexuality by delving into their unconscious mind and interpreting the clues (connotation, symbolism, etc) left for us by Marvell himself. The speaker, although he has an unbalanced personality, is ultimately a human being. Through the modern knowledge of the human psyche, it is now apparent that the speaker isn’t just a typical young man lusting for a young woman, as with the “modern Marvells” of Gaye and Thicke. Instead his issues lay deeper in his unconscious mind, creating an obsession with sex and death, brought on by his unbalanced libido that causes his seduction / carpe diem poem to become unsuccessful in its intended purpose, despite it being a completely logical and clever argument.
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