Comparison Of Poetry And Tone

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Around the seventeenth century the poets Andrew Marvell and John Donne expressed their feelings through poetry. Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” focuses on the topic of love, which was trending at that time. Although both poems justify the importance and essence of love, the tone differs in each poem making them distant from each other. The figurative language also makes the two poems different. However, they focus more on the action of Carpe Diem, enjoying the moment and not worrying about the future. Through comparing these poems, the differences and similarities result in the true understanding and effectiveness of the poems. In “To His Coy Mistress,” Andrew Marvell does not…show more content…
In “To His Coy Mistress” a few metaphors and similes are found. In the first stanza, “"My vegetable love"(11). The speaker compares his love to a vegetable growing, which is slow and takes time. Also in the second stanza, "Time's winged chariot"(22). Knowing that a chariot moves fast, the metaphor expands and demonstrates the phase “time flies”. Mostly relating to Carpe Diem, meaning you should enjoy the moment while it last. Finally the last metaphor found is in the third stanza, "soul transpires…at every pore with instant fires"(35-36). The author determines that he is very passionate about his lover and how the feeling of passionate desire is like heat. There are two similes in the poem, and they both occur in the third stanza. During the third stanza the author seems the most desperate and he is trying to introduce persuasive ideas that are full of imagery. As demonstrated in the following, “the youthful hue…sits on the skin like morning dew”(33-34). And “like amorous birds of…show more content…
Donne uses metaphors like Marvell to show his meaning of his poem. In the first stanza, “As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to their souls to go, whilst some of their sad friends do say the breath goes now, and some say, No:” He compares his separation from his lover to the separation of a man's soul from his body when he dies. He states that they shouldn’t mourn because he isn’t dying they are just separating. Also in the second stanza he states they should not cry sentimental "tear-floods" or indulge in "sigh-tempests” (6) when they say farewell, because they would not want to make their relationship look weak. Finally, in stanza 8, Donne compares his relationship with his wife to a compass. “And though it in the center sit, yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, and grows erect, as that comes home" (31-34). He proves that although the legs are separate components of the compass, they are both part of the same object. The legs operate in unison. If the outer leg traces a circle, the inner leg–though its point is fixed at the center–must pivot in the direction of the outer leg. Thus, Donne says, though he and his wife are separated, like the legs of the compass, they remain united because they are part of the same soul. In the sixth stanza, Donne begins a

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