Author Question: Considering the poem as a whole, does the speaker seem playful, or serious? What will be an ideal ... (Read 158 times)

SO00 · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

Considering the poem as a whole, does the speaker seem playful, or serious?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

What is the main idea of part two? How is this theme similar to that ofHousmans Loveliest of trees?

What will be an ideal response?

cam1229 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

This fifth question presents an easy dichotomy, but of course Marvells speaker is both playful and serious. In making clear the tone of the poem, a useful poem for comparison is Marlowes Passionate Shepherd. What are the two speakers attitudes toward love? Marvells seems more down-to-earth, skeptical, and passion-driven: a lover in a fallen world, not (like Marlowes shepherd) a lover in a pastoral Eden.

If later on, in teaching figures of speech, you want some great lines for illustrations, turn back to this inexhaustible poem. Theres hyperbole in lines 720, understatement (But none, I think, do there embrace), metaphor, simile, and of course the great personification of chariot-driving time.
Telling a class that Marvell was a Puritan usually shakes up their overly neat assumptions. Some may be surprised to learn that one can be a Puritan and not necessarily be puritanical.
Defending the poem against charges that its logic is fallacious, a contemporary critic, Richard Crider, has shown that the speakers appeal is not merely to the ladys passion, . . . but to a more inclusive and compelling valuecompletion and wholeness. A good student of Aristotles logic as well as Aristotles ethics, Marvells speaker calls on his listener to exercise all her human powers, among them reason. Although no single net will capture all the resonances of the final couplet, near the heart of the passage is the thought of living life completely, in accordance with natural law (Marvells Valid Logic, College Literature Spring 1985: 113211).

Answer to Question 2

Both Marvell and Housman in Loveliest of trees are concerned with the passage of time; they differ on what needs to be done about it. Marvell urges action; Housman urges filling ones youth with observed beauty. Of these two expressions of the carpe diem theme, Housmans seems the more calm and disinterested.