He may cease to be formal, and I to be proud. May ev’ry fond pleasure that moment endear īe banish’d afar both discretion and fear!įorgetting or scorning the airs of the crowd, Then rarely approach, and respectfully bow,īut not fulsomely pert, nor yet foppishly low.īut when the long hours of public are past,Īnd we meet with champagne and a chicken at last, In public preserve the decorum that’s just,Īnd shew in his eyes he is true to his trust Or laughing, because he has nothing to say No pedant, yet learned no rake-helly gay, Not meanly would boast, nor would lewdly design įor I would have the power, tho’ not give the pain. Would value his pleasure, contribute to mine Good sense and good nature so equally join’d?) Oh! was there a man (but where shall I find Long years of repentance for moments of joy, That we live but few years, and yet fewer are young.īut I hate to be cheated, and never will buy I know but too well how time flies along, Nor is Sunday’s sermon so strong in my head: Is not owing to nature, to fear, or to shame: This stupid indiff’rence so often you blame, Take, C-, at once, the inside of my breast “Coy Mistress” is typical of Metaphysical poetry, “The Lover” typical of Augustan poetry.Īt length, by so much importunity press’d, Does she want in a man what Marvell wants in a woman? Note also how Montagu’s “The Lover: A Ballad” refutes Marvell’s “Coy Mistress” formally, her directness contrasting with his paradoxes, conceits, and tortured argumentation. As you read her poem, note what those attributes are. A generation after Marvell, Lady Mary Wortley Montague wrote what sounds for all the world like a response to Marvell’s “Coy Mistress.” Montague’s speaker, unlike Marvell’s, spells out the attributes she wants in a lover. If they rolled their eyes, the poets don’t say. It’ll probably come as no surprise to learn that Renaissance carpe diem poems were mostly written by men. What would John Herrick, Andrew Marvell and Buffy Summers all agree on?.What is a cadaver tomb, and what does it have to do with “To His Coy Mistress”?.As you read it, paraphrase the Marvell’s argument-stripped of its fancy rhetoric, what does it amount to?Īnd while thy willing soul transpires These devices are abundantly displayed in Marvell’s mischievous poem. Metaphysical poetry is full of conceits (outrageous comparisons), paradoxes, and slick arguments that lead to dubious conclusions. What four things does John Herrick exhort virgins to do?Īnother masterpiece of carpe diem is Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” This poem is a stunning example of what is often known as “metaphysical” poetry.“Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May,” John William Waterhouse (1909). Your 60-year-old professor remonstrates: Don’t believe him! Pace Herrick, there is life after youth-it just gets better! One of the most famous Renaissance iterations of “Carpe diem” is “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick: I bet you can think of some current examples. Back when I was in high school, Billy Joel was belting, “Come out Virginia, don’t let ’em wait / You Catholic girls start much too late” (“ Only the Good Die Young,” 1977). Of course, the trope didn’t end in the Renaissance. Renaissance lovers were all about urging their “coy” (standoffish) beloveds to carpe diem, Latin for “seize the day.” After all, they remonstrate, you won’t be young forever, and you don’t want pass up a good thing (like having sex with me!). That's not the kind of man that Horace was.( Drake’s “The Motto”) There was… carpe diem Make Much of Time Don't freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it. Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it, is what Horace meant-pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day. What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day's stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things-so that the day's stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to a thinness, and a tightness, and then snaps softly away at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap, and the flower, or the fruit, is released in your hand. Seize the day would be "cape diem," if my school Latin servies. “Carpe diem' doesn't mean seize the day-it means something gentler and more sensible.
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