Marvell Questions

ENGL 520

Dr. Fike

Day One:  "To His Coy Mistress" & "Definition of Love"

Day Two:

• "The Coronet" & "A Dialogue between the Soul and Body"

• "The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn"

• "Upon Appleton House"

• "Horatian Ode" & "First Anniversary of Government Under the Lord Protector"

Our book anthologizes 42 pages of Marvell’s poems (pages 829-71)—more than we can possibly cover in a week’s time.  It is okay to read just the poems in the following list.  I have organized them into groups according to their subjects, and within these categories I have boldfaced the most important poem(s).  We will most certainly have time to discuss all the poems with boldfaced titles.  Questions on each poem follow in a separate section.

Categories of Marvell’s Poems

Day One

• Religion and philosophy:
  • 832:  “The Coronet”
  • 856:  “On a Drop of Dew”
  • 857:  “A Dialogue between the Soul and Body”
  • 863:  “Bermudas”

• Love:
  • 832:  “The Gallery”
  • 833:  “The Definition of Love”
  • 834:  “To His Coy Mistress”
  • 858:  “Damon the Mower”
  • 860:  “The Mower to the Glow-worms”
  • 860:  “The Mower’s Song”

• Rural life:
  • 855:  “The Garden”
  • 858:  “The Mower against Gardens”

Day Two

• Cromwell:
  • 835:  “An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland”
  • 864: “The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector”

• Poems about the relationship between the active life and rural life:
  • 838:  “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn”
  • 841:  “Upon Appleton House”

Questions about specific poems

Religion and philosophy:

832:  “The Coronet”

• Begin with the assumption that the poem is about Puritanism and art.  What does it suggest about poet’s attitude toward Puritanism? 

856:  “On a Drop of Dew”

• What is the conceit here, and how does Marvell develop it?
• What point is he making via the dew drop?

857:  “A Dialogue between the Soul and Body”

• How does this poem qualify as a “metaphysical” poem?
• Who wins the argument—soul or body?

863:  “Bermudas”

• Can you make any connections between this poem and “The Garden”?
• How can the poem be taken as a commentary on Anglican versus Puritan?
• What portrait of nature and society emerges from the poem?

Love:

832:  “The Gallery”

• How does the poem’s stanza structure relate to the poem’s title?
• How does your answer to the previous question relate to the use of “metaphysical conceit”?

833:  “The Definition of Love”

• This poem should remind you of Donne’s “A Valediction:  Forbidding Mourning.”  What similarities and differences do you find?
• What conceits does Marvell use here?

834:  “To His Coy Mistress”

• What details in this poem suggest an ambivalent attitude toward sexual love?  (Base your answer on Marvell’s elaborate conceits.)
• What is the structure of the poem, and how does it fortify the argument being made here?  Does the syllogism work?
• How does each verse paragraph portray time in a different way?

Mower poems:  858:  “Damon the Mower”; 860:  “The Mower to the Glow-worms”; 860:  “The Mower’s Song”

• What is the tone of the mower poems?
• What do you make of the fact that the mower cuts his own ankle with his scythe?
• Does the poem make a political statement or offer a political commentary?
• What do you make of the presence of death in two of these poems?

Rural life:

855:  “The Garden”

• Which side does this poem take in the action-versus-contemplation debate that animates many of Marvell’s poems?  How does the speaker’s misogyny relate to the issue?  Does anything in the final stanza, stanza 9, inform your answer about action versus contemplation?
• Be able to say something about colors (stanza 3) and the mythological references in the poem (stanza 4).
• What is the relationship between “Upon Appleton House” and “The Garden” in terms of the relationship to nature? 
• How is “The Garden” a “metaphysical” poem?

858:  “The Mower against Gardens”

• Find and copy for the class Perdita’s argument with Polixenes in The Winter’s Tale 4.4 (easy to find online).  Is the mower’s position similar to or different from Perdita’s?

• What is/are the mower’s beef(s)?
• Does the poem reflect contemporary politics and/or religion?

Cromwell:

835:  “An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell’s Return From Ireland”

• What portrait of Cromwell emerges here?  Do you detect any ambivalence?
• How is Charles I portrayed?  Is there ambivalence here?  Is this a royalist poem?
• What do you make of the image of the “sword erect” in line 116?
• How does this poem enact and/or commemorate the shift that England is undergoing?  In other words, in what way(s) does the poem show that the country is passing into a new phase of history?

864:  “The First Anniversary of the Government under His Highness the Lord Protector”

• How has Cromwell done during his first year in office according to this poem?  Is all well in the realm? 
• What do you make of Cromwell’s accident?  Can you read it as a comment on the realm itself?
• What does the poem say about the Catholics?

Poems about the relationship between the active life and rural life:

838:  “The Nymph Complaining for the Death of Her Fawn”

• What is the nature of the two worlds that come into conflict here?  In other words, what is the poem’s theme?  Can any connection be made to Cromwell in the “Horatian Ode”?
• Is this an allegorical poem?  What or who might the fawn be?  Is such a reading an overreading? 
• What attitude toward men does the nymph embrace?  Does this make her like or unlike Isabel and Mary in “Upon Appleton House”?

841:  “Upon Appleton House, To my Lord Fairfax”

• See http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kbrundan/apple.htm for a helpful summary/outline of the poem.
• If you put this poem together with the “Horatian Ode,” a homology emerges:  Cromwell is to engagement in war and public affairs as Fairfax is to private retirement in the country.  Does the poem express ambivalence about the right side of the homology, Fairfax’s decision to retire from public life?  Does it criticize Fairfax?
• What are the moral implications of choosing rural life and withdrawal from public affairs and service? 
• Can you make any points about Isabel and Mary in terms of public life versus a private, rural retirement?  How is Mary portrayed?  Is there truth in the following homology?  Fairfax is to Appleton House as Isabel was to the nunnery.
• Stanzas 49-55 anticipate the four “mower” poems in our book (pages 858-60).  Can you make any connections?