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In the poem “To His Coy Mistress”, the author Marvell, uses the essence of time to compare a timeless existence with the brutality of running out of time. This contradtion parallels the coy, timid, self-conscious attitude of the mistress, while the coyness of the man is, on the other hand, strategic and intelligent. The author uses the time old theme of seizing the day in combination with a double standard, in which, the mistress’s coy behavior, is regarded as shy and prude, while the narrator uses his coy and flirtatious behavior in an attempt to seduce his mistress. The narrator begins the poem “but world enough, and time, This coyness, Lady would be no crime” implying all the things he would do if time permitted, in a sense, the poet is commenting on all the unnecessary forms of courtship. The poet continues by exclaiming he could spend “An hundred years…(on) Thine eyes and forehead gaze; Two hundred years to adore each breast”. The poet is an a sense listing the attributes of her body in a shopping list fashion and then becomes distracted after listing a few things and then decides to devote “thirty thousand years to the rest” of her attributes. The poet, is attempting defend the fact that he does not have enough time to continue the list, which follows his plan of convincing her he would be wasting his time if he were to simply mention more aspects of her body that he adores.
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