Comparison of How John Donne and Andrew Marvell Present...

Comparison of How John Donne and Andrew Marvell Present Death in Poems To His Coy Mistress and Holy Sonnet X In the poems To His Coy Mistress and Holy Sonnet X the idea of death plays a strong part in the overall messages of the poems. Both poets use effective but very different methods in order to put forward their views and/or to make a point about society. ====================================================================== John Donnes poem Holy Sonnet X is very unique Donne uses two main poetic elements: tone and figurative language. The confident and defiant tone adds to the speakers triumphant mastery death from a natural occurrence into a human adversary, capable of being†¦show more content†¦Marvell also uses death to symbolise the endà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust The image of ashes best portrays the idea of the end. Once something had been turned to ash (burned) it can never be reversed to its previous state. This idea is disturbing and would lurk in the mind of the reader as Marvell has now introduced a new image of death - ash. The use of rhythm in the two poems adds to the effectiveness of the poems. In To His Coy Mistress Marvell uses an eight-syllable iambic line like many of his other poems such as The Definition of Love. However, as the poem progresses the vigorousness of the argument appears in the breathless lines:- Through the iron gates of life, for example has only 7 syllables adding to the effect of urgency at the end of the poem. The use of a rigid structure would help persuade the mistress as it seems more elegant somehow with the beautifully rhyming couplets. Donne, unlike Marvell appears to love variety and seems to appreciate the true beauty of verse. In Holy Sonnet X the style of verse used is not unlike Shakespeare in that the lines usually have 10 syllables with some 11 syllabic lines where the words were too long fit into 10 syllables. The variety of