Andrew Marvell’s to His Coy Mistress

Marvells To his Coy tart Author(s) Walter A. Sedelow, younger Source Modern Language Notes, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Jan. , 1956), pp. 6-8 Published by The Johns Hopkins University shake up Stable URL http//www. jstor. org/stable/3043707 . Accessed 29/12/2010 1837 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http//www. jstor. org/page/info/about/policies/terms. jsp.JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you wee obtained prior permission, you whitethorn non download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any raise use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http//www. jstor. org/action/showPublisher? publisherCode=jhup. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR infection must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the t ry or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate newfound forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact email&160protected org. The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and ext annihilate access to Modern Language Notes. http//www. jstor. org Marvells To His Coy Mistress f for tightness on Reflecting the measure of Marvells celebrity we poetic organization, may find it ironic that the final,climactic lines in his mostwidelyacclaimedlyricremainformostreadersand critics essenti everyydisjoined from the verse form as a whole, and from their communication channel as well. AlthoughTillyard chose To his Coy Mistress as his allusionforthe typeof a highlyorganized( plotted) lyric, Marvell s 2 demonstrated and Wallerstein and Tuve 3 establish elaborately couplet human bodys,the concluding Christian symbolic usage of traditional appears neverto have been loselyrelatedto the centralsignificance of the poem,nor to its Biblical source. T. S. Eliot, for example,in discussionof the poem never mentionsthe conhis distinguished for cluding lines,much less theircentralsignificance the whole,and 5 nor Macdonald has caughtthe 6 Margoliouth it appearsthat neither source of the images. Bradbrookand doubting Thomas noted7 that make but beyond our insolateniness / Stand still derivesfromJoshua and Jericho, that theirexplicationis this that the lovers be not Joshuas,they are gods, for though they cannot control meter, yet . . it is whereby alone thatsuppliesthemotive powerof existence theirenergy Time is created. Whatthis does not do is showthat we will make him break out is also oldish Testamentand that when seen against the of context its sourcein the Psalms we findnew ess entialmeaningfor the coupletin the poem and forthe poem in the couplet. 8 on The modelforAddisonsOde ( The spaciousfirmament high), Psalm 19 ( The heavensdeclarethe gloryof God ) reads in verses 4-6 (King JamesVersion) Their i. e. , the heavens line is asleep(p) out through all the earth, 1E.M. W. Tillyard, Poetry Direct and Oblique (London, 1934), p. 198. condolence C. Wallerstein, Studies in Seventeenth Century Poetic (Madison, 1950). Rosemund Tuve, Elizabethan and Metaphysical resource (Chicago, 1947). 4 T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays (New York, 1950), pp. 251-263 also, in Andrew Marvell . . . Tercentenary Tributes, ed. W. H. Bagguley (London, 1922), pp. 63-78. 6 H. M. Margoliouth, ed. , The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, 2 vol. (Oxford, 1927). 6 Hugh Macdonald, ed. , The Poems of Andrew Marvell (London, 1952). 7M.C. Bradbrook and M. G. Lloyd Thomas, Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, Eng. , 1940), p. 44. 8 Margoliouth indicated (p. v) that he would not include unnecessary annotat ions, and perhaps the Joshua opinion of the image is obvious, but not so for the rest, for all Bradbrook and Thomas offer here is Donnes The Sunne Rising, with which the gibe is comparatively loose. 2 Modern LaLnguageNotes And their words to the close of the domain of a function. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his bedroom, And ejoiceth as a strong firearm to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, And his circuit unto the ends of it. Disregardingfor the nonce the apparentlyincidental,but by no betweenend of the world and correspondence way of life irrelevant, by the Indian Ganges side (when takenin antipodalconjunction with by the tide/ Of Humber), we noticethat in bothpsalm and withthe poemthe image of the sun as runnerappearsin conjunction idea of the onset of the physicalphase of love.This double coincibut not likelyto be accidental, far moreconclusive, denceis, perhaps, is far and, moreimportant, more significant the additionalmeaning of for the couplet and poem that a recognition the source provides, percept established of the evident, a it for,first, provides check-out procedure equivalent of intensity kindin a brieftimethe thatwitha sufficient in experiencecan be achieved of slow-paced loving over a vast eternity(and we may urge that Time, the Sun, a strongman and would have to run long and hard to encompass runner hencea strong of the skillful confirmation which see their accomplishment-for of below) second, the recognition Marvells sun as a bridegroom recalls us to the firstidea of the poem,for the bridemagnificently groom comingout of his chamber. . . who rejoicethas a strong lover-and man to run a race, is a splendidformforthe unhurried therebythe meaning of the third separate is enhanced by an as withthe first foil and a generalsense of unity contrast straightaway is achievedby havingthe verylast line and last idea recall the first of third,the recognition the s un as a lines and firstidea further, self-confident strong and perhapseven saunteringly ) ( bridegroom to ) casual ( comingout of his chamber whois to be compelled run for developed the poemsthird brutality sustainsthe tone of vigorous if paragraphfourth, the Sun (who createstime,and who by making also createsworld), if the Sun, mans standpoint life possible,from bave to run hard, then he must create a would a mightily runner, vast amount of time and a vast amount of world indeed- world copious and time one would think,for after all if he wont be of made to stand still (i. e. , to createan infinity time), this powerful runnerwill be made to run (i. e. , run hard) which is the next best thing (i. e. , to create a vast, if finite,time, and world), and VOL. LXXI, January 1956 7 s all that was asked for anyway world enough and time, not infinityand eternity. Marvell may well have smiled as he thoughthow this runners goingforth from end of the heaven, And his circuituntothe / is the worldenough And ends of it -for all the worldmustbe precisely thus the lovers sense of their iron straitsbecomesthe conditionof liberationtheycan forcethe sun to be his ownundoing. theirperfect Amherst College WALTER A. SEDELOW, JR. pope, Sheffield, Shakespeares and JuliusCaesar From 1721 through1724 pontiff energetically pursuedtwo editorial taskshe inclined(p) publication collected for the works JohnSheffield, of Duke of Buckingham,and the plays of Shakespeare.His correspondencereveals that he was preoccupiedby his editorial duties, for in at least two lettersof 1721 and 1722, to Jacob Tonson and JohnCaryll,he pondered botheditions progress in -clearly Sheffield and Shakespearewere at timesassociatedin his thoughts. It is my purposeto showthat,as a result,in his emendations Shakespeares of Julius Caesar Pope let his judgmentas editorbe influenced turns by of phraseand alterations Shakespearestext made by Sheffield in in his veryfreeadaptation,The Tragedyof Julius Caesar. Becaus e Sheffield, all otherAugustan improvers of Shakelike speare,considered himselfunder no obligationto followhis original closely,he did not consistently retain the basic expression Shakeof speares dialogueand action often,in fact,he diverged wildlyfrom it.Obviously, onlythoseparts of Sheffields Caesar mostresembling Shakespearemay be consideredas having affected Popes decisions as editor,but a comparison them to parallel qualifyings in Popes of edition of Shakespearesplay will reveal that Pope took five suggestionsfromthem. trey of these are verbal alterations, one is a degradation of a passage Pope considered and the fifth doubtful, transfers speechfromone character another. a to Of thetwelve doublecomparatives superlatives Shakespeares and in 1 Pope to Tonson, George Sherburn, The Early Career of Alexander Pope (Oxford, 1934), p. 307 Pope to Caryll, Works of Pope, ed. Elwin and Courthope (London, 1871-1889), vI, 280. S Modern Language Notes