Deviant Poems

A detailed Summary of Deviant Poems

Peter De Vries's "To His Importunate Mistress," written in 1986, is a parody of Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," written in 1681. De Vries's updated version uses the same structure and metaphors to mock the notions presented by Marvell's 17th century poem. "To His Importunate Mistress" reflects stereotypical characteristics that are associated with the 20th century such as egotistical behavior, over importance of money, lack of love and lack of shame. While "To His Coy Mistress" speaks of love and praise, which are known to be sentiments of the past.

The title of Marvell's poem hints to the situation the speaker is involved in. A coy mistress suggests a shy and demure female that is very retiring, or might also suggest a female pretending to be shy or modest. His speaker expresses his sincerity in order to seduce this coy mistress into sleeping with him.

Using the "carpe diem" approach, he proposes sex as the ultimate way of utilizing their time together. "Had we but world enough, and time... we would sit down, and think which way/to walk, and pass our long love's day," is a passage from the poem that refers to how he would praise her if he had an eternity to do so. His references to how he would take hundreds of

The reciprocity of priorities, in the emotions of the two speakers, is a reflection of the three-year deviance the poems have. The authors have prioritized issues that represent the stereotypical behavior of their contemporary society. De Vries's parody of "To His Coy Mistress" seems to be much more than just a parody. Although he does mock at Marvell's passion, he also enlightens the masses of the alterations that have occurred in our way of life. These poems seem to be analogous to the times they where written in, where love was pertinent in the seventieth century and money has replaced it in the twentieth century.

years to praise each one of her features are ways of hinting to the female on how short life can be. He also says "...then worms shall try that long preserved virginity," which essentially says she is better off losing her virginity to him, since worms will inevitably penetrate after death and will deny any female of being a virgin forever. Also illustrated time being of essence, he uses the metaphor of "times winged chariot" to represent death and how it will soon come to take both of them away. This metaphor contradicts the popular view of death being an awful occurrence. He sees death only as a chariot taking one on a ride to a specifically determined destination.

Although it is implied in the poem and by the use of the word

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Approximate Word count = 916
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English