Andrew Marvell was one of the so-called metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century, a title conferred on a group of poets with certain similar approaches by Herbert Grierson and T.S. Eliot. Eliot himself notes that "[n]ot only is it extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry, but difficult to decide what poets practice it and in which of their verses" (Eliot 23). Grierson offers a definition when he states that metaphysical poetry is poetry which "has been inspired by a philosophical conception of the universe and the role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence" (Grierson 3).
"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem of seduction offered as an argument directed at the lady of the title. Now, he offers an argument as to why she should submit to him, and he uses an extended metaphor to describe the life-cycle, to show how short it truly is, and so to argue that time is fleeting and so the lovers should consummate their love while they may. The woman is "coy" because she has been resisting the advances of the poet, and her coyness is a crime to him because he wishes to make love to her and she is resisting him. Marvell extends this situation through numerous references to events in history and so creates a sense of time as a continuing and rapidly-moving element in both life and the poem.
The speaker is trying to persuade his mistress to let him make love to her. Her age is not clear except that she is young, probably in her twenties, with the beauty intact as it will not be as she ages. Time is a character in this poem, always moving onward and dragging human beings with it, aging them. The poet says there simply is not enough time for humans to put off doing what they want, and he uses this as an argument to seduce his mistress. In doing this, Marvell draws on mythology and history to create a vision of time as an entity which is acting against the interests of lovers, though at the same time lov...