How Do The Attitudes To Love Expressed    
              In The Following Poems Differ From One Another?
        The following three poems “To His Coy Mistress”, by Marvell, “The Good Morrow”, by Donne, and “Sonnet 116”, by Shakespeare all tackle the theme of love. Although they are all written about the same subject, they show remarkably different approaches. Two are written from the narrator to his lover to persuade her into commitment into a sexual or loving relationship. The third gives a neutral definition of true love.
Marvell’s is concerned with seizing the moment and living life to the full, and satisfying his need for sexual intercourse in his relationship. The narrator is more concerned about lust than love.
Donne’s point of view comes after sex and he discusses the love between him and his lover and puts lust in his past.
Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116” is slightly different as it provides the reader with a definition of ideal and ‘true’ love which gives the effect of a conclusion to Donne’s and Marvell’s poems.
In “To His Coy Mistress”, the speaker, created by Marvell, is trying to get his girlfriend into bed by saying that if they had all the time in the world they could spend a lot of time together and he would really take his time over her, worshipping her as if she were sacred:
 
                                    “An hundred years should go to praise
                                      thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.
                                      Two hundred to adore each Breast:
                                      but thirty thousand to the rest.”  

Marvell clearly exaggerates the time into years, which adds to the full effect of this idea of her being worshipped upon and praised almost like a God or a priceless work of art.
At the beginning of the first section, the narrator tries to... [continues]

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