Andrew Marvell Biography - Kenzee

Andrew Marvell (31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) 

Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician. He sat in the House of Commons at various points from 1659 – 1678 and during the Commonwealth period, he was a good friend of John Milton. Some of his most notable works include ‘To His Coy Mistress’, ‘The Garden’ and ‘An Horatian Ode’.

Marvell was born in Winestead-in-Holderness, near the city of Kingston upon Hull. Born to a Church of England clergy man also named Andrew Marvell, the family moved to Hull after his father was appointed Lecturer at the Holy Trinity Church, and Marvell attended Hull Grammar School. At just 13 years old, Marvell earned a BA degree from Trinity College, Cambridge. His first poems, published in Latin and Greek whilst he still attended Cambridge, lamented a visitation of the plague and celebrated the birth of a child to King Charles I. After the death of his father in 1641 as a result of drowning, Marvell travelled extensively on the continent, learning new languages and missing the English civil wars in the process.

Marvell spent most of the 1650s as a tutor, first for Mary Fairfax, the daughter of a retired Cromwellian general, and then for one of Oliver Cromwell’s wards. In 1657, Marvell was appointed John Milton’s Latin Secretary, a post that he held until Marvell was elected for Parliament in 1660. He held office during Cromwell’s government and represented Hull during the Restoration period. Holding a very publicised position of power during a time of tremendous political turmoil and upheaval almost led Marvell away from publication for good. Nothing escaped his satirical eye; he criticised both the court and parliament. If certain poems, such as ‘Tom May’s Death’, had been published in his lifetime, Marvell would’ve been extremely unpopular with royalists and republicans.

He died rather suddenly in 1678 due to a fever, and many of his works were published in the following three years after his death. A woman of the name Mary Palmer, Marvell’s housekeeper, had claimed to be his wife, apparently, in order to keep his small estate from the creditors of his business partners.

Marvell’s style has been described as “more than a technical accomplishment; it is, what we have designated tentatively as wit, a tough reasonableness beneath the slight lyric grace”. One of his most famous poems, ‘To His Coy Mistress’, fits the conventions of metaphysical poetry with the combination of an old poetic conceit with Marvell’s typically vibrant imagery and easy command of rhyming couplets. Other works of his include topical satire and religious themes.

'To His Coy Mistress'

Had we but world enough and time, 

This coyness, lady, were no crime. 

We would sit down, and think which way 

To walk, and pass our long love’s day. 

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side 

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide 

Of Humber would complain. I would 

Love you ten years before the flood, 

And you should, if you please, refuse 

Till the conversion of the Jews. 

My vegetable love should grow 

Vaster than empires and more slow; 

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; 

An age at least to every part, 

And the last age should show your heart. 

For, lady, you deserve this state, 

Nor would I love at lower rate. 

       But at my back I always hear 

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; 

And yonder all before us lie 

Deserts of vast eternity. 

Thy beauty shall no more be found; 

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound 

My echoing song; then worms shall try 

That long-preserved virginity, 

And your quaint honour turn to dust, 

And into ashes all my lust; 

The grave’s a fine and private place, 

But none, I think, do there embrace. 

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue 

Sits on thy skin like morning dew, 

And while thy willing soul transpires 

At every pore with instant fires, 

Now let us sport us while we may, 

And now, like amorous birds of prey, 

Rather at once our time devour 

Than languish in his slow-chapped power. 

Let us roll all our strength and all 

Our sweetness up into one ball, 

And tear our pleasures with rough strife 

Through the iron gates of life: 

Thus, though we cannot make our sun 

Stand still, yet we will make him run.