Thematic Tension In Andrew Marvelks Poetry

Andrew Marvell is one of the metaphysical poets in the seventeenth century in Britain. Hismasterpieces The Garden and to His Coy Mistress made him lie in a very solid position in thehistory of poetry. It is known to all that Marvell’s poems are the “most major minor verse inEnglish” nowadays. As an amateur, he wrote nearly one hundred poems on different themesincluding pastoral, love and religious, but most of the poems except for his masterpieces areoften ignored by later generations. The research about him is just at the beginning stage. Up tonow, most of his works have not been translated into Chinese, even not been touched by otherscholars, which adds a big challenge to this paper. At the same time, this situation made theresearch more meaningful and valuable.After reading his poems, the author of this thesis found the themes reflected in Marvell’spoems are quite complex. His outlook about life, love and time is always full of conflict. Thisthesis will try to study systematically the themes in Marvell’s poems applying the Tension theoryof New Critics to get a conclusion that the thematic tension about life, love and time made hispoems more profound and meaningful. The social background and his life experience will alsobe explored to prove that the tension in his themes is just a natural overflow of the confusing andpains in his inner mind and a reflection of the conflicts existing in every people’s mind in thatage.