Do you like Andrew Marvell's poetry?

[astrum]

What is your honest opinion of Andrew Marvell's poetry? Do you like his work? And why?
If so, which of his poems do you like best?


If not, why don't you like his work?

[MorpheusSandman]

Yes, I quite like his work, but I'm a fan of the "Metaphysical" poets in general (even if there's such variation between them it hardly seems useful to try and group them under a single label; but much the same could be said for romanticism). I probably like him for the same reason I like, in more recent times, Auden and Merrill, or even Byron from the romantic era, and that's because there's a combination of wit, lyrical grace, and craftsmanship, a sense that there's a real personality speaking to you on the other side of the pen. Yet, while there's a sense of personality, there's also a great versatility, so it isn't the unqiue and limited personality of, say, Wordsworth, Coleridge, etc., whose voice and tones rarely varied themselves beyond their unique personalities, but that of Keats' chameleon poet who could adapt to and express whatever state of mind was needed for the work.

While I have read a great deal of his work (I have the Longman edition), I still come back most often to To His Coy Mistress. It's one of those absolutely perfect poems, that perfectly demonstrates his masterful ability to vary tone, how the dark perversity of: "then worms shall try / That long preserved virginity, / And your quaint honour turn to dust, / And into ashes all my lust" immediately turns to the humor of: "The grave's a fine and private place, / But none, I think, do there embrace."