To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Rober Herrick and Andrew Marvells To His Coy Mistress have many similarities and differences. The tone of the speakers, the audience each poem is directed to, and the theme make up some of the literary elements that help fit this description. The tone of To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and To His Coy Mistress are different. In Herricks poem, his tone is relaxed. For instance when he writes, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, /Old times is still a-flying, his word choice has a very relaxed and casual tone. His attitude reflects the relaxed tone in his poem. In Marvells poem, his tone is serious. Marvells purpose is to persuade his mistress to have sex with him. He tries to lure her in when saying, Had we but World enough, and Time. He starts out very seriously, in attempt to convince his mistress. The relaxed tone of To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time and serious tone of To His Coy Mistress point out the difference in the way the writers feel about their characters. Both poems are directed to two different audiences. In To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Herrick is speaking to all virgins. He never addresses anybody personally. In To His Coy Mistress Marvell is addressing his mistress personally. He wrote the poem for his mistress to convince her to become sexually active with him, while Herrick is writing he to a wide range of people who are still virgins. Herrick is just telling everyone in general that there is no real reason to wait to have sex, and everyone should go out and become sexually active and get it out of the way. He plays it off as keeping ones virginity is a bad thing, but since this poem was written in the 1640's, many people shunned on those who gave their virginity away. Also, if they did give it away, it was kept as quiet as possible.One of the main differences between the two authors is the way their poems are written. The tone of each poem is the opposite of the oth...
