Compare the way Andrew Marvell and William King present relationships :: English Literature

Compare the way Andrew Marvell and William King present relationships between men and women in To His Coy Mistress and The Beggar Women. If we look at the 2 poems we can see some quite significant similarities between them about the relationships between men and women. We see in both poems the desire for sex from the two men, but both attempt to acquire it through different methods due to the difference in class between the women. First we must look at the difference in forms of the two poems. To His Coy Mistress is a dramatic monologue and so we can therefore see the narrator's attitude towards the lady he is trying to seduce. The Beggar Women is a ballad (so it is telling a story) this means that you can find a moral to the story; however, you are unable to see the attitude of the 'gentlemen' towards the women as easily. I both poems we see that neither of the men have much respect for the women. In The Beggar Women we see that the 'gentlemen' views the women very low which is perhaps given the historical context of the poem. In the poem he refers to her as "game", comparing her to the animals he was hunting, almost saying that she isn't considered important enough to be human. It then says, "her cheeks were fresh, and linen clean" which may suggest that the situation is not what it seems. In To His Coy Mistress we also see the narrator has little respect for the lady; however in this poem it seems quite unnecessary because she is a respectable lady. He mocks her for being a virgin - her "quaint honour" but in those times being virginal was the only way for a women to maintain a good reputation. In The Beggar Women the initial rhyming scheme is "rhyming couplets". The pattern deteriorates as the beggar woman begins to take control over the situation without the man realising. In To His Coy Mistress, if we look at the rhythm of the first 4 lines, it is in iambic quatrametre. This is a very powerful rhythm and may reflect just how hard the narrator is trying to seduce the women. In both poems there is also the obvious similarity of the men's one desire of sex and nothing else and how much they will do to achieve this. To His Coy Mistress shows the narrator taking a kind and adoring approach to getting the lady into bed with him in the first part of the poem (up to line 20). In this part he uses time as a positive