Irony in "To His Coy Mistress"

In the poem “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, the poet uses irony to convey the speaker’s will to his unwilling lover. There are many examples of verbal irony throughout the poem coming in the form of witty retorts, such as, “And you should, if you please, refuse / Until the conversion of the Jews” (lines 9-10), “And your quaint honor turn to dust / And into ashes all my lust” (29-30). These are examples of irony because the speaker knows the lady will not stay chaste forever, but uses hyperbole to try and convince her and himself otherwise.

The main irony does not come from the language of the poem instead from the situation that the speaker finds himself in. As our speaker professes his love to his mistress, a pure and chaste lady, he begins to list the amount of time he would take to appreciate all of her virtues as she wished; “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” (1-4). The speaker well knows that the young woman will not remain so forever and neither will he, and wishes to consummate his relationship with his love before time or some unforeseen event separates them; “The graves a fine and private place / But none, I think, do there embrace” (31-32).

The ultimate irony comes from the fact that the speaker and the lady listener are correct in their assertions. The speaker in that, when with someone you love, all time is precious and coyness is a virtue that must be held in reserve for every minute could be your last with that loved one. The lady is correct in that, without said virtue, what is such a love worth if one cannot be sure of its purity and strength of commitment.