Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context: ideas and innovations
- Aire and Angels
- A Hymn to God the Father
- A Hymn to God, my God, in my Sicknesse
- A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies day
- At the Round Earth's Imagin'd Corners
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Synopsis of Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Commentary on Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Language and tone in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Structure and versification in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Themes in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- A Valediction: of Weeping
- Batter my heart
- Death be not Proud
- Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- Elegie XVI: On his Mistris
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
- Lovers' Infiniteness
- Oh my blacke Soule!
- Satyre III: 'On Religion'
- Show me Deare Christ
- Since She Whom I Lov'd
- Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre
- The Anniversarie
- The Dreame
- The Extasie
- The Flea
- The Good-morrow
- The Sunne Rising
- This is my playes last scene
- Twicknam Garden
- What if this present
- Aaron
- Affliction I
- Death
- Discipline
- Easter Wings
- Jordan I
- Jordan II
- Life
- Love II
- Man
- Prayer I
- Redemption
- The Church-floore
- The Collar
- Vertue
- Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Hymn to St Teresa
- St Mary Magdalene, or the Weeper
- To the Countesse of Denbigh
- Ascension - Hymn
- Man
- Regeneration
- The Night
- The Retreate
- The Water-fall
- A Dialogue between Soul and Body
- On a Drop of Dew
- The Coronet
- The Definition of Love
- The Garden
- The Mower Against Gardens
- The Mower to the Glo-Worms
- The Mower's Song
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun
- The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- To his Coy Mistress
- Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
- An Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Paul's Dr John Donne
- To a Lady that Desired I would Love her
Language and tone in The Mower against Gardens
The language of horticulture
The language is fairly technical, in that the Mower is describing new 
horticultural techniques. We need to know what ‘Pinks', the ‘Marvel of Peru', or ‘the Stock' are, for example. There is also the technical language of the pastoral genre itself: ‘the Grot', which means ‘grotto' or a cave. The reference is to the artificial landscape then in vogue, the creation of fountains and caves for the sake of ornament only. ‘'Tis all enforced' (l.31) he says, again using language which has sexual undertones. ‘Fauns and Fayres' are again a pastoral convention, symbolising the spiritual forces in Nature.
A complaint
The voice is of complaint against ‘luxurious Man'. It is a cumulative list of grievances, going from bad to worse, using stronger and stronger language. Only at the end can the Mower find anything positive to say:
Investigating The Mower against Gardens
- Do you see The Mower against Gardens as a protest poem?
- Do you think Marvell is the Mower, and the poem the poet's complaint or is he just voicing the way a Mower would feel?
- What evidence is there one way or the other?
- Would you say the tone of the poem is ironic?
- If so, what kind of irony?
- sad, bitter, sardonic?
- If so, what kind of irony?
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