Andrew Marvell "The Definition of Love

Andrew Marvell was a contemporary and friend of John Milton. He probably saved Milton’s life after King Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660. He wrote a number of excellent poems, his most popular poem “To His Coy Mistress,” is a witty, carpe diem love-song in which the speaker argues that life is too short for her to put off enjoying sexual intimacy with him. Another interesting poem about love, is his “The Definition of Love.” Unlike “Coy Mistress,” this poem aches with the pain of unfulfilled love:

        The Definition of Love

My love is of a birth as rare 
As 'tis for object strange and high;
It was begotten by despair
Upon impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where My extended Soul is fixt,
But Fate does Iron wedges drive,
And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.

For Fate with Eye does see
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close;
Their union would her ruine be,
And her Tyrannick pow'r depose.

And therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles have plac'd,
(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new Convulsion tear;
And, us to joyn, the World should all
Be cramp'd into a Planisphere. 

As Lines so Loves oblique may well
Themselves in ever Angle greet:
But ours so truly Paralel,
Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love with us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debarrs,
Is the Conjunction of the Mind,
And Opposition of the Stars.

This interesting little poem immediately compels the reader by its title. We encounter the words “The Definition of Love” and wonder how Marvell will define this all-consuming human passion. The first three words lead us in that direction, with its linking verb “My Love is,” but instead of a specific image representing the emotion of love, he conjures a metaphor of love being born to a father, “despair” and a mother, “Impossibility.”

Marvell then states that “Magnanimous Despair alone / Could show me so divine a thing.” The ironic coupling of these words initially perplexes until we read the rest of the stanza. “Despair is “Magnanimous” in showing him a beauty “so divine,” but tauntingly cruel, since such a love will never be within his reach. To even hope for such a consummation is purely feeble and forever useless. In stanza 3, we see that it is not the lover who rejects him, as is the common theme in countless poems of unrequited love written during this literary period. He believes he “quickly might arrive / Where my extended Soul is fixt.” Spiritually, he and his beloved are united; physically, they remain apart: “But Fate does Iron wedges drive, / And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.

The Fate of stanza 3, with its “Iron wedges,” is impersonal and mechanical. In stanza 4, Fate assumes a human agency, which is not only jealous of the lovers but also jealous of her power to control their lives. The “union” of the lovers would “ruine” her and “depose” “her Tyrannick pow’r.” No less than “her Decrees of Steel” and a separation as great as the North and South poles between the lovers, will ensure Fate retains her power. Stanzas 3,4, and 5 convey Marvell’s feelings of resignation in the hands of Fate. Yet, one line intimates his resistance against Fate’s dictates: “(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel). The parentheses suggest an aside, a thought secondary to the sentiment presented in the stanza 5. But the meaning within the parenthesis seems to resist the absolute power Fate has exerted over the lovers. How might Fate control their lives if “Loves whole World” revolves around them?

Yet only a cosmic collapse—“Unless the giddy Heaven fall,” and an earthquake, “And Earth some new Convulsion tear”—could possibly bring the lovers together. But such events would reduce the sky and earth to a “Planisphere,” a two-dimensional representation which cannot adequately measure their perfect love. In the next stanza, the perfection of their love is measured in parallel lines, which “Though infinite can never meet.” At this point in the poem, it should become apparent that Marvell’s definition of love is more of a description than a definition, a description that is rendered in abstract images in which Fate is his personified adversary and geometric images represent their perfect love. The poem presents something of a summation: “Love…doth bind” the lovers; “Fate so enviously debarrs” the union of the lovers.” And the final two lines suggest two possible conclusions. The lovers will always have their spiritual love, but Fate will always stand in between them physically: “And Opposition of the Stars.” Or “The Love which us doth bind…” will not only conjoin their minds but also oppose the “Stars” and leaves the reader wondering whether the poem offers a definition or instead a paradox.