Andrew Marvell's poems viewed from history of the british coloniser perspective

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4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The history of colonisation inspired everybody to write. Many works of literature told about the history of colonisation with different issues. This study is going to discuss three poems written by Andrew Marvell in the seventeenth century. The three poems will be approached and analysed by using postcolonial theory to find that the history influenced Marvell in writing his poems. The historical background that could be revealed from this writing, was that the British Empire aimed to persuade the authority of the area to be subjugated and remained to give it its own area under the control of Britain. By applying descriptive interpretative methods, the study finds that the history supports the process of negotiation to make a certain area become a British colony. The British Empire saw the land that was extremely beautiful, like the heaven managed by a professional gardener (in "The Garden"). Marvell uses the word 'innocence' from post-colonialist reading, that signifies the object is underestimated. Similarly, 'green' is the literal colour of a garden itself, but Marvell also plays other significance to assuming tender, mild, immature, flourishing, gullible, and the like, meaning fresh and new, but smooth and simple as well. From the experience in the poem, the British Empire could realise how hard it is to conquer the colony, as illustrated in the difficulties to achieve a lady's love (in "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Definition of Love"). The fighting spirit of the British Armies was flared up to authorise the colony. Due to the sophisticated negotiation of the territorial leader, colonisation did not happen and the two countries were able to cooperate with one another.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-43
Number of pages13
JournalInternational Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change
Volume8
Issue number9
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Authorise
  • Colonisation
  • Negotiation
  • Perspective
  • Subjugate

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