Andrew Marvell's poetry exemplifies an ancient literary genre known as the pastoral. This genre, which dates back to the 3rd century BC, represents the values ​​of pastoral and rustic life. Marvell's poems "The Garden" and "The Nymph Lamenting the Death of Her Fawn" both embody the pastoral style, but differ in how they describe pastoral ideals. This essay analyzes their pastoral themes and color metaphors. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay "The Garden" focuses on an abstract, far-fetched and yet typical theme of Marvell, renowned for his unique metaphysical elaborations. In this poem he compares the shade of a garden to a sanctuary, a place where one finds peace and enlightenment. Marvell begins this metaphor by critiquing material ambition. He claims that men seeking glory compete in “ceaseless toil” to be “crowned with some herb or tree” (3, 4). These crowns, however, produce only a “narrow-edged shade” that cannot be compared to the much more satisfying shade of “all the flowers and trees” of the vast garden (5, 7). Marvell is extremely intrigued by the garden's ability to cultivate knowledge, and in the second stanza he further develops the theme of Nature's superiority. He goes on to explain that the “busy companies of men” cannot find “fair tranquility” and “innocence” in their vain affairs (12, 9, 10). Only in the garden, he suggests, can we discover these two ideals personified. “Tranquility” and “Innocence”, in this context, represent the essential elements for clear thinking and a pure mind, thus enabling enlightenment (9, 10). Marvell argues that “Society is far from unkind / To this delicious solitude” (15, 16). Here Marvell makes an interesting comparison. Choosing a physical sensation like “delightful” to modify a nonphysical state like “loneliness” strangely suggests that the garden fosters both physical pleasure and disembodied perceptions (16). This paradox demonstrates a pastoral concept of Nature's ability to transcend body and soul. In contrast to "The Garden," in which the pastoral theme is clearer, Marvell's "Nymph" intentionally juxtaposes two contrasting ideas: an Edenic paradise problematized by an emphasis on momento mori, a reminder of one's mortality. Marvell describes two falls from innocence. The first is that of the nymph when she admits that her lover, whom she had not previously found "counterfeit", "had soon deceived me" (27, 34). Her seemingly heavenly love for "The Inconstant Sylvio" had darkened when he "left his fawn, but took his heart" (25, 36). The second fall from innocence occurs when the "unrestrained soldiers" shoot her fawn (1). The word “wanton” suggests the futility of killing the fawn; Marvell pairs phrases like “unkind men” to establish a more dramatic fall from innocence, caused by needless violence (1, 3). The narrator of this elegy vividly recounts the Edenic scene before the fawn was killed: “Could thus my idle life be spent; / Because it was full of fun and light” (40, 41). Marvell then slowly transitions into a moment mori, raising an interesting question about the fate of innocence - not only of the fawn, but of every living thing:...it seemed to bless itself in me; How could I love him less? Oh, I can't be unkind to a beast that loves me. If she had lived long I don't know if she too could have done it. As Sylvio did... (43-49) Here Marvell suggests a reversal of roles for the Nymph's lover. Phrases like “a beast that loves me” and “seemed to bless itself in me” both indicate that the.