Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman (also named Andrew Marvell). As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert. He was a colleague and friend of John Milton.
Marvell's poetic style:
Marvell’s poetry is often witty and full of elaborate conceits in the elegant style of metaphysical poets. Many poems were inspired by events of the time, public or personal. The Picture of Little TC in a Prospect of Flowers was written about the daughter of one of Marvell's friends, Theophila Cornwell, who was named after an elder sister who had died as a baby. Marvell uses the picture of her surrounded by flowers in a garden to convey the transience of spring and the fragility of childhood. This poem's title is ironically echoed by John Ashbery's poem "The Picture of Little JA in a Prospect of Flowers."
Others were written in the pastoral style of classical Roman authors. Even here, Marvell tends to place a particular picture before us. In The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Fawn, the nymph weeps for the little animal as it dies, and tells us how it consoled her for her betrayal in love.
His pastoral poems, including Upon Appleton House, achieve originality and a unique tone through his reworking and subversion of the pastoral genre.
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