Andrew Marvell: Poems Summary and Analysis of

"The Garden"
Summary:
The Garden begins with the speaker reflecting upon the vanity and
inferiority of mans devotion to public life in politics, war, and civic service.
Instead, the speaker values a retreat to Fair Quiet and its sister,
Innocence, in a private garden. The speaker portrays the garden as a
space of sacred plants, removed from society and its rude demands. He
praises the garden for its shade of lovely green, which he sees as superior
to the white and red hues that commonly signify passionate love.
The speaker claims that when passion has run its course, love turns people
towards a contemplative life surrounded by nature. He praises the
abundance of fruits and plants in the garden, imagining himself tripping over
melons and falling upon the grass. Meanwhile, his mind retreats into a state
of inner happiness, allowing him to create and contemplate other worlds
and other seas. The speaker then returns to addressing the garden, where
he envisions his soul releasing itself from his body and perching in the trees
like a bird. He compares the scene to the happy garden-state of Eden, the
Biblical paradise in which God created Adam and Eve. The poem ends with
the speaker imagining the garden as its own cosmos, with a sun running
through a fragrant zodiac and an industrious bee whose work computes
the passage of time.

Analysis
"The Garden" is divided into 9 numbered stanzas, each of which contains 4
rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter. Its subject matter is the tranquility of
retirement from public life. Most critics associate the poem's content with
Marvells own retirement from his position as tutor to Mary Fairfax, whose
father, Thomas, was a General inOliver Cromwells army during the
English Civil War.
In the first stanza, the speaker mentions three forms of public virtue
associated with the emblem of a particular plants leaves: the palm for
military virtue, the oak for civic virtue, and the bay (or laurel) for poetic
virtue. However, these symbols also suggest the limitations of the pursuits
they signify, since the wreaths are only made of trimmings from the actual
plants. Public life and devotion to virtue must come to an end one day. The
speaker suggests that just as flowers and trees do close / To weave the
garlands of repose, so must individuals retreat from social obligation into
retired contemplation.

The speaker goes on to praise the solitude and quiet of his retreat into the
garden, believing that he was mistaken to have once sought Fair Quiet and
Innocence among the busy companies of men. He also associates his
private retreat with a holy experience, stating that the sacred plants of
quiet and innocence can only grow amongst the organic plants in the garden.
In other words, the material surrounding of the garden makes room in the
speaker's heart and mind for the cultivation of spiritual values, which life in
society has forced him to disregard.
The speaker continues to develop his extended conceit of the gardens
superior virtues, finding its lovely green more favorable than red and white
which are the colors poets most often used in erotic poetry to describe the
lips, teeth, face, and body of a beloved. Poets may carve the name of their
beloved into trees, but the speaker finds such actions to be fruitless, because
the each tree already contains a more beautiful imprint: a proper name. By
using this image, Marvell refers to the Renaissance doctrine of signatura
rerum, or "signature of all things", which held that God imprinted each
entity he created with the sign of its proper name, and gave Adam the power
to recognize these signs. The speaker thus imagines his experience in the
garden as a paradisal return to Adam's perfect knowledge of creation.
The speaker continues to praise the abundant fruits, vines, flowers, and
grass in the garden, but at the end of stanza five, the speakers image of this
natural cornucopia abruptly shifts when he finds himself Stumbling on
melons and Insnared with flowrs. He falls onto the grass, which suggests
that the gardens private efflorescence has become too much for him to
manage, as if it ahs overwhelmed his bodily senses. Hence, he retreats into
his mind, where the powers of contemplation become a source of superior
creativity. His mind is capable of making other worlds and other seas that
transcend the limitations of physical embodiment, thereby annihilating all
thats made / To a green thought in a green shade. Since this new shade of
green denotes the creative power of the intellect, it appears to surpass the
lovely green plants and trees that the speaker mentioned earlier.
The speaker then presents an image of his soul detaching from his body, but
remaining in the garden. It simply glides into the tree limbs like a bird,
waving its wings to reflect the light of the sun until it is ready for its longer
flight. The image suggests that during the souls time on Earth, it is possible
for it to transcend some of the physical body's limitations, as we see in the
speaker's previous contemplation of a green thought in a green shade. Yet
the soul cannot entirely detach from the physical world until the moment of
bodily death, so for the time being it must remain perched upon the highest
reaches that the garden allows. Thus, the poems final stanza contains an
extended metaphor comparing the garden to a private universe, containing
its own fragrant zodiac of flowers and a cosmic timekeeper in the form of
the bee, whose industrious labors mark the passage of the time.

The Garden: Andrew Marvell - Summary and Critical Analysis

The Garden by Andrew Marvell is a unique poem which is romantic in its expression,
metaphysical in its word-game, and classical in its music. It is romantic because it is about the
nature in subject and theme, and it is the expression of the poets personal and emotional feelings
about life in the nature (and society).

Andrew Marvell
Its style is metaphysical because it uses the conceit, forceful argument, allusions
(references) from sources like the Bible, myths and metaphysical philosophies. And
it is a classical poem in its form because the stanzas, rhythm, rhyme and wordchoice is like in classical poetry (carefully perfected form, and a language different
from the ordinary). The theme is that the garden (which is the symbol of life in
nature) is the perfect place for physical, mental and spiritual comfort and
satisfaction, unlike the society where pleasure is false and temporary.
The poet has finally found the nature and realized its value; he claims that the
nature is the only true place for complete luxury. 'The Garden' is a unique
metaphysical poem which is Romantic in its subject matter and also contains
classical elements in its diction, meter and structure. The poem is written in heroic
couplet, which deals with the poets experience of feelings and ideas about the
garden that represents the nature. The poet begins by comparing the nature with
society and social life and criticizing the society and busy worldly life.
In the first stanza, the speaker criticizes men who vainly amaze themselves by
putting a garland of a few leaves and believing they have achieved victory, prestige
and reward for all their endless labors. But in fact, the true and complete pleasure
lies in the complete garland of repose in the nature. In the second stanza, he
personifies the quietness and innocence in the nature and speaks to them saying
that he has at last found them after losing his time in mens company. Then, he calls
the trees amorous (sexually playful or powerful). Expressing such an odd emotion
and attachment with trees, he criticizes lovers for cutting trees to write their
beloveds names. In the fourth stanza, he claims that when mens heart of love
and youth is finished, they turn to the nature. According to the speaker, even the
gods did this, when for example, Apollo and Pan changed their lovers into trees.

In the second part of the poem (stanza 3-7), the speaker develops his arguments
and opinions about the nature. In the fifth stanza, he gives a very sensuous
description about his physical pleasure. In the sixth, he argues that this pleasure is
moreover mental. Here he uses an odd metaphysical philosophical idea that the
mind contains another world and garden as well inside it. In the seventh stanza, he
further claims that this pleasure has a spiritual aspect. He romanticizes how he
feels; he feels as if his soul is singing and gliding from tree to tree as a bird,
combing its feathers, and preparing for the eternal flight of salvation. Here is also
an indirect allusion of the Holy Spirit of the Bible.
The third and last part of the poem is the conclusion (stanza 8 and 9). Before
making the concluding remark that there can be no question of genuine pleasure
without the nature, the speaker compares himself with the lonely Adam in Eden; he
also argues that being lonely was a second paradise (heavenly state) for Adam,
before Eve brought about the fall. In the ninth stanza, the speaker thanks God for
creating a unique world of its own that is the garden. The garden or the nature in
general, has its own time: the rush and hurry of the society doesnt apply here.
Even the sun seems to have its own sweet course. The garden is therefore the only
source of true physical, mental as well as spiritual satisfaction and repose.
As a metaphysical poem 'The Garden' uses conceit, wit, far-fetched images and
allusions, and a dramatic situation. The balance of emotion and intellect is also
another metaphysical feature. The romantic myths about god Apollo and Pan is
changing girls and enjoying the nature, the Biblical allusion of Adams lonely
happiness are heterogeneous ideas yoked by violence together within the context
of the argument. The trees and peace of the garden are personified and even
sexualized! The argument about physical pleasure is twisted into the argument
about mental pleasure. At that point, the poet brings a truly metaphysical idea
about the mind. He argues according to a medieval philosophy that his mind is
an ocean of all the things and images of the real world. He further extends the idea
of pleasurable experience by arguing that his pleasure is actually spiritual. There he
goes on to create the imagery of his soul flying like a dove and preparing for the
eternal flight of salvation. The same idea of spiritual pleasure is also related to the
comparison with Adam in Eden. The last stanza also contains another metaphysical
element: the idea of the garden as a separate sun-dial. The poem is also a dramatic
and emotional expression of personal feelings, which is at the same time balanced
with witty and intellectual ideas and allusions. This unified sensibility also gives the
poem another feature of metaphysical poetry.
As a classical poem, the poem exhibits the qualities like the use of a different poetic
diction, heroic couplet, careful rhythm and design, classical and educated allusions,
and so on. The poems main line of argument is not difficult to summarize. But,
there are so many difficult words and even ordinary words used in unusual sense.
Many sentences have a Latin-like word order, with the verb at the end, and so on.
There is a classical perfection in its meter and design and structure as a whole.

The main theme of the poem is that peaceful life in the nature is more satisfying
than social life and human company. The poem is striking in its sensuous imagery,
witty ideas and a balance between romantic and classical elements, as well as its
metaphysical qualities