Marvell Studies (Apr 2021)
Worlds Enough and Time: The Fantastic Afterlives of "To His Coy Mistress"
Abstract
@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:auto;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-520092929 1073786111 9 0 415 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}.MsoPapDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}Reception studies of Marvell have examined his political and high-cultural legacies but neglected comparatively low-cultural prose genres such as science fiction and fantasy. Between 1950 and 2020, “To His Coy Mistress” was by far his most influential work in these realms, generating thirty-five titles—two of them including Marvell’s name, one making him a character in the story. Most treat the poem as a romance in embryo, with sublimely vast scales of time and space subtending the adventures, separations, and reunions of loved ones. In short, the Coy Mistress is thought to give in. As a group, these texts mark out a new subfield and provide a case study in reception, engaging with the poem in ways ranging from the superficial to the modest to the substantive. Implicitly treating “To His Coy Mistress” as a thought experiment not unlike those of science fiction—and sometimes even as proto-science fiction—they raise questions about intertextuality, de-metaphorization, realism, and science in both early modern and modern literature; about the survival of the former in the latter; and about the methodology of reception study itself.
Keywords
