Andrew Marvell's Ambivalence toward Adult Sexuality

Abstract

Some of Andrew Marvell's poems are marked by the presence of powerful and attractive nymphets and threatening adult women. They are the manifestation of a disturbance in Marvell's thought concerning adult sexuality. At times, his speakers read like early versions of Humbert Humbert, the famous narrator of Nabokov's Lolita, whose attraction to young virgins betrays a desire to avoid adult sexuality. Continuities in the use of language and the valuation of women suggest that, despite the change of speakers, several poems can be read as a kind of confession and justification by Marvell, raising some questions about the poet's sexuality.

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