Unity and structural aesthetics in marvells the last instructions to a painter : poem as literary medley

Abstract EN

This study proposes an alternative way of reading Marvell's.

The Last Instructions to a Painter, one that does not focus on thematic issues but instead highlights the formal characteristics of the poem which are significant to the meaning of the poem and its satirical ends.

The paper explains that the poet opens his narrative with the advice-to-a-painter structural device through which he instructs his painter to draw or paint scenes and descriptions of characters according to his specifications.

The poet leaves this device, however, later and refers to it throughout sporadically while he verbally sketches his desired subjects.

The narrative of the poem is characterized also by the sudden and rapid transitions between the subjects which are enriched by deliberate modulations of tones and rendered in various literary modes : heroic, allegorical, lyrical, and encomium.

The sporadic use of the advice-to-a-painter structural device, together with the use of multiple shifting tones and modes project the structure of the poem as disjoined and not unified.

This structure allows the poet to intersect voices, juxtapose images, and mix languages using the desired modes that help to project the ideological conflict and corruption in the Court party.

The paper gives several examples of juxtaposing modes and languages that contribute to the overriding satirical mode of the poem, as when the poet juxtaposes the selfless heroism of Archibald Douglas using the heroic tone with the coward actions of Daniel ; or when he combines the high courtly love language with the carnal physical language in his description of Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine.

The fragmented form of the poem, tKe paper asserts, resonates the unstable and episodic nature of the political arena in Restoration England which Marvell criticizes.