The great misconception about classic literature is that it represents a quainter, less sexualized time. A time when men were men, women were the property of men, and everyone sort of daintily posed next to harpsichords before dying quiet deaths. But the truth is that literature has always been written by, well, writers, and writers back then were exactly the same kinds of people that they are today. That is, some of them were as violent, racist, and sex-obsessed as any blog-hosting YouTube commenter, and they absolutely put that shit into their work.
6
Andrew Marvell Writes About Worms Eating A Dead Lady's Vagina
Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" came out between 1649 and 1660. It's about a guy who's trying to woo a nice young lady to fall in love with him as soon as possible, ideally before his transfer ticket expires and he gets double charged for his bus fare. The first few lines are:
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Sounds sweet, right? Who doesn't love planning a mild hike? But wait, what does "while there's still time" mean? Why did we introduce a ticking clock into this narrative? Maybe the lady in question has some romantically fatal disease, like in a Nicholas Sparks novel.
Terry Wyatt/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
The man responsible for 67 percent of your girlfriend's tears.
The Insanity:
Well, the only apparent "disease" she has is the disease of mortality, and we have all vastly underestimated how much Andrew Marvell wants to bone this girl. Displaying a clear understanding of the kind of imagery that gets women in the mood, Marvell follows the traditional death-obsessed poet's line of "we'll both eventually die" to its logical conclusion:
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
Godfrey Kneller
The virginity part is symbolic of fleeting life, and Marvell needing to jerk off more regularly.
261 Comments