The Garden (poem)

"The Garden" is a widely anthologized poem by the seventeenth-century English poet, Andrew Marvell. The poem was first published posthumously in Miscellaneous Poems (1681).[1] “The Garden” is one of several poems by Marvell to feature gardens, including his “Nymph Complaining for the Death her Fawn,” “The Mower Against Gardens,” and “Upon Appleton House.”[2]

“The Garden” participates in the classical tradition of pastoral poetry, an ancient form that was influential for many English Renaissance poets.[3] Inspired by the idealized scenes of rural life and rural values in poems like the Idylls of Theocritus, Virgil’s Eclogues, and parts of Horace’s Epistles and Odes, Marvell is seen to have followed the ancients in celebrating the virtues of simple nature.[4]

The opposition between “the active and the contemplative life” has its root in ancient Greek philosophy. Plato, the Stoics, and the Epicureans had all favoured retirement while also acknowledging the need to engage in public obligation when the situation required. Aristotle said that "we are only unleisurely in order that we may be at leisure."[5] Marvell’s “The Garden”, therefore, can be viewed as a continuation of this ancient debate.

Marvell was well-read in the classical tradition; some critics have called the range of his classical engagement "extreme".[6] He recast much of "The Garden" in a Latin poem, "Hortus", printed to follow "The Garden" in Miscellaneous Poems.

Critics have commented that the poem's pastoralism works against the tradition in several ways, particularly through its strong association of the garden with a retreat from women and erotic love.[7]

  1. ^ Paul Davis, "Marvell and the Literary Past," The Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell, Derek Hirst and Steven N. Zwicker, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 36.
  2. ^ Andrew McRae, "The Green Marvell," The Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell, Derek Hirst and Steven N. Zwicker, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 126-7.
  3. ^ Andrew McRae, "The Green Marvell," The Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell, Derek Hirst and Steven N. Zwicker, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 126-7
  4. ^ Nigel Smith, ed., The Poems of Andrew Marvell (London & New York: Routledge, 2003), 152.
  5. ^ Leishman, J.B. (1968). The Art of Marvell's Poetry. Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-000-45515-1. OCLC 1259590192.
  6. ^ Davis, Paul (23 December 2010), Hirst, Derek; Zwicker, Steven N. (eds.), "Marvell and the literary past", The Cambridge Companion to Andrew Marvell (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 26–45, doi:10.1017/ccol9780521884174.003, ISBN 978-0-521-88417-4, retrieved 9 March 2023
  7. ^ Tesky, Gordon (2019) "Greenland: Marvell's 'The Garden,'" The Oxford Handbook of Andrew Marvell, Martin Dzelzainis and Edward Holberton, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 364, 368-369.