The Definition of Love’ by Andrew Marvell is a regretful depiction of the poetic persona’s

love life. The poetic persona is none other than the poet, Andrew Marvell, himself. He
provides a subjective definition of love from a dejected lover’s point of view. How
deplorable his life is, without the soft rays of love is the main matter of concern in the
poem. However, the poet not only talks about his grief but he also provides the reasons.
Those reasons are the only source to feel what the speaker felt in his life.

Summary: The Definition of Love’ by Andrew Marvell talks about the nature of love, which
exists between the poet and his beloved. The poet regards this love as being perfect and
therefore unattainable. In the poem, the poet, first of all, makes his readers acquainted
with the parentage of this love. This love, the poet says, is of rare birth. It is the offspring of
the marriage of “Despair/ upon Impossibility.” Only resolute Despair could have produced
such divine love. In the case of a love like this, “Hope” would prove to be utterly vain and
futile because this love can never be achieved.

The poet In the next lines tells that it is the hostility of “Fate” which is responsible for not
permitting him and his beloved to be united. It has placed the two lovers apart like the
“North Pole” and the “South Pole”. The love can be fulfilled only if the spinning spheres
collapse and if the earth is torn asunder by some violent convulsion. For the inability to
come close to his beloved, he defines his love as “the conjunction of the mind”, and
“opposition of the stars.”

Analysis:

Scholars often connect Marvell’s “The Definition of Love” to John Donne’s metaphysical
lyrics, due to the elaborate imagery and the neo-platonic implications of love between
souls or minds that is distinct from the physical body. The poem constitutes an exploration
of love by depicting two perfect yet irreconcilable loves – the love of the speaker, and the
love of his lover. These two loves are perfect in themselves and they face each other in an
opposition of perfection, but, according to the speaker’s formulation, that same condition
prevents them from meeting in the physical sphere. The poem is composed of eight
stanzas, each of which features four lines of iambic tetrameter that rhyme alternately, in a
pattern of ABAB, CDCD, and so forth.

In the first stanza, the speaker makes an odd and striking claim – that his love is so unique
and “rare” it must have been born of “Despair” and “Impossibility,” which is a surprisingly
dark and tragic formulation of love. The speaker goes on to explain that only despair could
have revealed this love to him, because it shows both the utter perfection of the love he
feels, and at the same time, the impossibility of its physical fulfillment. Hence, the speaker
constructs an oxymoron – “Magnanimous Despair” – as an attempt to bring his reader
closer to understanding the nature of his love.

Marvell further develops the speaker’s frustration at being separated from his beloved in
stanza three, where the speaker elaborates upon the role of Fate. The speaker claims that
his perfect love would lead him to the place where his “extended soul is fixed,” or in other
words, would lead his body to the location where his soul is already connected to his
beloved’s. However, Fate actively prevents this by erecting an “iron wedge” between the
two lovers. The speaker then explains that Fate keeps the lovers from each other because it
perceives their union as usurping its power. The speaker represents Fate as a tyrant with a
“jealous eye” who desires to maintain control over the two perfect loves.

He goes on to say that Fate has given “decrees of steel” that place the two lovers distantly
apart, which effectively prevents a perfect union of both their physical and spiritual love.
The symbols of an iron wedge and a steel decree suggest Fate’s dominion over the hard,
physical realities of the body, which contrasts sharply with the speaker’s claim that the
lovers enjoy metaphysical perfection in their own transcendent love.

Next, the speaker attempts to imagine the only conditions in which he and his lover might
be physically united. These include the Heavens falling, an earthquake collapsing the
Earth, or the entire planet being compressed into a flat plane. The speaker uses the
paradoxical term “Planisphere” for this imagined event. Each of these conditions is
impossible, and as the speaker acknowledges this fact, he goes on to construct a new,
geometrical conceit that contrasts the love of the speaker and his lady with a more typical
love. Their love is like a pair of parallel lines – infinitely perfect as they extend – yet they
shall never meet. Meanwhile, common love is less perfect, like a pair of oblique lines,
which by nature will eventually intersect.

In the final stanza, Marvell delivers two definitions of the speaker’s love: it is both “the
conjunction of the mind” and the “opposition of the stars.” This two-part definition
encapsulates the divided nature of their love. On one hand, the image of conjunction
suggests proximity and harmony, while the image of opposition implies that their love can
never be fully realized. This idea implicitly refers to the power of Fate in the physical
universe, which in this case, prevents the lovers from meeting on the plane of material
embodiment.

Structure and Form

‘The Definition of Love’ by Andrew Marvell has the same stanza form that is used in the
poems, ‘Mourning’ and ‘The Mower to the Glow-worms’. Each line of the poem is
octosyllabic and it constitutes an iambic tetrameter. The alternate lines of the poem rhyme
altogether. It is not a glib measure, and all three poems are noticeably short. This poem of
Marvell’s has eight stanzas, whereas the two others have nine and four respectively. What
distinguishes this poem from the poems mentioned earlier is its confidence, resonant
tone, and exceptional speed.Tone and Mood

‘The Definition of Love’ by Andrew Marvell has a very simple idea, but the idea is expressed
through learned imagery so that it requires a scholar to explain to us all the meanings and
the implications of the various lines of the poem. However, some of the lines make a direct
appeal to us because of their sheer simplicity. For example, the psychology of despair in
the second stanza corresponds closely to the human experience. Likewise, the third and
fourth stanzas are very easy to understand because readers are acquainted with the
concept of a hostile fate. The antagonist in the poet’s love story is “Fate” which never
allows perfect lovers to be united.

Although the love described in the poem is perfect and therefore ideal, the poem is a
depressing one to read. There is neither any note of exultation nor any feeling of triumph in
the non-fulfillment of the poet’s desire. At most, readers have a feeling of subdued
contentment with the non-fulfillment of love. The repeated emphasis on the malice of fate
is very pessimistic. Hence the prevailing mood of the poem is one of despondency
notwithstanding the feeling of calm contentment at the end.

Theme, Imagery, and Metaphysical Conceits in the Poem

The poem, ‘The Definition of Love‘ by Andrew Marvell describes the character of the poet’s
love for his beloved. This love, says the poet, is perfect and therefore unattainable. This love
is divine, but for that very reason hopeless. The perfect love of this kind is most unwelcome
to Fate who therefore never permits the union of perfect lovers. This kind of perfect love
can mean only a spiritual union but never a physical one. This love is “the conjunction of
the mind and opposition of the stars.”

The poem contains a number of metaphysical conceits, which can be best defined by the
lines like “begotten by Despair upon Impossibility”. The idea here is that the poet’s love is
unattainable, but in order to express this idea, the poet personifies Despair and
Impossibility and imagines that his love was produced by their union.

There is another use of conceit in the poem. And this is a more fantastic conceit than that
of the previously discussed. The poet says: “His love can be achieved only if three
conditions are fulfilled: first, the spinning planets must collapse; second, the earth should
be torn asunder by some fresh convulsion; and third, the whole world should be projected
or flattened into a planet. As these three conditions are impossible to fulfill, the lovers
cannot be united.
Yet another conceit occurs in the stanza in which the poet compares the loves between
him and his beloved to the parallel lines which can never meet. Only oblique lines meet in
all geometrical angles, and in the same way, only the passion of guilt or adulterous lovers
can be satisfied. The two closing lines of the poem also contain a metaphysical conceit.

The love, which binds the poet with his beloved, has the genus “Conjunction”, and the
difference is “of the mind”. The love that “Fate so enviously debars” has the genus
“opposition” and difference “of the Stars.” They enter as the allies of Fate. Opposition and
conjunction are antonyms, but not merely astronomical metaphors here, irrespective of
the attendant “stars” and notwithstanding the sustained astronomical imagery in Stanzas V
and VI.

Tone and Meter

The poem, ‘The Definition of Love‘ by Andrew Marvell has a very simple idea, but that idea
is expressed through learned imagery so that it requires a scholar to explain to us all the
meanings and the implications of the various lines of ‘The Definition of Love‘. However,
some of the lines make a direct appeal to us because of their sheer simplicity.

For example, the psychology of despair in the second stanza corresponds closely to the
human experience. Likewise, the third and fourth stanzas are very easy to understand
because we are all acquainted with the concept of a hostile Fate. The villain in the case of
the poet’s love is Fate which never allows perfect lovers to be united.

Although the love described in the poem is perfect and therefore ideal, the poem is a
depressing one to read. There is neither any note of exultation nor any feeling of triumph in
the non-fulfillment of the poem. At the most, we have a feeling of subdued contentment
with the non-fulfillment of love.

The repeated emphasis on the malice of Fate is very pessimistic. We could even say that
the prevailing mood of the poem is one of despondency notwithstanding the feeling of calm
contentment at the end.

Moreover, the stanza form used in the poem is the same as in Mourning and The Mower to
the Glow-worms, an octosyllabic iambic quatrain with alternate lines rhyming. It is not a
glib measure, and all three poems are noticeably short.

‘The Definition of Love‘ has eight stanzas, whereas the two others have nine and four
respectively. What distinguishes this poem from the other two techniques is Its confident,
resonant tone and exceptional speed.
Metaphysical Conceits : ‘The Definition of Love’ by Andrew Marvell contains several
metaphysical conceits, which can be best defined by the lines like “begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility”.

In the line mentioned above, the idea is that the poet’s love is unattainable, but to express
this idea, the poet personifies Despair and Impossibility. He imagines that his love was
produced by their union.

There is another use of conceit in the poem. And this is a more interesting conceit than that
of the previously discussed. The poet says he can achieve love only if three conditions are
fulfilled. Firstly, spinning planets must collapse. Secondly, the earth should be torn
asunder by some fresh convulsion. Thirdly, the whole world should be projected or
flattened into a planet. As these three conditions are impossible to fulfill, the lovers cannot
be united.

Yet another conceit occurs in the stanza in which the poet compares the love between him
and his beloved to the parallel lines which can never meet. Only oblique lines meet in all
geometrical angles, and in the same way, only the passion of guilt or adulterous lovers can
be satisfied.

The two closing lines of the poem also contain a metaphysical conceit. The love, which
binds the poet with his beloved, has the genus “Conjunction”, and the difference is “of the
mind”. The love that “Fate so enviously debars” has the genus “opposition” and difference
“of the Stars.” They enter as the allies of “Fate”. Opposition and conjunction are antonyms,
but not merely astronomical metaphors in the poem, irrespective of the attendant “stars”
and notwithstanding the sustained astronomical imagery in stanzas five and six.

As a metaphysical poetry

Andrew Marvell’s poem The Definition of Love is a quintessential example of metaphysical

poetry, as it embodies the movement’s characteristics of intellectual depth, complex
imagery, and paradoxical ideas. Here’s an analysis of how it fits into the metaphysical
tradition:

1. Themes of Love and Fate

Marvell explores love not as a joyful union but as an impossible ideal constrained by fate.
He presents love as a profound, intellectual concept rather than a mere emotional or
physical experience. This abstract treatment of love aligns with metaphysical poetry’s
tendency to delve into philosophical and existential ideas.

“My love is of a birth as rare

As ‘tis for object strange and high.”

Here, love is depicted as rare and elevated, suggesting a connection to divine or

transcendent qualities.

2. Use of Paradox and Contradiction: The poem thrives on paradoxes, a hallmark of

metaphysical poetry. Marvell describes love as something that cannot be fulfilled
due to the interference of “Fate,” which creates an eternal tension between the
lovers. Despite being perfect, their love is doomed to remain unfulfilled:

“But Fate does iron wedges drive,

And always crowds itself betwixt.”

This paradox — that perfect love cannot exist in the physical world — adds an intellectual
challenge to the poem.

3. Conceits and Imagery; Marvell uses striking conceits (extended metaphors) to

explain abstract concepts. For instance, he compares the separation of the lovers to
the poles of the earth:

“As lines, so loves oblique may well

Themselves in every angle greet;

But ours so truly parallel,

Though infinite, can never meet.”

This geometric conceit illustrates the impossibility of their union, as parallel lines, no
matter how perfect, never converge. Such intricate imagery exemplifies metaphysical
poetry’s fondness for intellectual and scientific references.

4. Intellectual Tone and Argumentative Structure

The poem is highly structured, resembling a logical argument rather than a purely
emotional outpouring. Marvell presents love as a philosophical dilemma, examining
its nature, limitations, and unattainable ideal.

Conclusion: The Definition of Love captures the essence of metaphysical poetry by

blending intellectualism with emotional depth, using paradoxes and conceits to explore
the nature of unattainable love. Marvell’s ability to elevate personal experience to a
universal, philosophical plane firmly situates the poem within the metaphysical tradition.