Marvell, Andrew

English metaphysical poet and satirist. In ‘To His Coy Mistress’ (1650–52) and ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland’ (1650) he produced, respectively, the most searching seduction and political poems in the language. He was committed to the Parliamentary cause, and was Member of Parliament for Hull from 1659. He devoted his last years mainly to verse satire and prose works attacking repressive aspects of the state and government. Today his reputation rests mainly on a small number of skilful and graceful but perplexing and intriguing poems, which were published after his death as Miscellaneous Poems (1681).

Marvell was born in Winestead, and was educated at Hull Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge. At the outbreak of the Civil War his sympathies were not fixed, though he seems to have associated with the Royalists, but by the 1650s he was committed to the Parliamentary cause, acting as tutor to the daughter of Lord Fairfax, who had recently retired as a Parliamentary general. He probably wrote much of his lyric and philosophical poetry during his two years at Fairfax's Yorkshire seat, Nun Appleton House. He then became tutor to a ward of Oliver Cromwell's and, in 1657, assistant Latin secretary to the government, working under English poet John Milton. He became reconciled to the Restoration in 1660 and remained a loyal, if independent, critic of the political scene.