Abstract
The theme of love as resistance to authority is the centerpiece of a two-millennia-long tradition in Western poetry known as carpe diem (a phrase credited to the Latin poet Horace). This essay begins by analyzing one of the most famous later examples of carpe diem in English poetry (Andrew Marvell’s 1681 “To His Coy Mistress”), emphasizing the carpe diem ethos’ potential to illustrate both the consequences and the necessity of individual erotic choice—especially female choice—in defiance of authority. It then uses carpe diem’s anti-authoritarian perspective to understand the contrast between the ambivalence of Mariam—torn between a tepid disobedience and regretful loyalty to her husband Herod—and the wholly defiant choices of Salome in Elizabeth Cary’s earlier drama, The Tragedy of Mariam from 1613.
Highlights
A tradition dating back to the Augustan era in Rome, presents a worldview that seems filled with a sense of the fragility and shortness of life; but at its essence, it is concerned with individual choice in a world that often attempts to circumscribe, or even eliminate, the possibility of such choice
Though Cary could not have read “To His Coy Mistress,” and Marvell was likely not consulting the text of The Tragedy of Mariam when writing his poem, each work stands—as does the carpe diem ethos itself—in defiance, and in hope, insisting together, across the years that separate them from each other, and from us, that readers face the necessity of choice
Will you choose for yourself, as you would if there were no laws—either human or divine, secular or theological—against the joys of life and love? Or will you submit to the will, the laws, the customs, even the whims of authority, as you patiently and obediently wait for death?
Summary
A tradition dating back to the Augustan era in Rome, presents a worldview that seems filled with a sense of the fragility and shortness of life; but at its essence, it is concerned with individual choice in a world that often attempts to circumscribe, or even eliminate, the possibility of such choice It takes its name from a phrase by the “Latin poet Horace, who in Ode, I. xi, tells his mistress that [...] life is short, so they must ‘enjoy the day,’ for they do not know if there will be a tomorrow” The carpe diem ethos informs works as diverse as the fourth-century (CE) Latin poetry of Ausonius, to the troubadour poems of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to the plays of Shakespeare and the poetry of John Donne and Robert Herrick It appears, perhaps most powerfully and famously in Andrew Marvell’s 1681. Though Cary could not have read “To His Coy Mistress,” and Marvell was likely not consulting the text of The Tragedy of Mariam when writing his poem, each work stands—as does the carpe diem ethos itself—in defiance, and in hope, insisting together, across the years that separate them from each other, and from us, that readers face the necessity of choice
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