About Marvell’s poems The Norton Anthology is stating 

that his poems have a

variety of topics and their features are “ combination of a light touch, a vein of
mockery and the shadow of a dark thought is perfectly Marvelian". Now read the
poem a Dialogue between The Soul and The Body and tell me if you can find
these features in the poem. Tell me what kind of poetic form you can find in this
poem. Finally, you do not need to write about the three features given by the
Norton, if you consider so, just concentrate in one of them. Please provide
examples to support your position, cite at least one author and follow MLA
norms. Remember to write no more than 300 words in your contribution. Notice
that you should also read other team’s contributions as you are supposed to
argue for or against one another teams’ opinions.
The combination of a light touch, a vein of mockery and the shadow of a dark
thought is perfectly marvelian ”.
In the case of the work of the Dialogue between body and soul, we consider that we
can find all the characteristics that Norton Anthology mentions: “a combination of a light
touch” because he can perfectly mix "the shadow of a dark thought" and "a vein of
mockery":
“The tone of reproach in each speaker together with the extravagant conceits (the body
described as instruments of torture, the soul as a tyrant; the body as a sorcerer, mental qualities
as diseases), irony, punning, hyperbole and paradox, create a sense of humour for the reader”
(Nigel Smith 62).
1

Therefore, this tone -as Robert Wilcher infers- is a dark and "dramatic" thought (54).
Andrew Marvell was a poet of the 17th century, today he is considered one of the best
Metaphysical poets. In Dialogue between the soul and the body, we find the poetic
form of dialogue. As Nigel Smith points out when he cited Osmond, this use of
dialogues between body and soul disappeared between the end of the Middle Ages
and the seventeenth century and reappeared in the early seventeenth century under
the impulse of Puritan concerns, the soteriology (the business of saving souls) and the
rise of Platonism. Marvell makes use of it in some of his writings, this work is an
example of this, the subject of which is a moral debate.
This poem explores the human condition focusing on the fundamental dichotomies that
resist resolution. In some of his religious or philosophical texts, Marvell shows a conflict
between nature and grace, or body and soul, or poetic creation and sacrifice. In this
case, we find conflict between the human body and the human soul, we see how he
exposes the troubles. The soul is shown as if it is trapped inside the body whilst the
body feels that the soul is a restriction to the body. Throughout the poem we find words
such as pain, die, possessed and destroy, which describe this conflict as the soul
wants the body to die so that the soul returns to heaven. Lastly, we find that the body
blames the soul for all the sins committed by the body as they are the result of all the
conflicts and emotions.

References

Smith, Nigel. The Poems of Andrew Marvell (1st ed.). Routledge. 2007 54

Wilcher, Robert. Andrew Marvell. CUP Archive, 1985. 62

In the Dialogue between The Soul and The Body, we can find all the characteristics that
Norton Anthology mentions: “a combination of a light touch” because he perfectly mix
"the shadow of a dark thought" and "a vein of mockery". As states Nigel Smith: “The
tone of reproach in each speaker together with the extravagant conceits (the body described as
instruments of torture, the soul as a tyrant; the body as a sorcerer, mental qualities as diseases), irony,
punning, hyperbole and paradox, create a sense of humour for the reader” (62). Therefore, this tone
—as Robert Wilcher infers— is a dark and "dramatic" thought (54).

In this work, we find the poetic form of dialogue. As Nigel Smith points out when he
cited Osmond, this use of dialogues between body and soul disappeared between the
end of the Middle Ages and the 17th century and reappeared in the early seventeenth
century under the impulse of Puritan concerns, the soteriology 1 and the rise of
Platonism. Marvell makes use of it in some of his writings, this work is an example of
this, the subject of which is a moral debate. This moral debate explores the human
condition focusing on the fundamental dichotomies that resist resolution. In this case,
we find a conflict between the human body and the soul, we see how he exposes the
troubles. All of this focuses on “the shadow of a dark thought” because the soul is
shown as if it is trapped inside the body whilst the body feels that the soul is a
restriction to the body. Throughout the poem we find words such as pain, die and
destroy. Lastly, we find that the body blames the soul for all the sins committed by the
body as they are the result of all the conflicts and emotions.