Andrew Marvell

A Dialogue between the Soul and Body

Soul.

Prison metaphor inverted

The body is a 'Dungeon' for the soul—reversing the usual Christian view that the soul gives life to mere flesh. Marvell starts with heresy.

O who shall, from this Dungeon, raise
A Soul inslav'd so many wayes?
With bolts of Bones, that fetter'd stands
In Feet; and manacled in Hands.
Here blinded with an Eye; and there

Senses as disabilities

Paradox: the eye blinds, the ear deafens. The very organs that let us perceive the world trap the soul in sensory experience.

Deaf with the drumming of an Ear.
A Soul hung up, as 'twere, in Chains
Of Nerves, and Arteries, and Veins.
Tortur'd, besides each other part,
In a vain Head, and double Heart.
Body.
O who shall me deliver whole,
From bonds of this Tyrannic Soul?

Upright posture as torture

'Impales' is literal—the soul forces the body to stand upright like being impaled on a stake. Walking upright makes us vulnerable to falling ('mine own Precipice').

Which, stretcht upright, impales me so,
That mine own Precipice I go;
And warms and moves this needless Frame:
(A Fever could but do the same.)
And, wanting where its spight to try,
Has made me live to let me dye.
A Body that could never rest,
Since this ill Spirit it possest.
Soul.
What Magick could me thus confine
Within anothers Grief to pine?
Where whatsoever it complain,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain.

Soul feels physical pain

The soul 'cannot feel' in the physical sense but still experiences the body's pain—a scholastic puzzle about how immaterial substance relates to matter.

And all my Care its self employes,
That to preserve, which me destroys:
Constrain'd not only to indure
Diseases, but, whats worse, the Cure:
And ready oft the Port to gain,

Health as shipwreck

Recovery from illness is 'shipwreck'—the soul wants to escape via death ('the Port') but the body's health prevents it. Inverts normal values completely.

Am Shipwrackt into Health again.
Body.
But Physick yet could never reach
The Maladies Thou me dost teach;
Whom first the Cramp of Hope does Tear:

Emotions as diseases

Each emotion gets a specific medical condition: hope = cramp, fear = palsy, love = pestilence. The soul infects the body with psychological suffering.

And then the Palsie Shakes of Fear.
The Pestilence of Love does heat:
Or Hatred's hidden Ulcer eat.
Joy's chearful Madness does perplex:
Or Sorrow's other Madness vex.

Knowledge and memory

The soul forces awareness ('Knowledge') and prevents forgetting ('Memory will not foregoe')—consciousness itself is the disease.

Which Knowledge forces me to know;
And Memory will not foregoe.
What but a Soul could have the wit
To build me up for Sin so fit?
So Architects do square and hew,
Green Trees that in the Forest grew.

Nature vs. civilization

Final simile: the soul shapes the natural body like architects cutting living trees into lumber. The soul civilizes (and ruins) natural innocence.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Debate Structure

This is a debate poem where Soul and Body take turns arguing which one tortures the other. The genre goes back to medieval disputes between body and soul, but Marvell gives both sides equal weight—no winner, no resolution.

The structure is perfectly symmetrical: Soul speaks first (10 lines), Body responds (10 lines), Soul again (10 lines), Body again (14 lines). Then the whole thing repeats exactly—same 44 lines twice. This creates a problem: why does the poem just restart? Most scholars think Marvell either abandoned the poem without writing a resolution, or the circular structure is the point. They're stuck in an eternal argument, neither able to escape the other.

The repetition matters because it shows the debate is unsolvable. In Christian theology, soul and body will reunite at resurrection. In Platonic thought, the soul escapes at death. Marvell gives us neither comfort—just two prisoners blaming each other forever.

Marvell's Metaphysical Wit

CONTEXT Marvell wrote in the 1650s during the English Civil War and Interregnum, when traditional certainties about church and state collapsed. This poem's irresolvable conflict mirrors the political stalemate.

The wit is in the reversals. The soul calls the body a dungeon, but then complains it must 'preserve, which me destroys'—it's both prisoner and prison guard. The body calls the soul a tyrant, but then blames it for making the body capable of sin—it's both victim and accomplice. Every argument undermines itself.

Watch the medical language: 'Cramp,' 'Palsie,' 'Pestilence,' 'Ulcer,' 'Madness,' 'Physick.' The body catalogs emotions as diseases the soul inflicts. This connects to 17th-century debates about whether emotions were physical (humoral imbalances) or spiritual (movements of the soul). Marvell won't pick a side.

The final image—architects hewing green trees—is devastating. It suggests the soul takes innocent natural bodies and shapes them for 'Sin.' But who's the architect, God or the soul itself? The ambiguity is deliberate. In a poem where both parties have valid complaints, blame becomes impossible to assign.