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Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’

Laura Seymour Orcid Logo

Marvell Studies, Volume: 3, Issue: 2

Swansea University Author: Laura Seymour Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.16995/ms.26

Abstract

In ‘The Garden’, Andrew Marvell devotes a lot of time to extolling the virtues of the solitude he experiences in the garden of the title. Despite Marvell’s insistence that he prefers solitude to ‘society’, at the end of the poem his attention comes to rest approvingly on a human figure: the Gardener...

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Published in: Marvell Studies
ISSN: 2399-7435
Published: Open Library of the Humanities 2018
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70152
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last_indexed 2025-09-20T04:40:00Z
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spelling 2025-09-19T16:36:55.6403908 v2 70152 2025-08-08 Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ fb6f465736a5119bed6a26683d05cd87 0009-0006-4432-4500 Laura Seymour Laura Seymour true false 2025-08-08 CACS In ‘The Garden’, Andrew Marvell devotes a lot of time to extolling the virtues of the solitude he experiences in the garden of the title. Despite Marvell’s insistence that he prefers solitude to ‘society’, at the end of the poem his attention comes to rest approvingly on a human figure: the Gardener. Reading ‘The Garden’ alongside ‘Damon the Mower’, this article suggests that Marvell’s sensually-charged engagement with the plants, trees, and fruits in ‘The Garden’ can be interpreted as a means of accessing and loving the Gardener himself. On one reading of ‘Damon the Mower’, the narrator caresses Damon through the landscape. Tracking similar themes in ‘The Garden’ suggests that something similar may be occurring in this poem, too. Journal Article Marvell Studies 3 2 Open Library of the Humanities 2399-7435 Andrew Marvell, poetry, sexuality, pastoral, solitude 11 10 2018 2018-10-11 10.16995/ms.26 COLLEGE NANME Culture and Communications School COLLEGE CODE CACS Swansea University 2025-09-19T16:36:55.6403908 2025-08-08T17:06:54.9100302 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing Laura Seymour 0009-0006-4432-4500 1 70152__35146__53fbc8d3c3414445985a648622ec2640.pdf 70152.VoR.pdf 2025-09-19T16:34:07.0915625 Output 1855107 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2018 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
spellingShingle Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
Laura Seymour
title_short Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
title_full Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
title_fullStr Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
title_full_unstemmed Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
title_sort Loving Gardens, Loving the Gardener? ‘Solitude’ in Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’
author_id_str_mv fb6f465736a5119bed6a26683d05cd87
author_id_fullname_str_mv fb6f465736a5119bed6a26683d05cd87_***_Laura Seymour
author Laura Seymour
author2 Laura Seymour
format Journal article
container_title Marvell Studies
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container_issue 2
publishDate 2018
institution Swansea University
issn 2399-7435
doi_str_mv 10.16995/ms.26
publisher Open Library of the Humanities
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing
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description In ‘The Garden’, Andrew Marvell devotes a lot of time to extolling the virtues of the solitude he experiences in the garden of the title. Despite Marvell’s insistence that he prefers solitude to ‘society’, at the end of the poem his attention comes to rest approvingly on a human figure: the Gardener. Reading ‘The Garden’ alongside ‘Damon the Mower’, this article suggests that Marvell’s sensually-charged engagement with the plants, trees, and fruits in ‘The Garden’ can be interpreted as a means of accessing and loving the Gardener himself. On one reading of ‘Damon the Mower’, the narrator caresses Damon through the landscape. Tracking similar themes in ‘The Garden’ suggests that something similar may be occurring in this poem, too.
published_date 2018-10-11T05:30:06Z
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score 11.089386

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