‘Mosaic of the Air’: The Shapes of Andrew Marvell’s Poetry

Abstract Whilst many scholars have discussed the particularly striking uses of imagery across Andrew Marvell’s poetry, and some have considered how he engaged with the medium of print, there has yet to be a sustained analysis of Marvell’s visual poetics which considers the shape of his verse. The present article re-examines the metapoetic moments so prevalent across his poems in light of historical poetic treatises and treatments of versification. It finds that Marvell carefully engaged with a poetic culture which considered poetry to be formed not only through the sound of its rhythm, but also the look of its lines. Indeed, Marvell seems to have been particularly interested in the way in which poetry operates both aurally and visually at once. Considering this, the article turns to the poems in which Marvell most strikingly uses prosody to create significant shapely forms. It argues that these poems—the apex of Marvell’s visual poetics—are reflective of the style of other metaphysical poetry, and that they are distinctly of their moment within the timeline of Marvell’s poetic corpus. Nevertheless, the article concludes that the shape of poetry was a consistent concern for the poet, an imaginative resource to which he returned, again and again.