Interpretation and Influences
Marvell was replying to the royalist epic poem Gondibert (1651) by William Davenant. The poem was influenced by works of Mildmay Fane, 2nd Earl of Westmorland and Constantijn Huyghens; it also draws on Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant, a poet whom Fairfax had translated.
There are numerous interpretations, including those of Abraham who sees the poem as a memory map (to regain Paradise), and Stocker, who sees it as an "epic in miniature" and reads closely the later sections for apocalyptic language relating to England as elect nation.
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