The Naturalness of Sexuality as the Technique of Seduction in Thomas Carew’s Poetic Narration

Abstract

The article under consideration focuses on the study of the poetic heritage by one of the prominent representatives of the English literary tradition of the XVIIth century, a leading Cavalier-poet Thomas Carew with special emphasis on the stylistic peculiarity of his erotic discourse. Being restricted by the social norms and behavioral patterns of the court poet still found his own manner of seduction which won him a reputation of the wit of his time and a real libertine. In order to make a sexual appeal less overt the narrator using his erudition and sense of humor tries to demonstrate the naturalness of sexual intercourse, depicting the pleasures of flesh as an integral constituent of the circle of life, the law of Nature. Seducing a lady the narrator appears to contradict the Platonic tradition, being quite tough and stating that courting and complimenting a Lady in a traditional knight manner does not make any sense and a man should not feel inferior to a woman, instead threatening her that her beauty is not for long and thus the lovers are to use their time following the motto of the epoch “carpe diem”. Even the biblical allusions are to prove the naturalness of sexuality being only the frightening background for the lovers who follow their instincts and thus find their own paradise.