'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell, 'Cousin Kate' by Christina Rossetti and 'The Beggar Women' by William King - Consider the social and cultural contexts in which the poems are set.

... Explore and compare the ways in which the poets present the relationships between men and women in 'To His Coy Mistress' by Andrew Marvell, 'Cousin Kate' by Christina Rossetti and 'The Beggar Women' by William King. Consider the social and cultural contexts in which the poems are set. For most pre-twentieth century writers, love and marriage provide ways to talk about relationships between men and women. Marvell, Rossetti and King, however, ignore marriage in favour of sex, and love, in varying degrees, is sometimes a negative force. Men, in all societies and contexts, can be seen to dominate, but how effective that domination is, depends entirely upon the women involved. Andrew Marvell, who wrote 'To His Coy Mistress' during the political unrest of civil war, creates a world in which relationships between the men and women are extremely problematic. Fifty years before, a female monarch, who held the power of life

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