Andrew Marvell was born in 1621 at Winstead in Holness, in South Yorkshire. He was the son of a clergyman, who became lecturer at Holy Trinity Church in nearby Hull when Andrew was three. The family moved there, and Andrew attended the grammar school. He remained strongly associated with the city of Hull, and with Yorkshire throughout most of his life, and was later to immortalise the River Humber in what is probably his best known poem “To his Coy Mistress”, musing that “I by the tide of Humber would complain”. This is typical of a strong sense of identification with place and setting which characterises many of Marvell's poems.

In 1633 Marvell went to Trinity College, Cambridge. He was clearly not well resourced, since he wa

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First published 20 June 2002

Citation: Warwick, Claire. "Andrew Marvell". The Literary Encyclopedia. 20 June 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5052, accessed 9 February 2010.]