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Conceits in john donnes poetry
Explanation of poem the flea by john donne
Explanation of poem the flea by john donne
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Use of Conceit in The Flea, by John Donne John Donne, an English poet and clergyman, was one of the greatest metaphysical poets. His poetry was marked by conceits and lush imagery. The Flea is an excellent example of how he was able to establish a parallel between two very different things. In this poem, the speaker tries to seduce a young woman by comparing the consequences of their lovemaking with those of an insignificant fleabite. He uses the flea as an argument to illustrate that the physical relationship he desires is not in itself a significant event, because a similar union has already taken place within the flea. However, if we look beneath the surface level of the poem, Donne uses the presence of the flea as a comparison to the presence of a baby, thus making the sub textual plot about aborting the baby. In the first stanza of the poem, the speaker develops similarities between the fleabite and lovemaking. The first two lines of the poem, “Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that, which thou deny’st me, is;” I interpreted to mean that the woman doesn’t deny the flea access to her body, yet she denies the advancements of the speaker. Next the speaker uses conceit to illustrate the similarities between their lovemaking and the mingling of their blood within the flea. “Me is sucked first, and now sucks the, An in this flea our two bloods mingled be.” The speaker uses this argument to show the woman that the same physical exchange, which t...
The imagery in this passage helps turn the tone of the poem from victimization to anger. In addition to fire images, the overall language is completely stripped down to bare ugliness. In previous lines, the sordidness has been intermixed with cheerful euphemisms: the agonizing work is an "exquisite dance" (24); the trembling hands are "white gulls" (22); the cough is "gay" (25). But in these later lines, all aesthetically pleasing terms vanish, leaving "sweet and …blood" (85), "naked… [and]…bony children" (89), and a "skeleton body" (95).
Stated in the first metaphor of the poem, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, gliding over each other like ice skaters” (lines 1-3) captures an image of two lovers gliding over one another like an abstract artistic painting in a simile. The cold atmosphere indicates the disdain detachment between the lovers during the experience. In modern society, many believe in the “no strings attached” method as part of a liberation for one’s self. Yet, Olds creates a paradox in the imagery by describing the people “red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth whose mothers are going to five them away” (lines 6-8). In literal concept, the images display a child birth after an eventful sexual experience. When a child enters the world, it comes responsibility many young adults don’t care to handle, thus creating a narcissistic for the younger generation. Nevertheless, the syntax, form, and tone are broken down as Olds further answers her frustrations to society. A tonal shift reverted any ambiguities about these faceless sexual beings by describing them as “the ones who will not accept a false Messiah, love the priest instead of the God” (lines 15-16). Without the great
Using this choice of words like “then worms shall try” and “…turn to dust”, the speaker essentially tells his mistress that there will be consequences if she does not engage with him. He believes his wit will gain control over his mistress, and her “coyness” will inevitably disappear. In his mind, the repercussions are if she dies without having sex with him, the worms will take her virginity, which can be considered as phallic imagery. In the lines, the worms symbolically mirror the narrator’s male sexual organ. Marvell creates an interesting approach with this daring and disturbing language because the appealing strategy grasps the reader’s attention and explores the question of the extent a person will go to fulfill their sexual desires. While discussing this proposed tight-lipped subject, the tone of the narrator in “To His Coy Mistress” greatly differs from the narrator’s tone in “A Rose for Emily.” The readers can perceive that Marvell’s speaker is intelligent and informed in the sexual category because of his style and word choice. He creates a relaxed tone with his audience, which makes the readers feel comfortable, and he is very clear about what he writes. The direction of the arguments he makes is very undeviating because he goes straight into what he wants
In 'Twickernham Garden ' Donne cleverly uses a spider as the conceit of the poem to comment on the nature of love, to emphasise that just like a spider love traps you insidiously and leaves you helpless. As well as that there is religious connotations to transubstantiation and manna and serpents. By doing this Donne finds another way to create an effective poem in emphasising his meaning and thoughts. The Major conceit in 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning ' is that of a compass. Samuel Johnson a fellow poet, who coined the term metaphysical poetry criticised Donne by stating that 'the poem 's compass analogy highlights the violence used by metaphysical poets to force the most heterogeneous ideas together. Disagreeing with this statement, Donne 's use of the compass to reinforce the idea that their souls are like the legs of the compass, even though they will physically separate he will always come back as they create something perfect 'Thy firmness makes my circle just and make me end where I begun '. The conceit reassures his lover that it is inevitable that he will return because they are joined spiritually, mentally and physically, and their love is strong because he will always come back to
John Donne uses poetry to explore his own identity, express his feelings, and most of all, he uses it to deal with the personal experiences occurring in his life. Donne's poetry is a confrontation or struggle to find a place in this world, or rather, a role to play in a society from which he often finds himself detached or withdrawn. This essay will discuss Donne's states of mind, his views on love, women, religion, his relationship with God; and finally how the use of poetic form plays a part in his exploration for an identity and salvation.
She questions who created "the swan," "the black bear," and "the grasshopper," all extremely different animals. By doing so, the speaker is able to depict the fascinating diversity of nature and how it is the home of both big beasts and small insects. However, as the poem progresses, the speaker starts to interact with nature when the grasshopper hops onto her hand as she feeds it. The speaker carefully observes the grasshopper's behavior, describing in great detail how the grasshopper moves "her jaws back and forth" as she eats a sugar cube from the speaker's hand. The speaker utilizes imagery to convey a very specific image of the majestic grasshopper to the reader, describing "her pale forearms" and the grasshopper's "enormous and complicated
At first, the cheerfully perceptive stroller on backcountry roads: “I found a dimpled…” (593) the iambic lilt supplements a tone of pleasurable astonishment. With the introduction of “spider”, he betrays himself, and in “fat” and “white”, the dimpled insect appears less amiable. Additionally, in the next line, “On a white heal-all…” the verse is suggestive of innocence and fortification (Frost, 593). The white heal-all, which for the most part is a light blue flower, is how Frost suggests the purity of the situation.
The two poems The Flea and The Sunne Rising capture John Donne’s primary motive to get in bed with women. Donne wrote these poems at an early age, and at that time he was seeking nothing more than a sexual relationship. His poetry depicted clearly how sexist he was at the time and how he used to perceive women as a medium of pleasure. The content of his early poems express an immature and desperate image of Donne, who is dominated by his fixation on the sensuality of women. In The Flea, Donne shows his desperation to have sex by addressing a flea that has sucked the blood of both him and the woman he is persuading. It is quite awkward how the poet uses this obscure image of the flea as a symbol of love and sex to convince the woman that...
The Flea and To His Coy Mistress are two poems written by poets living during the Renaissance Period. To His Coy Mistress was written by Andrew Marvell and The Flea was written by John Donne. Both of these poets were well-educated 'metaphysical poets', and these poems illustrate metaphysical concerns, highly abstract and theoretical ideas, that the poets would have been interested in. Both poems are based around the same idea of trying to reason with a 'mistress' as to why they should give up their virginity to the poet.
First of all, the situation created by Donne is remarkable. Although there is only one speaker in "The Flea," the poem itself reveals a profound interaction between speaker and audience. Here is an example: "Mark but this flea, and mark in this," (line 1) and "Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare," (line 10). In line one, the poet asked his coy mistress to notice a flea and explain that the flea symbolized the combination of their love. Whereas, when the poem goes on to the first line of the second stanza, the lady ignores Donne's enthusiasm by intending to slay the flea. From the two lines, it shows the female's emotional reaction to Donne's persuasion, which provokes his urge by applying poetic device in the poem.
This poem is full of visual imagery; one can imagine being the speaker, staring at the fish on the hook. The fish’s brown skin, shapes on his scales, the tiny white sea-lice, the green weed, the blood flowing from his gills, his entrails, and his pink bladder all describing the fish’s body. This allows the reader to imagine as if the fish was in their hands. She not only illustrates the fish as a whole but also ge...
In both ‘The Sun Rising’ and ‘The Good Morrow’ Donne presents the experience of love, in a typical Metaphysical style, to engage his reader through sharing his own experiences. These poems show distinctive characteristics of Metaphysical poems which involve colloquial diction, drawing inventive imagery from unconventional sources, passionately analysing relationships and examining feelings. Donne presents the experience of love through conceits, Metaphysical wit, language techniques and imagery, in a confident tone using logical argument. The impact of Donne’s use of direct and idiomatic language shows the reader how he feels about a woman and ultimately love.
Love in "To His Coy Mistress", "Shall I Compare Thee," "Let Me Not," and "The Flea"
However, before diving into the true meaning of the poem, it is quite important to scan it as a whole; therefore, looking for the structure, the rhyme scheme/meter, and the overall message of the poem as a whole. The Flea, as stated previously, is a metaphysical poem. This states that the poem does not follow an exact form, in some ways it can be looked at as sort of a free verse form of poetry, but with a rhyme scheme. When looking at the poem as a whole, it can be stated that the rhymes are very weak. For example, the rhyming of “this” to “is” and “said” to “maidenhead,” are expected and somewhat easy. While the message is clear as to what is happening, if better word choices had been made, then the poem might not feel as
Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale, "The Black Cat," is a disturbing story that delves into the contrasts between reality and fantasy, insanity and logic, and life and death. To decipher one distinct meaning presented in this story undermines the brilliance of Poe's writing. Multiple meanings can be derived from "The Black Cat," which lends itself perfectly to many approaches of critical interpretation.