John Donne Research Paper

Even though John Donne lived during the sixteenth century he still experienced everyday emotional responses as we do, and is still an inspiration to many of us in the modern world today. Donne’s life experiences were the main reason for his poetry. During his time religion was a very big part of society; and it is one of the main themes in his poetry. From Donne’s early life mistakes to his later in life religious standpoint, he wrote many poems; he mostly wrote romance and religious poems; using metaphysical poetry, subtle arguments, and paradoxes. John Donne was born during an anti-Catholic period in England to a Catholic family. Donne’s father, John Donne was a London merchant, and his mother, Elizabeth Heywood was the grandniece of martyr

The main purpose of this poem is to get a woman to sleep with him out of wedlock. The flea has drank both the blood from him and from the woman. Now both of their blood has mingled inside of the flea. In the flea’s body the two have shared bodily fluids. Since they have already mixed their fluids in flea, why not go ahead and mix bodily fluids physically. The problem is that her parents and society do not agree with a woman going to bed with a man before marriage. The woman goes to kill the flea which makes the man angry. The man starts to argue with the woman saying that the flea contains three lives; its own, the man’s and the woman’s life (critical). Since the flea has both of their lives in it it is almost metaphorical to marriage, your life becomes one with another. The woman does not listen to the man and ends up killing the flea. After killing the flea she has no shame or guilt towards what she has done. When she does not feel any shame towards killing the flea, the man thinks that she would not feel any shame if she let him seduce her. By first reading the title the reader thinks that it’s probably going to be about a flea sucking blood. Donne uses many different types of figurative language in this poem. The flea symbolizes loss of innocence, because their bodily fluids mingled in the flea and then it was looked down

Donne writes many love and religious poems sometimes he even ties them both together for instance “The Anniversary” has a little of religion and a lot of love showing that Donne tied his faith and love for religion not only in this poem but in the love he had for his wife. Donne wrote “The Anniversary” because of his wife. He had so much love for her that he went to prison and lost everything for twelve years just to be married to her. Donne uses a lot of figurative language and conceits in his poetry. In both “The Flea” and “The Anniversary” there were many different uses of similes, metaphors, paradoxes and allusion. Donne not only wrote religious poems, but was also known for his religious verses and sermons. He even got off of his sick bed to make a sermon that some thought was his own funeral sermon. Donne was so inspired and impressed by his own work that he wanted to speak as if he were at his own funeral. That shows the pride he had in his work. His wife and his religious standpoint were Donne’s main inspirations for his poetry. The love he had for his wife you can almost feel after reading some of his love poems. Donne’s love poetry main appeal is that it speaks to the reader directly as if we overhear the confidence. The way he felt towards his faith is very inspirational especially at a time when his faith was not