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Conceits in john donne poetry
Flea metaphor in Donne's flea
Flea metaphor in Donne's flea
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John Donn's Poem 'The Flea'
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I found John Donn’s poem “The Flea” to be creative, disturbing, and brilliant. In the poem, Donne uses rhyme to illustrate a very metaphysical love. He uses symbolism and elaborates on the description of a flea to show sketch his own view on premarital sex. The speaker begins by describing how the flea sucked his blood and his lover’s blood. He uses the illusion that since the flea has both his and his lover’s blood that they are connected in some special way. He described the flea as being a symbol of both himself and his lover in the following quote: “The flea is you and I.” The speaker carries on to how the lover should not kill the flea because she would be committing three murders. He uses the term sacrilege for the sins she would
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406 Words | 1 PagesJohn Donne's, "The Flea," is a persuasive poem in which the speaker is attempting to establish a sexual union with his significant other. However, based on the woman's rejection, the speaker twists his argument, making that which he requests seem insignificant. John Donne brings out and shapes this meaning through his collaborative use of conceit, rhythm, and rhyme scheme. In the beginning, Donne uses the flea as a conceit, to represent a sexual union with his significant other. For instance, in the first stanza a flea bites the speaker and woman. He responds to this incident by saying, "And in this flea our bloods mingled be."
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The Persuasive Tone of The Flea
769 Words | 2 PagesFirst 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.
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Explication of John Donne's The Flea
1079 Words | 3 PagesThis poem showed the pure genius of John Donne. It is intriguing to look at, especially for the religious imagery and form. His analogy of killing a flea and having sex, allow him to simplify his argument, which makes this a work of genius. His word choice, form, and rhythm all coincided with his major theme. I cannot help but to find this poem hilarious, flirtatious, and less serious than his other works because love, lust, marriage, and conceiving children is nowhere in comparison to a flea or killing one. I think Donne knew this, but through his wit he managed to make the correlation.
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1643 Words | 4 PagesThe 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 Theme Of Physical Love In John Donne's The Flea
1026 Words | 3 PagesJohn Donne’s “The Flea” details the attempts of a lover to convince his partner of the insignificance of physical love through conceit. The desperate lover hopes to woo a hesitant woman to have sex with him because physical love means nothing. Donne utilizes biblical allusions through symbolism and slant rhyme as the speaker builds and rebuilds his crooked case for the unimportance of sex. When the action of the poem shifts, the speaker’s argument shifts accordingly. The flea transforms into a symbol of the conscience, the main obstacle to the physical love that the speaker seeks.
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Metaphysical Poetry In John Donne's The Flea
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885 Words | 2 PagesMetaphysical wit and conceit are two of the most famous literary devices used in the seventeenth century by poets such as John Donne. Emerging out of the Petrarchan era, metaphysical poetry brought a whole new way of expression and imagery dealing with emotional, physical and spiritual issues of that time. In this essay I will critically analyse the poem, The Flea, written by John Donne, in which he makes light of his sexual intentions with his lover. In the first stanza of the poem, Donne tries to convince his lover to have sexual intercourse with him. At first one would not realize that this is his intention because he uses a flea to describe sex which is a very far-fetched description of the act hence this poem being metaphysical.
Metaphysical Poetry In John Donne's The Flea
1269 Words | 3 PagesPut simply, John Donne’s “The Flea” is about a man trying to convince his love interest to have sexual relations with him by using a flea that has bitten both of them as a metaphor for their relationship. The speaker argues that the flea, which holds both of their bloods, has become the embodiment of their love and its overall sanctity. Donne’s use of the flea as an extended metaphor of their relationship represents a metaphysical conceit that dramatizes the conflict between the woman losing her virginity to the speaker and the far-fetched attempt of the speaker to emphasize the significance of the flea which is being used to represent a sacred bond between the couple.
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