Discuss one of the distinctive elements of Donne’s work and explore how he uses it to develop meaning. John Donne is one of the most influential poet of English literature and known as father of metaphysical poetry. Metaphysical poetry is ... and he uses conceit in several of his work. Conceit, similar to simile, is a literary device in which it compares two unrelated objects.
In the poem “The Flea,” Donne uses conceit in order to develop his motif with greater depth to his audience. Donne tries to provoke thoughts in readers’ mind and make them to think about the situation.
John Donne uses the flea in order to pursue a young lady. “O stay three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are” (10-11). “The Flea” cannot be compared to the traditional metaphor of love. The story uses the flea to symbolize love rather than using something more romantic like flowers. Donne uses flea as his argument, instead of flowers, because sexual intercourse between him and his love interest will unite their souls like the bite of the flea.
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And it represents the desire of sexual intercourse. The flea is a very unusual argument that Donne brings, but his goal is just to give a reason why his love-interest should sleep with him. The flea mingles the blood of lovers. When Donne describes the flea sucking both lovers, he tries to exaggerate that his desire of sexual intercourse is mutual.
Theme of the poem is about seduction. And Donne’s purpose of writing “The Flea” was to encourage people that want to have sexual intercourse and to comment on the attitudes as well.
There are questions, “Purpled thy nail in the blood of innocence?” (20) and “Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?” (22) throughout the poem in order to persuade his
John 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."
The speaker in Donne's poetry is a theatrical character, constantly in different situations, and using different roles to suit the action. He can take on the role of the womanizer, as in "The Indifferent," or the faithful lover from "Lover's Infiniteness," but the speaker in each of these poems is always John Donne himself. Each poem contains a strong sense of Donne's own self-interest. According to Professor J. Crofts, Donne:
The narrator in The Flea is a youthful man trying to convince a young woman to give her virginity to him. He tries to do this by comparing their relationship to a flea that is in the room. The flea bites them both and Donne explains to her that this is symbolic of both of their worlds combining into one. He says that the flea is now the realm of love, lust, and marriage. At first this poem seems to be just about love, commitment from a male to a female, who says no his lustful desires. However, a deeper look than just the superficial reveals that the male in this poem is actually revealing a valid point to his lady: that the loss of innocence, such as her virginity, does not constitute a loss of her honor.
John Donne’s poems are similar in their content. They usually point out at same topics like love, lust, sex and religion; only they are dissimilar in the feelings they express. These subjects reflect the different stages of his life: the lust of his youth, the love of his married middle age, and the piety of the latter part of his life. His poem,’ The Flea’ represents the restless feeling of lust during his youthful days but it comes together with a true respect for women through the metaphysical conceit of the flea as a church in the rhythm of the sexual act.
...al in lines one and two with enjambment between the words “digest” and “my soul.” He even goes so far as to conflate God the Father with depraved man through enjambent and the phrase “robbed man” in line 9. In fact, this line seems to actually serve as a kind of “volta” due to the ultimate extreme of conflation, thus following the traditional Italian sonnet form. This emphasizes the purity of the form as representative of the Trinity in this sonnet. Donne’s use of the form of the poem itself as an embodiment of the Trinity seems to further emphasize the perceived interrelatedness of all things, and therefore supports the mutual statement of love that opens the poem. So, the conflation rises to yet another level, where the poem itself is a resonation of God’s love as a manifestation of the trinity, and Donne takes the role of creator, thus acting in the image of God.
This 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.
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...
In ‘The Sun Rising’ the tone and the language Donne uses when interacting with the sun at the beginning of the poem is demeaning and powerful starting immediately with ‘Busy old fool, unruly Sun’, which shows Donne addressing the sun directly and perhaps scalding the sun for disturbing the sleeping lovers. Donne shows what the experience of love means to him by expressing his dislike for the sunrise of ultimately a new day, which represents the separation of the couple after spending the night together. In the first stanza Donne asks direct rhetorical questions which enquire about the sun’s existence ‘Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run? This proves that Donne disagrees with the fact that the sun controls what the lovers do. It is also important to note that Donne uses a capital when addressing the ‘Sun’ as if it is personified and highlighting its importance in the poem. He continues to address the sun’s actions and is most reprimanding when he states ‘Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride’, suggesting that the sun should not disturb the couple as it is per...
John 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.
Doone uses the blood to symbolize togetherness between the speaker and his lover. Since both the speaker, and the woman’s blood were mixed together inside the flea, it is described as if they are one. Using the blood to symbolize togetherness sets a dramatic tone to the poem. In lines eight Doone states that the flea “swells with one blood made of two, and this alas, is more than we would do” (8-9). The speaker begins to try to convince his love that since
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 this tale, the professor embodies the artist and the flea signifies the art (Lecture 13.2). Andersen’s initial struggle is mirrored when the artist and his art must stay together. This tale illustrates how the flea (art) supports the professor in order to survive. In this case, the professor (artist) has to rely on the flea, just like Andersen relied on his tales in order to become famous. This is where Andersen started to inform his readers how he felt pressured to create tales that would be
He points to the flea and remarks that it has innocently mingled their bloods within itself, which is no more than sexual intercourse does.” Both Donne and Perrine state that the flea does “more than we would do.” The flea represents the love Donne wants the two to have, but the young woman is not willing to do what the young man is wanting. The flea undoubtedly represents the love between the young man and young
John Donne is known as being one of the most famous and influential metaphysical poets. The term “metaphysical," as applied to English and continental European poets of the seventeenth century, was used by Augustan poets John Dryden and Samuel Johnson to reprove those poets for their “unnaturalness.” As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, however, “The unnatural, that too is natural," and the metaphysical poets continue to be studied and revered for their intricacy and originality. Due to Donne’s personal experiences with spirituality and love, he is able to grasp the true meaning of metaphysical poetry (Brief Guide to Metaphysical Poets). Using all the aspects of metaphysical poetry, Donne creates a mysterious metaphoric poem titled, “The Flea.” Throughout this poem, the use of metaphors and breaks into the separate stanzas allow for the audiences to understand what The Flea is really about. At first glance, many read The Flea as a poem that compares sexual intimacy with an animal, but when broken down, it can be seen that the meaning is much deeper than intimacy, but it
This poem could be called an extended metaphor because Donne uses a simile comparing something “like an userp’d town” but never actually compares it to anything. Also he seems to use a paradox in the poem by first saying “batter my heart” which he is telling god to break the walls of the city, then he compares himself to a captured town, but then ends with “imprison me” which means he wants to be captured again. Donne also speaks about an”enemy” which can assumed to be the devil and in this poem Donne is asking god to help him escape from the devil. The “erotic” part of Donne’s poems can easily be seen here with lines such as,”o'erthrow me, and bend / Your force”,”Labour to admit you”,”enthrall”,”Ravish” which can all have a sexual meaning behind them. This poem is also full of contradictions such as when Donne writes “knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend” and “break, blow, burn, and make me new” he is receiving one thing but he said he would rather have the other.