Love in The Flea and To his Coy Mistress

"It suck'd me first and now sucks thee/And in this flea our two bloods mingled be"(lines 3-4). And, since their bloods have already mingled together, intercourse with him wouldn't be a sin and no honor would be lost if she yields to him. "Though know'st that this cannot be said/A sin nor shame nor loss of maidenhood:" (lines 5-6) Though however similar the gist of the poems might be, the art of seduction used by each speaker is quite different. The speaker in "To His Coy Mistress" seems to change his tone of persuasion rapidly from stanza to stanza. At first he is sweet, comming across as a gentleman and overstating how many ages he would spent on a single part of her anatomy "A hundred years should go to praise/Thine Eyes.

While “To His Coy Mistress” might appear at first sight to be a poem of seduction, it is really a dramatic meditation on the fact that we live constrained by “world and time,” and a prescription for what to do about it. The first stanza sets the tone of mockery. The speaker uses metaphors, hyperboles, irony and imagery to seduce his coy mistress. He begins his poem of seduction with an insult: “Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime.” He calls her a criminal for being so reluctant when they are constrained by world and time. To him, it is a misconduct to not jump right into his arms when they have so little time to live.

He had examined different parts of love and descried to explain them in a sonnet; where as other poets have written poems with different forms and structure on their points of views about relationships and seduction. In my essay I intend to compare the similarities and differences in two different poems. They are, ‘To his coy mistress’ by Andrew Marvell which is about time and ‘The Flea’ by John Donne, to answer, ‘Are these poems really dominant with seduction?’ Firstly one similarity between Marvell’s ‘To his coy mistress’ and Donne’s ‘The Flea’ is how they both have the same intention of seducing their mistress. This is shown by ‘oh stay, thee lives in one flea spare’ and ‘and now, like amorous birds of prey. It is evident that love is not a key feature of the poet’s relationship.

The poet has seduced her as far as the bedroom and at this point, it seems as though he is going to try a new strategy. The woman does not appear to be very keen and is resisting his advances. Compared with Donne's poem, in 'Shall I compare thee' the poet is simply flattering the woman and wants her to like him. It is also one-sided, unlike in 'The Flea' where the woman gives her views as well. 'Shall I compare thee' is similar to 'First Love' by John Clare in this way.

Love in Valentine and The Flea Through a close analysis of language, structure and theme, compare and contrast the poets' attitude to love in Valentine and The Flea. The poem "The Flea" is about a man trying to cunningly argue a woman into bed. John Donne's "The Flea" was a metaphysical poem, written most probably, to entertain an audience of men; this was called a coterie, which was a group of like-minded individuals who cleverly wrote for each other's amusement. This poem was written sometime in the 17th century where religion was extremely important and sex before marriage frowned upon. The poet is exploring ideas and feelings about lust and how unimportant losing virginity is, which a woman will obviously object to.

Put 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. The poem contains three stanzas of nine lines, all with the same form, and has a rhyming scheme of AABBCCDDD. The first six lines of each stanza have alternating pentameter and tetrameter, with the seventh being a tetrameter, and the last two being pentameters.

This small parasitic creature is chalk full of symbolic meaning. During the time this poem was written (the Renaissance) the flea was use in many poems about sex. I derive that in this particular poem the flea is symbolic of the act of sex from the speaker’s remark in the beginning, “Mark but this flea, and mark in this, how little that which deniest me is” the flea is small and inconsequential, his lady denies him sex, which the speaker believes is also petty. The flea is described as a marriage temple and a carrier of life, but in the next stanza as something insignificant and small. The speaker applies a certain duality to the flea and therefore to sex.

They have taken simple ideas and stretched them far - for example, using a flea as a symbol of union. They have made philosophical poems about simple facts of life - for example, the fear of death seen in "To His Coy Mistress". The similarity seen between these poems is quite surprising - the use of imagery, enjambement and variation in rhythm and rhyme to relate their ideas, and the way they put forward their arguments to seduce their mistresses. In "The Flea", the flea is used as a symbol of their love, or his love for her. The word 'flea' has many connotations and denotations, but interestingly, when spoken sounds the same as the verb, to 'flee'.

Explication of John Donne's The Flea 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.

Porphyrias Lover, My Last Duchess and The Flea all have the theme of love in them Porphyrias Lover, My Last Duchess and The Flea all have the theme of love in them. But they are not all the same theme of love for example Porphyrias Lover is obsessive and seductive love whereas; The Flea is more like sexual love. Robert Browning writes both Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess and John Donne writes The Flea. I think Porphyrias Lover and My Last Duchess are alike as Robert Browning uses similar themes of love in them e.g. Obsessive and Possessive.