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
...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.
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'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."
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
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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
John Donne lived in an era when the lyric was at its pinnacle. Poets were writing well-rounded, almost musical poetry on subjects that ranged from all kinds of love to enchantment with nature. Donne could not help but revolt against this excess of fluency and melody. John Donne's style stands in such sharp contrast to the accepted Elizabethan lyrical style that it becomes difficult to accept the fact that his works date from the same era. To highlight this statement, one has to compare a typical Elizabethan lyric to one of Donne's works.
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.
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. Using a conceit he belittles the impact of sex and the power it has over him even though it may be untrue. Knowing that she has thought about it before, he assures her that by withholding sex from him is something so small that it does not give her power in the relationship.
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.
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.