Perhaps the most admirable quality of a poet is their ability to develop and combined ideas, images, metaphors, and symbols while uniquely interpreting these literary devices to reflect their own perspective. Poetic works produced during the seventeenth century were fundamentally rooted in the cultural and intellectual movements of the time, the renaissance during the Elizabethan Era. Seventeenth-century poems contributed unique insights into cultural life but they also positively influence the portrayal of cultural values. These poets incorporated “new ideas and new social, political, and economic forces” alongside the newly discovered “emphasis on the worth of life and the malleability of the individual” (Norton 472). Principally, Elizabethan …show more content…
Donne was an English poet and cleric during the Elizabethan Era. Donne wrote poetry on both sides of the spectrum, passionate love poems and religious verses; “Even his contemporaries wondered how one mind could express itself in such different modes” (Norton 1647). Donne utilized sophisticated rhetoric as the primary technique in his poetry in order to ridicule the idealistic approach to love and take advantage of a courtly situation. In “The Flea,” Donne explores a contrary perspective to those of his contemporary poets; the speaker uses frivolous images to imply an erotic message. The first two lines of Donne’s poem, “Mark but this flea, and mark in this, / How little that which thou deniest me is,” promptly discloses that the subject is love while simultaneously illustrating the rhetorical conflict of whether the lover will participate in premarital sex with the speaker. Donne’s “The Flea” exemplifies courtly love by ridiculing the concept of virtue; “ It sucked me first, and now sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; / Thou know’st that this cannot be said / A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead.” The speaker employs remarkably clever rhetoric and metaphors while using the flea, whose body infused the speaker’s and lover’s blood, to show how harmless physically joining can be. The speaker reasons that if the …show more content…
Wroth was considered to have shed light on “the formal complexity and variety…creation of female subjectivity, and their relationship to her life and social context” (Norton 1668). Wroth’s poem Pamphilia to Amphilanthus captures the feminine voice and subjectivity concerning courtly love; her poem helps to advance women out of the sphere of merely attainable objects and into their own person. In Pamphilia to Amphilanthus Wroth explores a contrary perspective to those of her contemporary poets; she focuses on the antithetical emotions that a lover experiences during courting. Throughout Pamphilia to Amphilanthus Wroth perverts the patriarchal tradition by evoking a female speaker; her poem opposes the courtly convention by presenting a feminine perspective and private devotion to her lover. The first two lines in Wroth’s poem, “When night’s black mantle could most darkness prove, / And sleep death’s images did my sense hire,” promptly discloses that the subject is love while simultaneously opposing the masculine voice and subjectivity concerning courtly love. Wroth’s Pamphilia to Amphilanthus exemplifies courtly love by ridiculing the public and masculine perspective on it; she instead presents courtly love regarding a feminine perspective and private devotion. The speaker employs a motif for
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Raffel, Burton. and Alexandra H. Olsen Poems and Prose from the Old English, (Yale University Press)Robert Bjork and John Niles,
During the 17th century, certain poets wrote poems with the specific purpose of persuading a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. Three of these seduction poems utilize several strategies to do this: Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” and “The Flea.” Some of the reasoning used by both poets is similar to the reasoning used today by men to convince women to have sexual intercourse with them. These gimmicks vary from poem to poem but coincide with modern day rationalization. The tactics used in 17th century seduction poems are relevant and similar to the seduction tactics used in the 21st century.
“Victorian poets illustrated the changeable nature of attitudes and values within their world and explored the experiences of humanity through these shifts.”
On the surface, John Donne’s poem “The Flea” dramatizes the conflict between two people on the issue of premarital sex, however, under the surface, the poem uses religious imagery to seduce the woman into having sex. The speaker in this poem is a man, who is strategically trying to convince a woman to have premarital sex with him through the conceit based on a flea, however, the coy lady has thus far yielded to his lustful desires. The speaker’s argument has the form of logic, which contradicts to its outrageous content.
Shakespeare’s story, Love Labour’s Lost, focuses the story on the endearing lust of men. Women are a powerful force, so in order to persuade them men will try to use a variety of different resources in order to attract the opposite sex. Men will often use their primal instincts like a mating call, which could equivocate today to whistling at a woman as she walks by. With the use of lies to tell a girl what she wants to hear, the musk cologne in order to make you appear more sensual, or the cliché use of the love poem, men strive to appeal to women with the intent to see his way into her heart. William Shakespeare is a man, who based on some of his other works, has a pretty good understand and is full of passion for the opposite sex. Nonetheless, whether it had been honest love or perverse lust, Shakespeare, along with most men, aimed to try to charm women. With keeping this understanding of Shakespeare in mind, his weapon of choice, to find his portal way into a woman’s heart, was his power of writing.
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 poets integrated ?metaphysical conceits? as focal parts of these poems. Along with these, they used effective language as a basis for their convincing arguments, they included subjects of periodical importance (e.g. ?courtship? and ?religion?), and use very clever structures that are manipulated in order to make the poem read in the desired way. The very clear indication of the theme in question was strongly aided by the way in which the personas portrayed the emotions they felt and the way they showed their attitudes towards the subject. Considering all these factors, the poets made critical arguments to the mistresses in order to alter their views, thus changing their minds, on denying the poets the sex that they desired so strongly.
Witherspoon Alexander M., and Warnke Frank J., ed.. Seventeenth Century Prose and Poetry. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1963, 2nd.
In the poem, Donne structures each stanza individually as a different personification of love. In the first stanza, Donne compares love to a plague when he says, “Yet not that love so soon decays…that I have had the plague…” (3/6) It is the latter line that Donne implements his use of imagery and conceit. Love is not often compared with “the plague” and this is a very strong interpretation. However while these two images seem different, they do interconnect through the pain and anguish that love can foster. This first comparison of Donne’s is very ef...
The world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last one hundred years, the Western community has seen advances in technology and medicine that has improved the lifestyles and longevity of almost every individual. Within the last two hundred years, we have seen two World Wars, and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing-up, do you think that they ever imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything will change. With all of these transformations happening, it is a wonder that a great poet may write words over one hundred years ago, that are still relevant in today’s modern world. It is also remarkable that their written words can tell us more about our present, than they did about our past. Is it just an illusion that our world is evolving, or do these great poets have the power to see into the future? In this brief essay, I will investigate the immortal characteristics of poetry written between 1794 and 1919. And, I will show that these classical poems can actually hold more relevance today, than they did in the year they were written. Along the way, we will pay close attention to the style of the poetry, and the strength of words and symbols used to intensify the poets’ revelations.
The poem is not said to of been set in a particular place but I
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.
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...
Metaphysical 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.