Flea

The Flea and To His Coy Mistress are two poems written by poets living during the Renaissance Period. To His Coy Mistress was written by Andrew Marvell and The Flea was written by John Donne. Both of these poets were well-educated 'metaphysical poets', and these poems illustrate metaphysical concerns, highly abstract and theoretical ideas, that the poets would have been interested in. Both poems are based around the same idea of trying to reason with a 'mistress' as to why they should give up their virginity to the poet.

In his poem "The Flea", John Donne shows his mastery in creating a work in which the form and the vocabulary have deliberately overlapping significance. The poem can be analyzed for the prominence of "threes" that form layers of multiple meanings within its three stanzas. In each of the three stanzas, key words can be examined to show (through the use of the OED) how Donne brilliantly chose them because of the various connotations they had to his audience. Finally, each of the three stanzas contains completely different moods that reflect the speaker’s emotions as the situation changes.

He justifies saving the flea’s life in line 11 by saying that now they are “more than married” through the flea. The speaker says that they are the flea, and the flea is their marriage bed and temple, therefore justifying premarital sex between the two. Now, making his plea, the speaker goes further by saying in line14 that “we are met,” meaning that they have already been sexually acquainted because of the mixing of blood between the two lovers inside of the flea’s body. The speaker then explains that if she were to kill the flea, she would be committing three sins against God in killing herself, him, and the flea.

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.

Donne then introduces the image of the flea as their “marriage bed and marriage temple” (l.13). This emphasizes the intimate nature of the mingling of blood presented earlier. The flea is a place where the two lovers can have a marital relationship. Donne is suggesting that the mingling of their blood is affiliated to marriage. The conclusion that he would like his lover to come to is that if they can be considered married in the body of a flea, why can they not have that same relationship and all the physical aspects that go along with it in the real world.

In the second stanza, Donne goes on to make the point that the flea is

Throughout the poem, Donne emphasizes a man’s desire and how he is going to go about achieving that strong internal desire, but fails to touch on the other half: what exactly the woman wants. During the poem we realize that the woman does not actually want to have intercourse with the man. This can be seen when she tries to kill the flea for the first time but is stopped by the man. “Though use make you apt to kill me, /Let not

He uses religious words such as, sacrilege, cloistered, marriage, and temple, which makes the flea even more symbolic and more sacred, and that helps him aiding his argument with the young woman. There is a trope where Danne describes the flea as it is like a church and inside the church are the two souls and they become into one. Their blood mingled inside the flea, which refers to marriage. Furthermore, they are locked inside the black flea’s body. In addition he brings up the parents. Her parents don’t want her sleeping with him, as well as she does not too. She wants to kill the flea to convince Donne that nothing will happen, and no one will get hurt. However, he tells her that it would be a terrible sin if she does, because her blood

We don’t know much about the female character in the poem, however what is noted is that she does not want to have sex with the man. The narrator argues that since the flea was able to take what it wanted from the girl, than he should be allowed to as well. With this in mind, he also argues that once the flea has both his and her blood, that they are both still alive and able. By this he means that either of them are at a loss after the encounter with the flea. By the narrators reasoning, he and the girl should have sex because there is not lasting affect after the fact.

The Flea: How poetic form shapes poetic meaning A Twisted Love Story Told by John Donne John Donne uses internal and external efforts to shape the poem’s meaning. He uses a precise rhyme scheme that is parallel with his arguments and ideas. His work seems effortless from the reader’s perspective. In each stanza, he switches his focus back and forth in a consistent pattern.

John Donne’s poem “The Flea” tells a man’s argument in order for a woman to sleep with him. He uses a flea to explain to the woman that life is too short for someone to be living a short life. Donne uses meter and symbolism in order to express the main theme of carpe diem.

“The Flea” by John Donne is a poem about romance. The narrator, a man, uses a flea to argue his point of having premarital sex. He uses the fact that the flea has already bit them both and mixed their blood so they are already together as one inside the flea. He even argues that having premarital sex would do less as to making them one than the flea having their blood together inside his body does, “alas, is more than we would do.” The narrator sees no sin in what the flea has done mixing their blood and questions the lady as to why having premarital sex would be a sin. The narrators point in his argument is that since they are already mixed in the flea they might as well mix together in sexual intercourse. The male

As the girl threatens to kill the flea, the speaker begs her to stop. He states that all three of their lives are in this flea, and that through the blood of the flea he and her are already married. If the girl were to kill the flea, he feels that it would be the equivalent of murdering all three of them. The speaker is desperately trying to manipulate the girls actions too his advantage. Donne uses more metaphors too twist his words into a more convincing argument.

The Flea is a seductive poem which is written by John Donne during 1600s. In this poem, Donne presents flea to his lover as a symbol of their metaphysical relationship. The poem contains 3 stanzas of nine lines each. The rhyme scheme of the poem is AABBCCDDD which is three couplets and tercet. Each of these stanzas discuss three separate arguments from the speaker to his mistress. Donne uses images, metaphor and persuasive method to convince his lover to have premarital sex. He tries hard to pull her thoughts in his way of thinking. The speaker is developing argument to fulfill his desire for premarital sex thats why he uses flea as an analogy for their metaphysical relationship.

Digging deeper into the poem you see that Donne wants a woman just to have sex with which is called a “persuasion to love poem”. In the poem Donne also does not care if he does not get the exact bait (women) he is after because he lets us know that there are plenty more out at sea. The poem also has some metaphysical aspects to it in the since that it uses fish to represent men and the bait to represent women. The poem begins with painting a picture of “golden sands and crystal brooks” to the reader. An additional example of this is the words” silken lines and silver hooks. This gives the reader an ideal setting for lazy fishing by a river. Then the poet describes his lady as even more beautiful than the scenery, with such words as” when thou swim in that live bath, each fish will swim amorously to you. A shift in thought comes next, with the poet proceeding