The 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 the blank space before the third stanza we infer that the woman has killed the flea. He is upset at the woman because she killed the flea and wants to know how this flea was guilty. The tone of the poem changes in this stanza because now, he is chastising her for her sins. He is even cool and harsh when he says, “Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, /Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee” (26-27) He then concludes by explaining that having sex with him would be just as trivial as killing the flea.

Andrew Marvell's elaborate sixteenth century carpe diem poem, 'To His Coy Mistress', not only speaks to his coy mistress, but also to the reader. Marvell's suggests to his coy mistress that time is inevitably rapidly progressing and for this he wishes for her to reciprocate his desires and to initiate a sexual relationship. Marvell simultaneously suggests to the reader that he or she should act upon their desires as well, to hesitate no longer and seize the moment before time, and ultimately life, expires. Marvell makes use of allusion, metaphor, and grand imagery in order to convey a mood of majestic endurance and innovatively explicate the carpe diem motif.

7. The poem begins with the description of a flea, which bit both the narrator and the woman to whom he speaks. Because of this flea, according to the subsequent lines, the two bloods of these individuals are mixed. Despite the bite, however, the author assure that whom he courts that her innocence would not be lost (nor loss of maidenhead), and that if they were to engage in any sort of intimacy, their acts would be more innocent than the flea's bit. In the subsequent stanza, the author speaks of marriage and an eventual union (marriage bed, marriage temple), though again, in the context of encouraging intimacy rather than courting for marriage. He also tells the woman that if she will not give into his requests she

The themes represented in both of these poems include: sex, romance, and guilt. Sex is significantly present in both poems. In “His Coy Mistress” Marvell wrote in line 43, “And tear our pleasures with rough strife”. This is referring to the pleasures that come from sex, the narrator is offering the mistress pleasure in exchange for her virginity. As he compares marriage to the unification of their blood in the flea, the narrator of “The Flea” suggests, the “loss of maidenhead,” in line 6. Fundamentally, he is asking for sex. Romance is also notable, by luring the women of both poems in the way each narrator believes is romantic. In “His Coy Mistress” the narrator is much more conventional with the way he romanticizes the love interest. He alludes to her physical attributes, and is very visual when it comes to describing the way he wants her. In comparison we have “The Flea” with its interesting form of romance. He uses a metaphor-a flea uniting their blood, translating to their marriage- to lure his love interest. Even while using a not-so-flattering form of romance, he still lusts for her and is trying to lure her. Lastly we have the theme of guilt, represented in both poems. In “The Coy Mistress” guilt is seen in his implication to time. He uses time as a means to guilt his significant other into interacting with him sexually. As noted in line 1 “Had we but world enough, and time,” he is using lack of time as a form of making his love interest feel pressured. In “The Flea” he

Impressively, Donne’s poem is an Italian sonnet that possesses qualities of an English sonnet, which is similar to the structure of a four paragraph essay. It’s apparent that the poem is an Italian sonnet just by looking at how the rhyme scheme (A B B A A B B A C D D C A A) forms an octave and a sestet. While the qualities of an English sonnet and paragraph structure are less obvious, they are defined by Donne’s precise use of punctuation. There are four instances of

It could be argued, that Donne wrote the poem in this way to show the idea that life has no structure, especially when the concept of love is involved.

The poem, The Flea, by John Donne is a depiction of desire and the process of a sexual intercourse with uses of unexpected similes that shows the simplicity of a sexual relation. Through the use of conceit of the flea, metaphor and figurative language The Flea suggests that one’s desire and love may not be mutual between two people.

The story in the poem is basically about a man talking to God, in a rather curious way I might add, asking him to come inside him and restore his soul. The only typical thing about this sonnet is that it has fourteen lines. On another hand, the rhyme scheme is highly irregular. It unusually starts out with elements of an Italian sonnet with the rhyme abba abba. Donne ends the poem with the rhyming couplet cdcd cdcd cc which brings back the English elements. The poem also has three quatrains before the couplet at the end, which are three groups of four lines. Normal iambic pentameter starts with an unstressed syllable

“The Flea”, by John Donne is a raunchy romantic poem that explains the speakers unyielding love that is represented by an insect. Using the insect to seduce his beloved after they both get bitten by the insect. As the speaker seduces his beloved, he involves her beliefs and values, intending to get his way with her no matter what it takes. But she doesn’t give in to his manipulation.

John Donne’s Poem asks numerous questions and can be boiled down to a rather dark

I shall now talk about how religion relates to Donne’s poetry. His life passed during a major change of religion in England the king wanted all control of the church so he could divorce his wife, he declared himself head of the Church of England. My first poem that relates to religion is ‘The Flea’ in this poem Donne is trying to convince a woman to sleep with him by using religion to sanctify him sleeping with her for example when he says ‘Where we almost, nay more, than married are…our marriage bed, and marriage temple is[2]’, he makes the bed seem holy and that g-d wants them to sleep together this may of reassured her as it connects g-d and the church together to make everything alright and holy . This poem proves that Donne is a very

We can therefore ask ourselves how John Donne J.D uses the flea methaphore in this love poem ?

Another way Donne differs from his fellow Renaissance poets is with the use of a present listener. Donne writes directly to whom the poem was written for, while the other poets of his day; mostly write their poems without directing it towards a specific listener. His poems have very few large descriptive passages like the one’s used in the works of Edmund Spenser. Donne’s poetry also doesn’t have the smooth, poetic flow that the other Renaissance poets had. Donne has done away with the poetic flow and instead opted to use a speaking voice, whose syntax can easily show the intensity of Donne’s