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Analysis Of The Poem ' The Flea ' By John Donne

Decent Essays

Molyka Sir
October 22, 2015
AP Language
Mr. McDermot

Permissible Acknowledgement
I feel Robert Frost’s statement, “the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another”, is heavily utilized within Poetry. Poets, like Mr. Frost, practiced this to confuse our minds into pondering on the subject matter as well as to offset our assumed understandings therefore allowing us to explore other possible conclusions. Robert Frost’s definition of poetry is undoubtedly accurate as proven by analysis of other poet’s works where his insight had noticeable influence. For example, in the poem, “The Flea”, by John Donne, initially it referred to a flea biting the speaker but as the reader proceeds further the perspective changes from this flea into the larger picture, which is a humorous little debate whether the speaker and his beloved will partake in premarital sex or not. Donne chose to word the poem in a format very similar to Frost’s definition of poetry. Donne begins using the flea as an analogy and this translates into the persuasive diction where the speaker trying to tempt his beloved as seen in this excerpt from the poem, “How little that which thou deniest me is; 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 is telling his lover to pay attention to the flea and to take heed of “how little” that in which she denies him is. He says the flea

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