Comparison of how The Flea and To His Coy Mistress Present and Develop the Poets' Arguments

In the poem “To His Coy Mistress” the man uses the idea that one day he and his lover will grow old and no longer be beautiful, and that they must take advantage of the opportunity to have sex while they are still full of youth and energy. In the poem Marvell writes: “Thy beauty shall no more be found, nor in thy marble vault, shall sound my echoing song; then worms shall try that long preserved virginity.” (Ln 25-28). This is relevant because it makes clear that there is no telling how life will turn out and while she is trying to maintain honor what good will it be if she dies of old age and worms take her purity. In the poem “The Flea” Donne takes a different route of attack by trying to convince the woman that just because she gives up her virginity does not make her any less of a woman nor does it give her a legitimate reason to kill herself. In the poem Donne writes: “Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou find’st not thy self nor me the weaker now.” (ln 23-24). This is relevant because it insinuates that they are human, and just because others say they are less than that because of sex before marriage does not make it true nor should they feel like it

He uses the flea as an excuse for marriage and that they are now permitted to have sex. Out of desperation Donne shifts to a more religiously point of view by saying, “And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.” (Line 18) This means that if the woman kills the flea, she is killing the flea, him, herself, and God. However, the women squashes the flea along with his argument and Donne is left with one final go at convincing the woman. The final stanza of the poem expresses his sheer desperation to have sex with the woman as he deviates to using a lenient approach. He blames her not for killing the flea, but says that her act did not damage her honour in any way, and that she should still “yeeld’st to mee” (Line 26), or should still sleep with him. The content of The Flea demonstrates the exact sexist attitude that John Donne possessed when he wrote his early love poems. Likewise, the same desire for physical pleasure can be seen in the poem The Sunne Rising. This poem encompasses Donne’s ignorance of his surroundings and his obsession for sexual pleasure. Throughout the poem he attacks and challenges the sun with contempt, and does so by personifying it. He is obviously disturbed and troubled by the “unruly Sunne” (Line 1) and tells

Written during the 17th century, John Donne utilizes an unconventional genre in his poem, demeaning and objectifying the female sex. A common motif in poems of the Renaissance, Donne uses a flea as a metaphorical comparison to sexual intercourse and the eternal bind between man and woman. Illustrated throughout the poem, Donne

The theme of this poem was easily determined after reading through the poem. The poet has a certain desire of the woman he’s trying to get into his bed, making sex seem like no big deal, “How little that which thou deniest me is” (Donne); sex wasn’t taken lightly in the 17th century for unmarried woman and he attempts to make it seem as small as a flea. He is straightforward with his offer; rather than attempting to arouse the woman, he attempted to appeal to her sense of reason. Donne is in belief that she was tempted, so he attempts to coerce her into the deed. Marriage is a reoccurring theme and use of persuasion go get the woman to have sex with him, “O stay, three lives in one flea spare. Where we almost, yeah more than married are” (Donne). He uses the second stanza to focus on marriage.

Both ‘Mrs Sisyphus’ and ‘the Flea’ seek to present us with complex, arguably discordant relationships between men and women. Duffy and Donne exploit the satirical potential of light-hearted comic verse to present serious issues in a light-hearted manner. Despite the overwhelmingly light-hearted tone of both poems, it can still be argued that relationships are presented in a negative light.

The narrators in both poems, “The Flea” by John Donne and “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell are trying to persuade a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. It seems like both of the narrators are overbearing but not in the exact same sense. Donne states, “And in this flea our two bloods mingled be” (Line 4). This line talks about how the flea has bitten them both and mingled their blood together, which makes this an alternative to sexual intercourse and then the narrator declares that there is no “A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead” (Line 6). Marvell writes, “My vegetable love should grow/Vaster than empires, and more slow” (Line 10-11). These lines refers to the narrator trying to tell the mistress how his love will grow more

In ‘The Flea’, John Donne uses humorous and erotic lines to come up with a tale about a young man trying to seduce his mistress while using a flea to prove his point. The speakers’ mistress does not want to sleep with him for fear of the sin that would be committed. He spins the truth around by saying because the flea has already bitten them both, they are technically already married inside the flea and are committing no sin. Donne uses many literary devices including, puns, metaphors, personification, and also many references to religion, all to help the speaker win his case. The speaker makes a great case for himself by using the metaphor of the flea, other literary devices, and religion to try to seduce his woman.

With the initial impression of “The Flea,” one does not expect an erotic love story. The title suggests a tiny insect may be the main focus of the poem, but this assumption proves to be incorrect. Using intense metaphors, imagery, symbolism, and alliteration to perform his argument, the speaker is attempting to woo a lady in a rather repulsive romantic comedy approach. Throughout the couplets, the flea is personified and becomes symbolic of a much greater meaning. Although John Donne’s “The Flea” obviously discusses sex as the primary topic, the poem contains underlying features regarding the themes of marriage and even religion.

He clarifies that making a physical love is not a sin or shame as their blood is mixed inside a flea. The first stanza begins when the speaker asks the lady to “Mark this flea” (Donne 1) which has bitten him and sucked blood from him and repeated it in the woman. The speaker uses the situation to point out that the lady “denies” him something. At the same time the “flea” got a chance to enjoy their union through their blood within its body. “It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,/ And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;” (3-4).

In “The Flea,” Donne’s speaker tries to ease his lady’s anxieties about sex. At the end of the poem, he seizes on her comment that the death of the flea—which contained both of their blood—did not harm either of them or make them any weaker. It is important to note the significance of the word “death” in this context. According to Miller, sexual culmination was commonly likened to death at the time this verse was written.

The comparison of sex to a flea is quite the unexpected plot of a love poem, but John Donne’s “The Flea” is not the usual love poem. In the poem, the speaker addresses a lady who he is attempting to convince to participate in unnamed sexual actions with him. She, apparently sticking to the appropriate tradition of her time by maintaining her virginity, cannot be convinced. The speaker uses ridiculous arguments, which he switches stance on a couple of times, and the device of conceit,or an exaggerated metaphor, to explain the need for the woman to take part in his desires.

In the first stanza of the poem, the flea itself represents the love Donne wants to express to his lover. For instance, by “[Marking the] flea” (l.1) that “suck’d [him] first and now sucks [her]” (l.3) means that because the flea mixed both Donne’s blood and the woman’s they are already together. He is trying to woo her in order to spend the night with her. The flea represents sexual intercourse and “in this flea [their] two bloods mingled” (l.4) which proves that both him and her are already as one.

Donne only uses four sentences for each little section of the poem, each of the little sections starts out talking about something different. For example the first little section talks about how the woman should live with him and be his love and what pleasure he will receive when he catches the woman. Donne illustrates that by using the metaphor that he is the fish and she is the bait he is trying to catch. The second section Donne says “warmed by thine eyes more than the sun” saying the beauty of the woman is that of the sun. The third section talks about “Channels” and that the men swim threw the channels and will take any path to win the

It would seem that the protagonists in The Flea and To His Coy Mistress are both after the same thing; they’re attempting to persuade their mistress to have sex with them. Within each of the poems the male protagonists use imagery with insects to degrade the importance of chastity. Both of the passages refer to the woman’s virginity in comparison to these insects. Insects used as metaphors for sex appear differently within the texts. In The Flea, The protagonist calls it "the loss of maidenhead” and in To His Coy Mistress the male clearly states “that long preserved virginity” belonging to his mistress. The protagonists in the poems speak with graphic imagery. In The Flea the man uses the flea, which has bitten them both, as a symbol for their

At line 13, Donne writes “Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is”. The couple is united through the flea; thus, the flea is at once a representation for their bodies' union a matrimonial relationship, the combination of blood in the marriage’s consummation, and also a physical area in which all this is comprised. In addition, “temple” is an example of a divine language Donne uses to support the steadfastness of his argument. Additionally, at lines 16-18, Donne says “Though use make you apt to kill, let not to that self-murder added be, and sacrilege, three sins in killing three”. Donne is recollecting the religious allusion to the trinity to support his tone and language; thus, it is a “sacrilege” and “sin” kill the flea and thus to refute his own reason. Through his use of theological insinuations, Donne’s divine references truly help expose the complex and remarkable meaning of the