Donne's The Sun Rising and Marvell's To His Coy Mistress

With the theme that love is pessimistic. We see how Donne uses a negative connotation of diction. With such words as “devours”, “Tyrant Pike”, “burn” and “starks” it creates a negative tone and view of love. With that view on love created with his chose of words, his use of phrase make love look even worse. For example, when he says, “But that it can ten in less space devour;” and “He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry”. It helped the speaker be able to convey his negative look on

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.

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

The first quatrain introduces divine love by comparing the parting of a lover to death when saying, “As virtuous men pass mildly away...” (1) and, “So let us melt, and make no noise…” (5). These two lines from the first two quatrains signify that love should not be bothered by distance because divine love is inseparable. The idea that divine love is inseparable is later supported in Line 13-15, which initiates the idea of earthly love by saying, “Dull sublunary lovers cannot admit absence”. These lines resemble earthly love by contrasting the speakers love to sublunary lovers. Sublunary means belonging to this world, which indicates that those particular lovers belong to earth. Since they belong to earth their love is anything that pertains to the human senses, therefore physical presence is necessary for their love to survive, rendering it temporary. This image of two sides of love cements Donne’s belief that his love is true because his love is so sacred that distance cannot affect it.

Love, an extremely and unsurprisingly popular topic among writers in every time period and corner of the world, is the central subject of two similar, yet contradicting literary works – “The Passionate Shepard to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe and “The Bait” by John Donne, respectively. Each author masterfully utilizes imagery, but in different ways to achieve two different purposes. Marlowe’s idealistic vision of what love should be is countered by Donne’s rather cynical realism.

When readers reflect on the poetry of the seventeenth century, poets such as John Donne and the

The author,unlike Thomas, uses words that are caring and nurturing during his work. Donne uses adjectives such as “lover’s”, “dull”, and “mildly” to explain his love for his woman and to express to her their love will not be forgotten. Both of these author’s take this literary device into their writing for descriptions to their contrasting stories. These authors use these adjectives with force to express how they feel about the loss of a loved one and how others should feel due to their experience with

Stylistically, Donne’s poems often present disputes between two lovers, his satirical and sometimes even sceptical interpretation of love and relationships, and also his ties to his faith and religion (Locklear, 2014). Donne’s visionary works led him to become a sole initiator of the metaphysical style of poetry. The ideologies of the time in which he was writing impacted his perspectives greatly, but also provided a stimulating and solid viewpoint from his

What Shakespeare and Donne have in common is that numerous of their sonnets have a universal theme of love as well as their desire for a loved one. The most distinct theme in Shakespeare and Donne’s sonnets and plays is true and eternal love. In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 and Donne’s “The Flea,” marriage is illustrated similarity even though both of the poets have different views on marriage. In this analysis, both Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 and Donne’s “The Flea” will be observed for the reoccurring theme of love as well as how both writers define marriage.

In both poems Donne uses his knowledge of the science of his time to further his conceit such as his use of alchemical references in Valediction

people reading his works. Donne’s works drew the readers into the poems and giving a person connection to

This week’s lecture is about John Donne. This essay is going to cover the differences between Donne and Jonson, metaphysical poetry, Donne’s life, his work, techniques, religious poems & sermons, and the final poems. John Donne was very close with Ben Johnson and sometimes they were compared. However, they are extremely different people. These two men had different temperaments, personalities, and world outlook, etc.. During his time, Johnson was the more popular and influential between the two men. His was able to continue this popularity to other generations. Donne was only able to expand throughout a private group but he was well-known during his time and he was even admired by people. However, he was never able to compete against Johnson. He reputation even faded over several years but his work was able to make a comeback.

William Shakespeare is recognized for being one of greatest poets of all time. His works are still popular to this day. Many of his works included extended metaphors and similes with rhetorical language and were rooted in the nature of love. Two of his poems that are rather alike, but also very contrastive are “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun.” They both contain a core theme of love or anti-love in some aspects. While these two poems are built around the same type of subject, their interpretations come across in separate ways. In contrast to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18” which is a serious love poem that contains imagery and metaphors, Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” is more negative and humorous but contains imagery and similes.

The movement through each stanza in “the Sunne Rising” also holds a number of dramatic contrasts. Donne wants the reader to see just how exceptional his lover is, and through each stanza he uses dramatic contrasts to help assert his lover in different ways. The first stanza conveys egotism and insolence towards the sun and the pace and rhythm is very hasty. This stanza begins with a series of

In this essay I will mainly focus on two poems written by John Donne, The Rising Sun and Death be not proud. These poems were written during the Elizabethan era, which was an era mainly characterized by love and colonialism, on separate terms of course. These principles often influenced poets who lived during this period. Their poetry acts as testimonies of their underlying thoughts and desires. Furthermore, metaphysical poets deliver a more divine and profound perspective to their poetry. Within their conceits, they manage to engage and delight themselves in deeper movements. This essay will further discuss how John Donne used death and the sun to his disposal. I will also critically analyse the two poems as well grasp on external aspects