Essay Explication of John Donne's The Flea

The third stanza is the inevitable ?fall from grace? as our speaker has finally ?taken off the gloves? and resorts to the vengeance of cold steel. The speaker utters one last phrase of motivation as he/she eerily takes pleasure in holding the tool of his nemesis? destruction. ?The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling to the feel of the .22, the bullets? neat noses.? The killer now takes a moment to lament on his/her course of action, acknowledging that her pacifism is a thing of the past; that he/she was once comparable to Darwin and his pension for non-violence. However, this does little to dissuade he/she from swiftly taking the life of the pests. ?I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing, now drew a bead on the little woodchuck?s face. He died down in the everbearing roses.? This stanza marked the turning point of the narrative as our speaker has been pushed beyond their boundaries into an unfamiliar realm of pleasure. A side of them has been exposed that has remained dormant for what appears to be the duration of their life. It is now a newfound sensation that has thrilled them beyond

     In the poem “The Flea” by John Donne, the speaker uses clever sexual innuendo and metaphors in an attempt to manipulate a certain girl into losing her virginity to him. The poem begins with the speaker explaining that a flea has bit both him and her, and now both of

be seen by the way he uses words like “Had we” and “we would”. This is

The poet addresses issues of the child observing an unhealthy and abusive relationship between his/her father and mother in the third stanza. The eighth line states, “Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?” These words insinuate that the father treated the child’s mother badly or was abusive to her and that she deserved better. This is so considering the only reason to forgive someone for marrying another implies they treated that person improperly. Likewise, having to forgive someone for not marrying another simply displays how the other person never received what he or she

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

Following a unique poetic language of the Renaissance, John Donne's ‘The Flea' is a poem illustrating the metaphor of a flea to represent the sexual act and relations between a man and woman. Portrayed through language, imagery, and structure John Donne's poem is one of conceit and seduction, as the speaker (assumed to be a man) follows a consistent pattern of persuasion to have premarital sex with a woman.

In these few lines, the speaker abruptly switches the tone from bitter to sympathetic. The poem becomes urgent, with a need to know. “The peculiar screeching of strings” characterizes the man’s thoughts, and “the luxurious fiddling with emotion” directly refers to the man’s emotional state.

The first stanza is addressed to ‘old men’ and how they should not simply slip away and die quietly, they should fight death until the end. Poetic techniques

Finally in the third stanza there is the semantic field of nature: ‘mountain’, ‘rivers’, ‘seas’. Nature has the role of judge. It decides whether she has to be punished or not. Nature is represented as a sort of divine entity deciding of her fate because she has decided of someone else’s right to live. Again the water is represented several times with ‘rivers’ (line 17) and ‘seas’ (line 18 and 19) it gives the impression that she thinks

Poetry is not only a brilliant form of expression, but also a powerful tool for persuasion. The renowned metaphysical poet John Donne uses the genre for this very purpose in “The Flea,” a work in which he encourages a young woman to have premarital sex with him. Donne backs his argument by referring to a flea that has sucked his own blood as well as his lover’s. In the first stanza Donne assures the woman that sleeping together would be a minor act. When he says “How little that which thou deniest me is” he promises the woman that the act would be as miniscule as the flea is in size (1.2). Also, by using the word “deniest” he tries to make the women feel a sense of guilt, as if

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

By merging the stanzas together and omitting the four lines in the final draft, Plath is focusing her attention on the humans rather than the bees. To further understand the significance of this change it helps to look at the “eleventh” stanza in the original draft. The importance of the stanza separation in the original version is seen through looking at the first and second line “Black as the devil, and vengeful/The bees found him out” (Plath, manuscript). In the original draft, the stanza separation shifts the focus from the third beekeeper back onto the bees and allows for a completely different reading where “Black as the devil, and vengeful” describes the bees rather than the wound had there been no separation in stanzas. The bees are described as though to be swarming and seeking vengeance for their disturbed queen. Plath seems however to want to focus on the person being stung rather than the bees and therefore omits the four lines and merges the stanzas together. In one of her letters to her mother, Plath describes how her husband is stung by bees for being carless much like the beekeeper in the poem (The County Dublin Beekeepers' Association, para 8). By getting rid of the lines and joining the two stanzas, Plath demonstrates how the bees of the hive would react in such a situation; without focus on anything but the beekeeper who had disturbed their peace. The added lines focused too much on the bees and the stings on the beekeepers face. The removed lines allow the reader to remain in the descriptive point of view of the bees rather than going back to the narrator’s point of

In John Donne’s poem, “The Flea”, Donne uses the conceit of the flea to contrast the insignificant size of the flea and the incredibly significant metaphor attached to the flea. The speaker of the poem is talking to a woman, trying to convince her into having sex with him outside of marriage. This poem can be broken into three stanzas, of nine lines each, utilizes the image of the flea to convey three main ideas: the first as a vessel where their essence mingles, second as the institution of marriage, and finally as an insignificant representation of honor which would have no effect on them. Donne’s hyperbolic use of the flea extends through the poem as a metaphysical conceit to convey a logical argument out of something seemingly

The song describes eloquently both the passion and struggle involved in a troubled relationship, giving a fantastic picture of lovers in an honest attempt to mend what is broken. Though perhaps in a more one sided manner, such is the struggle between God and Israel. In the song, it states, “I'm gonna break things I'm gonna cross the line And make you wake up 'Cause you won't I'm gonna name names, I'm gonna call us out I'm gonna say it If you won't.” Like God’s prophesied judgement towards Israel, the songwriter takes charge, trying to rid their relationship of the conflict that spurns it. Even more, the song goes on to say, “Oh I don't wanna fight But I'll fight with you If I have to, If I have to.” Such lyrics further express this point: God does not necessarily desire to judge Israel, but their refusal to turn away from idolatry has led Him to do what must be done. Like the songwriter, God will not stand by and simply let the relationship