The Relationship Between Donne's Religious and Secular Verse.

Donne conveys how religion is a central idea through the use of many religious references throughout the holy sonnets. In ‘Death Be Not Proud’, Donne makes a religious reference to Jesus, ‘Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee’, expressing how religion was an underlying theme when handling many issues. When the two texts are studied in alliance, it allows the responder to draw a better understanding of the themes presented in ‘W;t’. This theme, science VS religion, has been emphasised due to the contrasts between Vivian and Donne and their context.

Finally, the woman kills the flea, and the speaker uses this event to hammer home his final argument. He backs off the more intense tone of the second stanza and returns to the playful sentiment with mock indignation, protesting the flea’s innocence to the crime for which he has been squashed. Finally, he returns the flea to its status as a bug, and tries once more for his

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 conceit in “The Flea” is between a flea and unrequited love in the physical aspect. The complexities of this young romance develop the speaker’s argument for a young women to sleep with him. The biting of the flea is compared to having sexual relations with the women. The speaker claims that the flea bite joins them together like sex. Thus, her preserved purity no longer exists because they now have shared the same fluids (blood) inside the flea. He compares the flea’s bite to the joining of souls such as the holy trinity. The speaker try to get the women to see how blown out of proportion her virginity really is and that not that big of a deal.

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

A text is essentially a product of its context, as its prevailing values are inherently derived by the author from society. However, the emergence of post-modern theories allows for audience interpretation, thus it must be recognised that meaning in texts can be shaped and reshaped. Significantly, this may occur as connections between texts are explored. These notions are reflected in the compostion of Edson’s W;t and Donne’s poetry as their relationship is established through intertextual references, corresponding values and ideas and the use of language features. Edson particularly portrays key values surrounding the notions of the importance of loved based relationships, and death and resurrection: central themes of Donne’s Holy Sonnets

Donne however, wrote “The Flea” in the first person giving the writing a comical twist as the speaker portrayed the aggressor, who metaphorically used the bite of the flea to defend his case to promote promiscuity. John Donne applied a consistent rhyme scheme using frequent assonance in each stanza which consisted of an iambic tetrameter followed by an iambic pentameter projecting the free willing mindset of the aggressor (Lorcher 2012). The speaker’s repeated use of ‘mark’ and ‘suck’ rhetorically reinforced the strength of his persuasiveness (Lorcher

He uses metaphors for the flea to convince her that the flea chose them to be together, “our two bloods mingled be” (Donne). The flea has sucked blood from both parties, and he takes this as a sign that they were destined to mingle together. He poet gets excited by the thought of the flea mixing their bloods together. As the blood mingles he continues with his absurd argument “This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is” (Donne). As if this flea has enough significance to constitute as a marriage temple and attempts to use this flea to unite them together. This is his attempt to dig him out of the hole he just through himself into. By using the word “temple” for the flea’s body, he continues to push a religious envelope of their

John Donne’s diction, detail, point of view, metaphysical format, and tone used in “Holy Sonnet 10” convey both a feeling of cynical and domination, and also a sense of mockery of death. The effects on the reader include assurance and confidence in facing death.

Donne transformed the love poetry he wrote in his early days, beginning in 1617 with the death of his wife Anne More, to religious poetry with a strong sense of awareness of death and its import. This poetic development from classical poetry to more personal poetry reflects the events that marked his own life, and can be traced throughout his poetry. This kind of personal and thereby

In “Holy Sonnet 14” by John Donne, dramatizes the conflict between contradictions and a relationship with God.

gift that a woman has to bestow on a man. But the poet does not seem

By making many references to the Bible, John Donne's Holy Sonnets reveal his want to be accepted and forgiven by God. A fear of death without God's forgiveness of sins is conveyed in these sonnets. Donne expresses extreme anxiety and fright that Satan has taken over his soul and God won't forgive him for it or his sins. A central theme of healing and forgiveness imply that John Donne, however much he wrote about God and being holy, wasn't such a holy man all of the time and tried to make up for it in his writing.

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.

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