Preview

The Flea Tone

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
306 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Flea Tone
Poetry: Tone, Voice, Meaning and Sound
John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ is a metaphysical love poem that takes the usage of a hilarious erotic narrative. The main theme of the poem is seduction that is shown using a persuasive vanity of a meek flea. The extremely original symbol of the flea is utilized to show unconventionally that both lovers are already adjoined in church and God’s eyes since the flea had bite off their bodies and intermingled with their blood. The tone used in the poem is extremely dramatic, ironic and farcically amusing. The creative and unorthodox speaker provides arguments of philosophical and theological that rest in the irrational authority that their merger has already been completed in the flea's little body (Gioia, 2011).

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the horror fiction story “The Black Cat”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character develops a hatred for not one, but two black cats. In this story, Poe writes in such a way that the reader can experience the main character’s slow descent into madness, guilt, and remorse (Milne). Personification plays a key role, particularly within the relationship between the main character and his cat(s).…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He was no longer aware of the woman’s smell, the cheap, coarse texture of her clothes nor even the nauseating side-to-side movement of the bus. His mind was fixed and bedazzled by this creature’s godlike omniscience and how, though he had never seen her eyes fall upon his person, she seemed to see him with supernatural clarity.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wit Play Analysis

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages

    John Donne is made up of various writing such as strong/sensual style, love poems, religious poems and latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires, and sermons. John was an author who was very passionate, yet had difficulty expressing and “to prove that glorified bodies in heaven are essentially identical to the bodies possessed on earth” as stated by Professor Ramie Targoff. Donne believes that the union of body and soul is what “makes up the man.” In Targoff’s writing, she is describing John as a very religious human being who aspires to go to heaven and be holy on earth and the afterlife. Ramie explains and describes Donne’s themes for his books, and what he wrote from a different aspect. As stated in the last paragraph of the book review, “Professor Targoff in this book succeeds in her tight and clear focus on a central topic, overt and implied, throughout Donne’s work. Her support for her arguments is generally quite convincing....” However, John’s work mostly consists of the bond between body and soul. He wrote a book taking the title of “Holy Sonnets” which did not consist of his usual writings. The book's content concludes of nineteen poems which were not published until two years after his death, in 1633. “The poems are characterized by innovative rhythm and imagery and constitute a forceful, immediate, personal, and passionate examination of Donne’s love for God, depicting his doubts,…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wit Play Analysis

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The connections shared between Donne’s metaphysical poetry and Edson’s play Wit, occupies more than the adaptation of ideas and form, it represents the relationship between text and context. Wit reshapes Donne’s experiences of agency and self evaluation, thereby rejuvenating the humanistic paradigms…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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 and Divine Poems. The purpose of these authors distinctly correlate as each has attempted to provide fresh insight into the human condition by challenging prevalent ideals. Thus, Edson incorporates Donne’s work to illuminate both explicit and implicit themes, creating an undeniable condition.…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This poem consists of three stanzas, which demonstrate the structure and meaning of the poem. The speaker compares the woman's life with the man to the flea while the woman is itching to kill it. In the first stanza, the man tries to seduce the woman. In the second stanza, the woman disagrees and disapproves of the seduction efforts. Finally, in the third stanza the man accepts the fact that she denies him, but tells her that he will not give up his efforts.…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In ‘To His Coy Mistress’ the speaker carefully constructs a subtle and logical argument as to why his addressee should sexually unite with him. The speaker attempts this proposition through finesse in manipulating reason, form and imagery. The reasoning employed would be familiar to a reader educated in Renaissance England, as it is reminiscent of classical philosophical logic, entailing a statement, a counter-statement and a resolution. In line with this method Marvell’s speaker codes his argument in classical imagery. To understand this argument I will be approaching the poem in three clearly defined sections, which are denoted in the poem with indented lines.…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    John Donne’s “The Flea” is a seductive poem in which the author introduces a flea as a symbol of morals, sex, marriage and a reference to Jesus and his innocence. By the end of the poem the author has created a very convincing argument as to why sex with him should be considered. He has proved that it is not only a big deal, but that it would just show their compassion for one another. He argues that if she did not then he is worried that she will be breaking her own morals. The symbol of the flea changes throughout the poem and represents three different sides that are evidence to his argument.…

    • 2406 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “Sex without Love” begins asking the reader a question, “How do they do it, the ones who make love without love?/” (Love 1-2). She there sets out her main point in writing this poem; how can the make something as beautiful as love without loving each other. She compares making love to that of “beautiful dancers/” (Love2) who are “gliding over each other like ice skaters over the ice/”(Love 2-3). When we then talk about her other poem, “Last Night”, it also provides us with vivid images that show the disconnection between the participants. “Love? It was more like dragonflies/ in the sun, 100 degrees at noon…/” (Night 1-2). She here describes how she felt when she was having sex with that other person, she then goes on to describe how she was having sex. “No kiss,/ no tenderness-more like killing, death grip/ holding to life, genitals/ like violent hands clasped tight/ barely moving, more like being closed/ in a great jaw and eaten/” (Night 12-17). “Sex without Love” provides us with vivid images that show us how she feels when she is having sex with someone she loves while in “Last Night” she describes how she felt while having sex with someone she didn’t love; it was a more rough and emotionless sex.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John Donne’s Holy Sonnets were a series of metaphysical poems written during the early 17th Century while he was converting to Anglicism from Roman Catholicism. Sonnet 14, known as “Batter my heart, three person’d God”, documents how Donne desires God to exercise his mastery over him in order to banish his qualms from his mind, which are manifested in the “reason” or “enemy”. However, the language that Donne utilises suggest a desperate and non-consensual sexual relationship with God, as though the doubts must be banished with force so great that he is unable to resist. While the erotic and religious are confused, the confusion is only mildly dangerous, as the overall intent is beneficial, to make Donne a more God-fearing and moral person.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Berenice” is a short horror story about a man who is going to marry his cousin, Berenice, and when she contracts a disease, she begins to deteriorate. As she slowly falls apart, the only things that remain healthy looking are her teeth which Egaeus, the main character, begins to obsess over. Later, Egaeus is falsely notified that Berenice has died and her grave has been disturbed. Next to him lays a box of all thirty-two white teeth and the reader is left to assume the rest. Poe utilizes irregular diction in his story to illustrate a mood of pure delirium. Poe ends the first paragraph of the story by saying, “How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness?—from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born” (1). The use of terms such as “unloveliness,” “sorrow,” and “evil” provokes feelings of sadness and depression, which aids the reader in understanding the story’s plot. Poe presents the words “ardent,” “startled,” and “wild” to accentuate the mood of nervousness that the narrator explains and feels. These words all help stress the narrator’s feelings of anxiety and confusion. Toward the end of the story, Poe uses the words “hideous” and “vain” which also adds to the mood of doom. Generally, the diction Poe utilizes helps to assort the story’s mood of hopelessness.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    holy Sonnet 10

    • 1458 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The analogous language of romantic passion ("I am my Beloved 's and my Beloved is mine" [Song Sol. 2.16, New International Version]) and intellectual paradox ("Whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it" [Matt. 10.39, NIV]) has always seemed natural to those seeking to understand and speak of spiritual mysteries. Even so, John Donne 's image of the Divine Rape in the "Holy Sonnet XIV," by which the victim becomes, or remains, chaste is at first startling; we are not accustomed to such spiritual intensity.[1] Previous explications have attempted to downplay this figure; for example, Thomas J. Steele, SJ [The Explicator 29 (1971): 74], maintains that the "sexual meaning" is "a secondary meaning" and "probably not meant to be explicitly affirmed." Moreover, George Knox [The Explicator 15 (1956): 2] writes that the poem does not "require our imagining literally the relation between man and God in heterosexual terms" and that "the traditions of Christian mysticism allow such symbolism of ravishment . . . ." However, even granting that the sexual imagery is not intended to be taken literally, but rather symbolically, we still must question Knox, as does John E. Parish: "One must infer that in Knox 's opinion such symbolism shares nothing with metaphor in its effect on the…

    • 1458 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poems from William Shakespeare and John Donne that interest me are “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” and “The flea”. One of the main reason that I am writing about these two poems are because they are the only ones that I know of because that is what we talked about in class and I have never read poetry in my life. Poetry has always been difficult for me to read because of my mild case of dyslexia. I have to read the sentence a couple of times before I finally figure out what the writer is trying to say. Obviously I have heard of Shakespeare before and knew about his works that included Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar. What I didn’t know was how successful and influential his poetry was. But unlike William Shakespeare, I have never heard about John Donne until the lecture a few days ago. After reading the two poems I believe that there are many similarities and differences in the style that both of these poets write.…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Courtly Love

    • 984 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Bibliography: Lewis, C. S. The Allegory of Love: A Study In Medieval Tradition. London: Oxford University Press, 1936.…

    • 984 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In John Donne’s poem, The Apparition explores the emotions of a jilted lover, rejected for someone who, in the eyes of the writer, is obviously inferior. For convenience, I will refer to the "I" of the poem as "he" and the subject as "she".…

    • 681 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays