By the end of the poem, the flea that had brought the two lovers together by blood has been killed, but the argument that it has inspired has been brought to its culmination.
John Donne is one of the most important poets of the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods in English literature. In many ways, what is now known as metaphysical poetry began with Donne and his innovative use of imagery, particularly his fondness for extended metaphors and elaborate conceits which draw on what were, at the time, new scientific theories and discoveries. Key characteristics of metaphysical poetry include: complicated mental and emotional experience; unusual and sometimes deliberately contrived metaphors and similes; and the idea that the physical and spiritual universes are connected.
But after his conversion from Catholicism to the Church of England, and his entry into the priesthood Donne would eventually rise to become Dean of St. He is regarded as a key figure of the Elizabethan and Jacobean literary world and perhaps second only to Shakespeare in terms of the influence a writer of that time had on subsequent English literature. The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University.
Image: John Donne , public domain. He could write searingly beautiful spiritual sonnets yet had this winking side to him as well. One of my all-time favorites, and I actually took a class in John Donne in college yeah, I was an English major.
Enter your email address to subscribe to this site and receive notifications of new posts by email. He says that his lover replies that neither of them is less noble for having killed the flea. This poem alternates metrically between lines in iambic tetrameter and lines in iambic pentameter, a 4 - 5 stress pattern ending with two pentameter lines at the end of each stanza.
Thus, the stress pattern in each of the nine-line stanzas is Definition: A conceit is a kind of metaphor that compares two very unlike things in a surprising and clever way.
Often, conceits are extended metaphors that dominate an entire passage or poem. Metaphysical poet John Donne was known for his conceits often called metaphysical conceits. Why is the Flea a metaphysical poem?
In the poem "The Flea," John Donne uses a metaphysical conceit between a simple flea and the complexities of young romance to develop the narrator's argument for a young woman to forfeit her chastity. The flea furthers the speaker's argument in that sexual intercourse unites their souls like the bite of the flea.
What type of poem is the flea? Each stanza finishes with a triplet. The lines alternate between 8 and 10 syllables, or iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter.
What is a metaphysical conceit? A metaphysical conceit is a complex, and often lofty literary device that makes a far-stretched comparison between a spiritual aspect of a person and a physical thing in the world.
Quite simply, a metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor, which can sometimes last through the entire poem. What does metaphysical poet mean? The term metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterized by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse.
What is Ovid's flea? Ovid's flea A Latin poem wrongly attributed to Ovid called Elegy for a Flea remarks on the ability of a flea to move anywhere. This theme is taken up by John Donne in his poem, The Flea. What is the tone of the flea? In "The Flea," he showed the passion to his mistress via persuasive attitude.
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