Why Is The Flea Considered A Metaphysical Poem?

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John Donne’s poem, ‘The Flea’ is a metaphor for sex. The speaker shows a flea to a woman he wants to sleep with, and states that the flea has combined them into one by biting them both and sucking their blood. … A metaphor for sex, the flea has bitten both the speaker and the woman and their blood is mixed together.

What makes a metaphysical poem?

A group of 17th-century poets whose works are marked by philosophical exploration, colloquial diction, ingenious conceits, irony, and metrically flexible lines.

What is the message of The Flea?

Major Themes in “The Flea”: Love, sex, and seduction are the major themes crafted in the poem. The poet used a persuasive conceit of flea to show how effectively this tiny insect unites them by sucking their blood. Also, this mingling of their blood does not involve any sense of shame, sin, or guilt.

What does the speaker of the flea want?

The speaker wants to, the beloved does not, and so the speaker, highly clever but grasping at straws, uses the flea, in whose body his blood mingles with his beloved’s, to show how innocuous such mingling can be—he reasons that if mingling in the flea is so innocuous, sexual mingling would be equally innocuous, for …

How does the flea represent three lives in one?

He asks her to spare the three lives inside the flea. For example his life, her life and the flea’s life. He says that their mingled blood inside the flea means they are more than the married couple and the flea is their marriage bed and marriage temple.

Who is the father of metaphysical poetry?

Literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson first coined the term “metaphysical poetry” in his book Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179 – 1781) (Life of Cowlie section). It was also used by John Dryden to describe Donne’s poetry.

What is metaphysical poetry in simple words?

: highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression.

What are some examples of metaphysics?

The definition of metaphysics is a field of philosophy that is generally focused on how reality and the universe began. An example of metaphysics is a study of God versus the Big Bang theory. Excessively subtle or recondite reasoning.

What do fleas mean spiritually?

Through a spiritual lens, the flea may appear to someone who is feeling overwhelmed by their surroundings and serves as a suggestion to find quiet, dark places to heal — anticipating a rebirth.

What does the woman say to defend killing the flea in the flea?

By saying, “Though use make you apt to kill me,/ Let not to that, self murder added be,/ And sacrilege, three sins in killing three,” the speaker wants the lady to feel guilty for killing the flea (lines 16-18). He says that killing the flea is the same as killing three beings, the flea, himself, and herself.

What is the religious imagery in the flea?

The poem is full of religious imagery, such as when the speaker describes the bed as a “temple” in which the lovers are “cloistered”. In the end, the poem’s speaker is unsuccessful in persuading the woman to have sex with him, as she kills the flea in the third stanza.

Why is the collar a metaphysical poem?

As with virtually all of Herbert’s poems, “The Collar” is a meditation on his relationship with God. And as a metaphysical poet, Herbert uses an elaborate metaphor, or conceit, to illustrate the nature of that relationship.

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How is the Good morrow a metaphysical poem?

John Donne’s poem The Good Morrow is considered to be of a metaphysical realm as it Donne’s is typically metaphysical in its startling beginning, its dramatic nature and progression of thought, its striking metaphysical conceits, its range of intellectual imagery from the worlds of theology, geography, chemistry and …

What’s a metaphysical conceit?

The metaphysical conceit, associated with the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, is a more intricate and intellectual device. It usually sets up an analogy between one entity’s spiritual qualities and an object in the physical world and sometimes controls the whole structure of the poem.…

Why is metaphysical poetry important?

Metaphysical poetry is not intended to be read in a passive way, and its use of paradox, imagery and wit are meant to awaken the reader. Metaphysical poetry asks the philosophical questions about religion, faith, spirituality and being.

What is metaphysical poetry examples?

The Best Examples of Metaphysical Poetry in English Literature

  1. John Donne, ‘The Flea’. …
  2. John Donne, ‘The Sun Rising’. …
  3. Anne Southwell, ‘An Elegie written by the Lady A: S: to the Countesse of London Derrye supposeinge hir to be dead by hir longe silence’. …
  4. George Herbert, ‘The Collar’. …
  5. George Herbert, ‘The Pulley’.

Who is called the founder of metaphysical poetry?

John Donne was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets, a term created by Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century English essayist, poet, and philosopher.

Who first used the word metaphysical?

The term Metaphysical was first used by Dr Johnson who borrowed it from John Dryden’s phrase about John Donne , “ He affects the metaphysics”. 2.

How did metaphysical poetry start?

The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyrical quality of their verse.

What is metaphysical school thought?

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter.

What is Donne’s point of view about death?

Donne refused to think of death as the end of life. And he claimed that the way to conquer death was only through death.

What are the three sins in the flea John Donne?

Even he will admit that her experience and habits (“use”) would naturally lead her to want to “kill” him! But, he says, if she kills the flea she will be committing no fewer than three separate sins: murder, suicide (“self murder”), and sacrilege (or disrespecting the faith).

What happens to the flea in the flea?

The flea has bitten them both, and now their blood is mixed inside the flea. … He says the flea represents the joining of their blood, as in marriage. If she squashes the flea, she will be killing herself, the speaker, and, oh-by-the-way, committing sacrilege against the institution of marriage.

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