Now let us sport us while we maySeduction of lovers in poems The Flea by Donne
The poems, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell and “The Flea” by John Donne, revolve around a common theme: the speakers’ use of metaphor and imagery to persuade their lovers to make love. Both of these poems illustrate many similarities and differences in their process of persuasion. Since both of these poems were written during the same time period, 1600s, the ideology of the speakers towards sex is similar in an overall context, but differ in their subtle views. While Marvell’s speaker persuades his lover by making references to society’s limitations, her beauty, religious perspectives, death and pleasures associated with lovemaking in a consistent manner throughout the poem, Donne’s speaker does the same through alternating his position several times. ... The speaker in the poem, “ The Flea” emphasizes the importance of limitations placed on their acts of love by their society’s beliefs and conventions. ... He tells her, however, that regardless of what she and the society they reside in thinks about them, they have “met”, that their blood is already combined in the flea. While Marvell’s speaker tries to persuade his lover to make love with him before time runs out of their relationship, Donne’s speaker tries to persuade his lover by using the argument that the world would never realize that their blood mixed in the act of sex, just like no one realized that their blood has been mixed and continues to mix in the flea. ... The speaker in Donne’s poem, however, uses a different approach. ... He diminishes the importance of her virginity by diminishing the importance of the flea, which represents their “two bloods mingled”. Throughout the poem, this speaker belittles their importance by comparing themselves with the flea. Continuing even to the last stanza, he makes the flea less important by using “spare”. Since, the flea symbolizes “you and I”, he makes themselves also appear unimportant.