John Donnes poem The Flea and Andrew Marvells - Essay Example

John Donne’s poem “The Flea” and Andrew Marvell’s poem “To his coy mistress” John Donne (1572-1631), in his poem “The Flea” and Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) in his poem “To his coy mistress” cover a similar topic, the attempted seduction of a woman. The two poems are often discussed together because of this superficial overlap but they also display some significant differences. This paper briefly describes the two historical periods in which these poems occur, and compares the two poems drawing out similarities and differences in content and style. Key themes of eternity, religion, love, time and loss are discussed, revealing how these concepts are differently developed by each poet. The earlier poet, John Donne was a trained Anglican priest and he is known for his purely religious work as well as some much admired love poetry. John Donne’s youth was spent in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I from 1558-1603, which was an age of cultural renaissance and economic expansion. The eloquent and inventive work of Donne and his contemporary, Shakespeare (1564-1616), was highly regarded in this period by intellectuals and the common people alike, celebrating a national culture that was vibrant and confident. Political and moral issues were explored against a background of sound and steady leadership, and the figure of Elizabeth I, the so-called “virgin queen,” dominated political life. In her long reign Elizabeth I “insisted upon identifying her body with England on grounds she embodied the mystical power of the blood.” (Tennenhouse, 1986, p. 102). Sovereignty was passed on through blood, but power could be gained both through blood and through conquest. This is the kind of world that is alluded to in “The Flea.” “The Flea” was written while Donne was still a young man, probably in his twenties. (Thwaite: 1984, p. 57) The opening of “The Flea” is very direct with two stern commands to the woman he wants to seduce: “Marke but this flea, and marke in this,/How little that which thou deny’st me is” (lines 1-2). The tiny flea is then used as an object lesson in how easy it is to join together physical bodily fluids. This is quite a down to earth example which forces the reader to think of rather unpleasant physical details. It shows that Donne wants to use the properties of the real world as the basis for his argument. Even lofty concepts like love are thus contained in the image of the tiny flea: “Donne’s insistence on love as a bodily as well as spiritual experience differentiates him from the vast majority of early modern practitioners in the “philosophy of love.” (Targoff, 2008, p. 58) The matter-of-fact tone of the poem continues as Donne narrates how the flea has taken blood from both him and the lady, and how it enjoys this physical act which, presumably because it is in the flea’s nature to suck blood, “cannot be said/A sinne, nor shame, nor losse of maidenhead” (lines 5-6). The moral implications of the flea’s actions are then elaborated, much in the way that the meaning of a parable would be explained by a churchman. The flea is a metaphor for love between a man and a woman, and Donne argues this point using extended analogies. The mingling of blood is stated as evidence for a kind of marriage, and the bed is likened to a temple, lending religious support for the act of sexual union. Religious language for the body of the flea suggests that it has some kind of hallowed status, for example the phrase “cloysterd in these living walls of jet” (line 15) is an image reminiscent of an expensive church setting. When the woman crushes the flea, this is suddenly portrayed in as a kind of killing, “selfe murder” (i.e. suicide) and “sacrilege” (lines 16-19), suggesting that it is wrong to resist physical union. In the end, however, the insignificance of the flea is stressed, when the seducer points out that the tiny amount of blood that has been taken by the flea. The argument exaggerates the significance of the flea, and minimizes the reservations of the lady, and this is a twisting of traditional values, so that what is morally wrong is portrayed as right, and the lesson of the tale is revealed at the end: “…then learne how false feares bee:” (line 25) The poem is witty, because it undermines the reader’s expectations in an entertaining way, and derives a whole moral code out of something that people normally take for granted. Paradoxically Donne is using the allegorical style and the didactic methods of the preacher to teach the lady to let go of her fear of sin, and just treat her regard for her own honour and her fear of sin and its consequences, as trivial and bothersome matters which can be crushed without compunction like a flea. What is striking about the poem is its masculine use of cold logic and a disregard for the sensibilities of the woman. It has been noted that Donne’s poetry is often marked by a preoccupation with power: “the power of argument, of persuasion, the power of God, or of a king, or of a fiercely wooing lover.” (Thwaite: 1984, p. 56) The seducer in Donne’s poem knows what he wants, and he wants it immediately, rushing to the conclusion by implying that the deed has already been done inside the flea, and so they might as well do the same themselves. There is haste in his intensification from “almost” to “more than” in the line “Where wee almost, yea more than maryed are.” (line 11) There is also no doubt in his mind that the lady will submit to his will, as can be seen by the use of the word “when”, and not “if” in the penultimate line: “Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to mee,” (line 28) This attitude of patriarchal power, where sophisticated arguments are summoned to justify acts of union, mirrors the power politics of the Elizabethan age where strong monarchs, usually male, conquer territories by force and impose their will. The resistance of the woman, most memorably exemplified in Queen Elizabeth’s studied pose of virginity, is a power game and the male is all the more motivated to conquer a proud woman sexually, as a way of proving political dominance too. By the end of John Donne’s lifetime, and the beginning of Marvell’s lifetime, however, the Elizabethan golden age had ceased, and a new era of political and religious turmoil had begun. Conflict between Protestants and Catholics was growing, and this was linked to a struggle between Monarchists and Parliamentarians, resulting in a bitter civil war. Andrew Marvell was a Puritan, and a Parliamentarian, and his writings are known for satirical as well as metaphysical content. This period saw a renewed focus on reason and scientific progress, based on ideas from classical antiquity which had been lost in the medieval period, and also on modern discoveries. The opening lines of Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” are much more elegant and polite than Donne’s opening. There is an immediate bond between the seducer and the lady in the word “we” in the first line, “Had we but world enough and time…” and she is addressed politely using the word “Lady” (lines 2; 19). The opening statement is a very clever endorsement of the lady’s coyness and at the same time an assertion that the seducer does not want to wait patiently until she overcomes her moral reservations. The use of time here is as a backdrop to an extended metaphor of geography and history. The seducer portrays the situation of desiring physical love as being geographically separated, describing her position as being in an exotic distant land “by the Indian Ganges’ side” (line 5) and while he is stuck in a prosaic location “by the tide/Of Humber” (lines 6-7). This is an example of rhetorical exaggeration which mirrors Donne’s exaltation of the flea to a microcosm of physical love. Religious concepts of time are also extreme, as for example in mention of “ten years before the Flood” (line 8) which signifies the beginning of world history in Biblical terms, and “Till the Conversion of the Jews” (line 10) which is an unimaginable event in the far distant future. More scientific numbers are cited also, from a hundred, to two hundred, and even thirty thousand (lines 13-16). These excesses are designed to convey the high value that the seducer places on the woman: “For, Lady, you deserve this state,/Nor would I love at lower rate.” (lines 19-20). There is in the poem more than a faint suspicion that the author is mocking the woman, because the analogies with Biblical time and huge numbers appear fantastic, as if to stress how ridiculous he feels, being made to wait for the permission of the woman. One very effective tactic which Marvell uses is that of metaphors which convey his ideas very economically and with great impact, for example “My vegetable love should grow/Vaster than empires and more slow” (lines11-12) and “Time’s winged chariot hurrying near” (line 22), both of which show the contrast between eternity of high ideals and the shortness of human life. He mentions the complete loss that occurs in death as a threat that cancels out all her “quaint honour” (line 29) and urges that they should make love “like amorous birds of prey.” (line 38) It is significant that Marvell chooses proud and aggressive birds of prey, and not turtle doves, or some other gentle image. The poem can be read as a complex series of time metaphors, since intercourse means time is lost, but procreation creates a kind of immortality as the child lives on into the future. The last lines which mention the impossibility of making time go faster, also stress the ability of human beings to “make him run” which suggests that there is a shortcut to fulfilment if people just take the initiative. (Halli: 2002, 57-63) The two poems show different types of gender relationships from a pure, and probably youthful, power struggle, based on monolithic authorities like the Bible and the monarchy in Donne’s poem to a more sophisticated, and probably mature, use of classical analogies and irony in Marvell’s poem. Donne uses Biblical references, rhetorical arguments and real life analogies, while Marvell uses classical references, the same kind of rhetorical arguments and some very creative and highly exaggerated analogies from a broad range of sources, mostly using irony. The age of certainties in “The Flea” has given way to an age of contradictions in “To his coy mistress” and the poets show the emerging consequences of this change. References Bloom, H. (Ed.) (2004 ) The Best Poems of the English Language. New York and London: Harper. Donne, J. (1984) [circa 1600] “The Flea”. In A. Thwaite, (Ed.), (1984) Six Centuries of Verse. London: Methuen., p.57. Halli, R.W. Jr. (2002) The Persuasion of the Coy Mistress. Philological Quarterly 80 (1), 57- 70 Marvell, A. (2004) [circa 1648] “To His Coy Mistress.” In H. Bloom (Ed.) The Best Poems of the English Language. New York and London: Harper. Tennenhouse, L. (1986) Power on Display: The politics of Shakespeare’s genres. New York and London: Methuen. Targoff, R. (2008) John Donne, body and soul. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thwaite, A. (Ed.), (1984) Six Centuries of Verse. London: Methuen. Read More