The name "metaphysical poets" is now applied to a group of 17th-century poets who, whether or not directly influenced by John Donne (1572-1631), use similar poetic procedures and abstruse arguments. Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), who was born 50 years later than Donne, was one of these metaphysical poets.Metaphysical style is characterized by a seemingly outrageous or far-fetched logic, which organizes the poem in the form of an urgent or heated argument--with a disdainful lady who sexually rejects her lover, or God, or death. The extravagant uses of hyperbole produce a startling and witty effect. Give some examples that illustrate this "shock tactic" of metaphysical poets. How do the ingenious uses of paradox, pun, the rough and colloquial idioms, the dramatic form of apostrophe or direct address create the shocking effect? Or, among the poems we discussed so far (by Donne or Marvell),which simile or metaphor is most shocking for you?
31 comments:
For me, among the poems we discussed so far, the ‘’The Flea’’ written by John Donne is the most impressive one. In the poem, the speaker wants to have sex with a woman, but he still mentioned about the relationship with God. For example, in the stanza 1, the speaker claimed that he and the young lady have already have sex in the flea’s belly, because the flea mingled their blood. And that refers to the trinity (he, the lady, and the flea). Also, in the stanza 3, after the young lady killed the flea, the speaker still tried to convince her that it’s no harm for her to sex with him because she doesn’t get hurt from the flea’s death. I think this kind of metaphor is pretty interesting, because the speaker tried everything in order to get what they want.
I think the metaphor of the poem “the Sun rising”, which written by John Donne, is shocking for me. It is impossible for me to make connect between Sun and our love. The sun gives us the energy and light, so we might consider it as a positive person. But in the view of John Donne, the light of sun becomes an obstacle of their love. The light projects into the window and bother their intimacy. So, John starts to criticize the mistake the Sun made and teach it what it should do. They can be seen in line3 to line8.
In addition, john thinks the purpose of the sun shine is to find luxury thing, such as spice and mine in India and asks it which one is better, luxury thing and their love.
How great is their love? She is all states, and all princes I, Nothing else is. Their love is true gold and the other’s are mimic, all wealth alchemy. Besides, his love and her love become a wonderful sphere, which is better than the Sun. in other words, they have the whole would because of their love.
I have to say his love poems are fantastic and hyperbole.
The poem from John Donne,"Death,be not proud" attracts and shocks me most.
In the beginning, he personafied "Death" just like he was noegotiating with a real person.
On one hand, he showed how great people felt about it; on the other hand, he expressed his own stubbornness and refused to give in to Death.I think his attitude toward fighting agaisnt the thought what most people were following is foresighted and brave.
From line four, he shows no fear to Death despite the fact that his life might be taken away by it. He said he even got more pleasure from taking rest and sleeping than Death gave to him.
He described the following things which are Death's master - Fate, Chance,kings and desperate men,Poison, War, Sickness and poppy which he meant opium are all on the list.
At last,from "One short sleep...thou shalt die",Donne pointed out that death has not power over a chrstian soul.
I think the way he considered and the capability of making connection with two objects which normal people like most of us can't think of with beautiful words is creative. Who ever tried to challenge the serious issue,"Death" in such a talented way? Sometimes it's hard to define genius and insanity.
Well, “The Sun Rising” is the most impressive for me. Before I read and realized the poem, I think Sun is consider and source of my good mood because Sunday is a free day of a week and the sun always brings great weather. However, in this poem, John Donne interprets the sun as a trouble maker. He uses unruly and old fool to describe the sun. It differs with my past thought. He talks to the sun not to disturb him and his lover because there are other people should be disturbed. Also, he challenges the sun that he could eclipse it just by a wink. In the last stanza, he writes that nothing could change his love. He and his lover are the center of universe and the whole world. The sun has completed its duty to warming the world and should disappear as soon as possible.
I feel the most impressive one in John Donne’s poems is “Batter My Heart, Three-personed God.” Most of the words are meaningful and strong because he cried out to God his mind. For example, from “That I may rise and stand, overthrow me, and bend/ Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new” and “Divorce me, …, except you ravish me,” we can see he requests God to batter him. In other words, God is like a silversmith, and I think the metaphor of John Donne is so unique. Another poem I like is “The Good-Morrow.” For instance, from the beginning to line three, the word ‘weaned’ let me feel so funny and so impressed. Moreover, I feel the last stanza is too sentimental. John Donne’s poems have an incomparable fascination, and I like them very much!
Among the poems we discussed so far, Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress “shocks and makes a big impression on me. In this poem, Marvell reminds again and again about carpe diem. To express his desire, he uses many ways to construct his poem as subjunctive mood is a way to describe what he yearns for. For instance, line 2 he wrote coyness is not crime, however he thinks it is. He wrote that he would find rubies for his lover if he has time; however his life is too short in line 5. Marvell also uses hyperbole to hyperbolize his love would insist until the conversion of the Jew in line10. Moreover, he would use 100 years to praise his lover’s eyes; 200 years each breast. I love his simile as “vegetable love” that means their love will grow in a slow way in line 11, it’s so romantic. And he views time as his enemy winged chariot comes; I think it’s a personification here. Next, he instigates the girl to cherish his love otherwise it will become dust and he will turn into grave. “Now lets us sport…”implicates he wants to sex with the girl and destroys her virginity. He also uses the form of apostrophe on “am’rous” and “pow’r” to tantalize readers in line 38 and 40. At last, Marvell uses pun in line 45”though we cannot make our sun”, here, sun also means son. If someone wants a son, they still need to make love first. In this poem, I like Marvell express his love and desire (maybe some lechery) directly. His love poem integrates many forms to support that lure readers to admire and relish over and over.
Among the poems we discussed so far ,John Donne 's poem "The Sun Rising" is the most impressive poem to me. In this poem, Donne uses Sun 's image to describe his love for lover and he treats Sun as a person, which means he personifies the Sun. Donne blames Sun passing through the window because Sun was disturbing he and his lover. This reminders me of the poetry of the Tang Dynasty written by Ju-yi Bai, Song of Eternal Sorrow.(長恨歌) In the "Song of Eternal Sorrow", there are also uses the same image- Sun, to describe the love between the emperor and his lover. However, the image os the Sun in this poem just took a very small part. In Donne 's poem , there are many interesting conceit of Sun, for example, Donne laugh at Sun that he can make Sun disappear easily when he close his eyes, proving he is more powerful than Sun. Donne also images he is the King and all wonderful things are all in he and his lover's bed. This also a interesting way to show his love for his lover.
I will choose the poem 'the flea' of course. In this poem, John Donne showed his wits in playing words. In the poem, the speaker wants to have sex with the girl. The speaker claimed that they already had sex before. Since the flea bit the speaker and the girl. There blood melted in the flea's belly, just like they had sex. So, if it happened once, wht not have the second time. John Donne is so inteligent in playing the words. I like this kind of the methphor.
I think the poem “The flea” impresses me very much. I think John Donne was an outstanding poet because he could turn his emotion into a poem. However, in the poem, he was quiet cunning and good at talking. Although he was rejected by the girl, he used a flea to combine himself and her. In the first stanza, he said the flea suck his blood and the girl’s blood. That means the poet wanted to tell the girl that in the flea’s body we had already gotten union; however, now why did you reject my love? In the last stanza, the girl killed the flea. However, John Donne still used his witty and cunning so that he wrote this stanza. He told this girl even though you killed the flea which contained the girl’s blood, the poet’s blood and the flea itself, you would not lose your life from the flea’s death. What the poet wanted to say is that you would not lose your virtue after you slept with me. I think John Donne was not only very good at making an excuse but also a very smart person. Therefore, he could write such sophistic poem and this poem impressed me very much.
For me, between the poet of Donne and Marvell, John Donne is most shocking, especially The Flea, one of his poems. The Flea is about a man persuades a woman to sleep with him. I can not imagine how cheeky a man is. But Donne uses many ‘’shock tactics’’ that makes me put myself into the poem. The title, The Flea, is a metaphor. It symbols the bed of marriage. The poet uses the flea to show that it sucks blood of a man and a woman. So their blood are mixed that may be pregnant in the Renaissance. And in line 8, pampered swells imply to be pregnant. The poet shows that what a man wants to do a woman just express on the flea’s body. Although a woman hits the flea finally, this behavior doesn’t hurt both of them. So a woman won’t lose her life from the flea’s death. And a woman also won’t lose her virtue after she sleeps with a man. How sophisticated and shock this poem is.
I think the most impressive poem is “The Flea” written by John Donne. In the poem Donne uses elaborate metaphor to describe how much the speaker wants to have sex with the woman. For example, in first stanza, the speaker thinks he has already had sex with the woman, because their bloods have sucked by the flea and mingled in the flea. And, in second stanza, the woman tries to kill the flea, but the speaker says it is sacrilege to kill the flea, because there are three lives (he, the woman and flea’s bloody) in the flea. In last stanza, the speaker even says that the woman who doesn’t want to have sex with him is false, because even if the flea has died that will not change the truth they have had sex in the flea. Anyway, I think the whole poem is full of sophistry and baloney.
Clare(49788036)
I think the "Death,be not proud" written by John Donne is really amazing for me. How could a poet face death with so brave attitude? Almost of people consider that death is mighty and dreadful. But he didn`t think so. He said that from rest and sleep could defeat death. And he described death with Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men. His last sentence is the most impressive on me "death, thou shalt die."
In my opinion, I feel death seems still far away from now. I have ever think about if one I died. What attitude do I choose to face death`s coming? I still don`t have a answer now. But I think maybe I won`t be as courageous as John Donne. I have to say he is really a genius.
Among their poems, I think Johm Donne’s “The Flea” astonish me the most. In this poem, speaker uses a lot of conceit to convince the lady to sleep with him. In the first stanza, the speaker says that the flea sucks both his and the lady’s blood, and their bloods will mingle in its belly. He thinks that actually they have slept together already, and they even have a baby in flea’s belly. In the second stanza, when the lady is going to pinch the flea, the speaker desist her and says she will kill three lives if she tweaks the flea. Moreover, it is also a kind of suicide and sacrilege, so she will get three sins in killing three lives simultaneously. In the third stanza, the lady still kills the flea finally. The speaker thinks it is innocent. And even it was dead, they do not become weaken now. So from this result, he can prove that she will not need to carry the sins in killing three lives and also she will not lose her virtue after she sleeps with him.
In this poem, John Donne successes to use metaphysical conceit to describe a man to a lecherous people, a man use exaggerated metaphor only wants a woman to sleep with him. And this writing technique will make readers understand more about what the speaker really wants to say or do, and we can also enjoy the interesting metaphor at the same time.
I think what impress me most is [Death, be not proud] by John Donne. It’s quite common to see lots of apostrophe and personification in his poems. In this poem, John Donne personifies death as an arrogant person. Most of people are afraid of death, because they know they will be taken away by it one day. The fear makes people think death is powerful, and they all surrender to it. However, the speaker doesn’t think death can’t kill him, because he isn’t scared of it. Death has no power over a Christian soul, and if best men/ Christian die, their bones and souls will get rest and deliverance. John Donne mentions that death is enslaved by fate, chance, kings, desperate men, poison, war and sickness. Death shouldn’t be so cocky, since human beings do not die but live eternally after “one short sleep.” We can see the paradox in final line that he says “Death, thou shalt die.” He thinks that death is vanquished. He convey the message that a triumphant assertion of Christian belief in an afterlife.
I like the way that John Donne used the mingled bloods in the flea to express his love. It sounds ridiculous, but also creative. Trying every way to make the connection with the woman he loved. I can totally understand such action and feeling. It makes me feel that the other and I are getting closer. The argument is apparently right but actually wrong let the reader step in his trap. The extravagant uses of hyperbole really produce a startling and witty effect. I consider that the hyperbole which Donne used are performing sensitive and seeming sensible. They’re not just only nonsense and exaggerated.
The poems of John Donne are famous for being composed by a lot of metaphors. I pick out “The Sun Rising” to talk about which part of his poems make me the most impressive. First, he used busy, old and unruly to describe the sun and those words were totally opposite to our general thinking. In tradition, we all think that the sun brings the power to us, and the emergence of it represents the beginning of one day. It’s so positive and active. But he thought it was so detestable. The shine penetrated to their bed and it interrupted the love between him and his lover. In addition, the schoolboys also due to the sun which caused that they were unwilling to go to school. And their love isn’t like seasons, clime and so on is changeable, he believed that the love between them can be eternal. To him, the sun was nothing. He could let it eclipse only blinked his eyes. Still, to him, his lover was important than the spice and mine which were luxurious in his era. And those were coveted to everyone. But he thought he didn’t need to go outside to look for those because he held everything in his bedroom.
He also wrote down that “she is all states, and all princes I, at a glance, you may think he depicted how strong the love was but if you look deeper, you can find that it was full of patriarchy. In the end, he mentioned the sun only needed to warm his bedroom because it was the center of the universe. To sum up, I think it is so foolish and exaggerated.
The poem “Death, be not proud” written by John Donne impresses me the most. John Donne personified death in the poem and it’s pretty fresh to me. In line 4, he said that death cannot take away his life because he has a spiritual soul. He tried to convey the idea that death had no power over a Christian soul. And in line 9 and 10, he even tried to dethrone death. He said that death is enslaved by fate, chance, kings, desperate men, poison, war and sickness. These lines left a paradox question in my mind which is “can death die?”
“Batter my heart, three-personed God” uses an interesting, conflict way to describe God and speaker. In the title (or line 1), John Donne has said that God is a three-personed God. We can learn God plays three characters in the poem. The first character is a silversmith, speaker saw him as a broken pot and how God loves him is to batter him. Here is a conflict between the silversmith and the broken pot. Second character is an invader and speaker is a usurped town. The town was swayed by the invader. And third character is a force. Here has lots conflict between God and speaker. In people’s thinking, love is a kind of tender, sweet feeling; however, what we see in the poem is violent, aggressed. Speaker claimed that God loves him and we see God love him in a violent way such battering, invading and ravishing him. God represents religion and speaker represents carnality. Why the poem shocked me because love should be bittersweet. But bitter feeling is too strong to see sweet love. And I can’t understand why speaker is in an ecstasy of joy and why he willing to be ravished. The poem makes me think again what love is though the poem was written more than 300 years ago.
I think the most impressive poem write by John Donne is “The Good-Morrow”. This poem use morning to describe love. The poem isolates the lovers from reality but gives them a different kind of awareness. In lines two”Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? The lover think each other is the right one and think that the past loves must not be considered as serious. I think when he find the true love and he has this feeling.This is the kind of metaphor that he describes. I think he want to say that although the past love make him sad, he don’t care because the right one is his lover now. In line eight “And now good-morrow to our waking souls”. He wants to describe that each soul has "awakened" to the other, and has discovered a whole world in it. I think this metaphor is very beautiful. The third stanza shows the perfect sincerity of both lovers. I like the poem he write and like the metaphor too. And i can feel that they love each other very mucsh in this poem and they are very sweet couple. And he is very treasure the true love between them. This perfect love is not only immortal. It makes the lovers immortal, too. So the metaphor can let us feel the feeling in this poem.
I think the poem Death, be not proud by John Donne attracts me the most. During the 16th century people are afraid of death and don’t want to face it or talk about it. However, John Donne wisely used metaphor to tell us that actually death doesn’t overthrow us because there are many things such as fate, chance, kings, desperate men, poison, war and sickness are death’s master. Actually, death is enslaved by those elements. John Donne told us that we don’t have to be afraid of death because death can’t kill us. This poem is a triumphant assertion of Christian belief in an after life because death has no power over a Christian soul. In line 7to 8 John Donne used these two lines said death is enslaved and our soul is delivered. He successfully used metaphor to tell people that we don’t have to be afraid of death. Even in the modern days people are thinking death is the dominator in our life however, in this poem I am convinced by John Donne that death isn’t the ruler in our life. There are many things can overthrow death. I appreciate his wise. Therefore, I love this poem the most.
Let’s discuss “ The Garden” by Andrew Marvell; is a conflict of the speaker words in the poem and his illusion. The whole poem is talk about that the speaker prefers plant than human being. The speaker wants to live in the world there has no women. He thinks that Eden would be better without Eve. From these facts, we might think that the speaker is a misogynist. But the creepy thing is that some words from the content shows the speaker’s sexual fantasies. Such as ripe apples, wine, nectarine, peach, Apollo and Daphne, Pan and Syrinx. These words show the intensive sexual desire of the speaker. The speaker engages in a sexually suggestive intercourse with the garden that makes the feminine subservient to male sexual drives. So I think this poem is a very good sample of metaphor poem and also one of the most shocking one that we discussed.
"The Flea" shocks me the most. In the poem, the speaker went all the way just wanting to have sex with a woman.
He was kind of annoyed, being too exaggeratory. How could a flea be so important just because it sucked both of them? I believe he definitely upset the woman, because she killed the flea, wanting to stop his nonsense. She did not succeed, unfortunately. Although the flea was killed, he still could use the death to make his statement.
In the end of the poem, he even told the woman that she would not lose her virtue after having sex with him. That is ridiculous!
Though I think the speaker is really annoyed, but I agree that he was so determined to pursue what he wanted!
The characters of Petrarchan conceit were exaggeration, this different writing style were interesting me a lot. Among the poems we had read before, I thought that both John Donne and Andrew Marvell are shocking me. Between two of them, John Donne’s poem were amazing and shocking me much.
John Donne’s techniques in creating poem was very special. When people described the love story, there are a lot of manners to represent .He showed his love in the way of cursing. He blamed the Sun to get out away so that they could continue their love. In order to deceive a girl to have sex with him, he used a funny way to analyze a flea which intended to convince her. More or less, he was very self-confident that his love was the most important thing in the world which would not be influence by any hardship.In addition, he challenged the issue which nobody dare to attempt. I greatly appreciated that his creating about asking the God to have sex in order to be saving, doubting whether there is a word after life or not.
Exaggeration and unexpected thinking were the vivid mark of John Donne and also the reason why I prefer most.
In my opinion, the most impressive poem among John Done and Andrew Marvell’s masterpieces is “The Flea” by John Done. The speaker could use so many ingenious words to induce a lady to have sex with him. The simile between their love and the flea still draws my attention well because this kind of simile is never heard before even in the past 400 years.
In the first stanza, the speaker claims that the flea sucks the lady then sucks him. It wittily points out the lady had already made love with him although it’s just the speaker’s quibble. This sentence is so shameless but meanwhile is so confident, it really makes me impressed very much. Not only the sexually allure, but also the speaker’s amazing imaginativeness.
In the second stanza, the speaker further expands their relationship. He tells the lady do not crush the flea, because they had already merged in the flea’s body. If the lady kills the flea, she will commit a suicide and a murder in the same time.
In the third stanza, the lady fights back. She kills the flea after all, and says: “Look, I didn’t die!” However, the speaker always has his own logic to molest the lady. He claims: “You won’t lose your life from the flea’s death, neither will you lose your virtue after sleep with me.”
These sentences are totally a sophistry; however, the speaker could use these words so powerfully and confidently. This kind of paradox really put a strong image in my mind.
I think the poem "The Flea" is most unique one for me. John Donne uses
a flea as a metaphor for sexual connection resulting in conception. In first stanza, the speaker explains that the woman is rejecting him very little and that a flea which has just bitten the speaker has bitten
her in return. In the second stanza, the speaker explains there are three lives in one flea which means the speaker's, the woman's, and the flea's own. And speaker thinks as their bloods have already mingled in the flea, it means they are married. Finally, the woman kill the flea which means the end of the love. I think the poem is so special and kind of funny.
I want to talk about Andrew Marvell “To His Coy Mistress,” because I do the presentation about this poem and I read it carefully. The speaker of the poem addresses a woman who has been slow to respond to his sexual advances. In the first stanza he describes how he would love her if they had an unlimited amount of time. In the second stanza, Andrew pointed out how short human life is and he also personifies times and uses pun to describe how fast times have lost. So in the last stanza, the speaker urges the women enjoy the life and makes love with him. Andrew indicated that life is too short to enjoy, therefore, we must hold the time enjoy life and do whatever you want to do.
The poem ”The Sun Rising” written by John Donne, is most attractive to me. John Donne uses the apostrophes in the poem. In the beginning, He uses busy old fool and saucy pedantic wretch to address the sun. And he thinks even the sun, which has great power, shouldn’t disturb him and his lover. The sun can not also compete with them. Line17 to 18, he points out that he and his lover don’t need to travel around the world to explode, because the luxurious and beautiful things are all in their room. In this poem, the conception is really impressive for me because we commonly think the sun is the nature power which we can not resist. But I think it is also very exaggerative.
Among the poems we discussed so far,“the Sun rising” written by John Donne has moved me.
At the start of the poem John Donne uses rude words to scold the sun because of the sun bothers his lover and him. In my memory, if we talk about sun, the sun always represents all positive things like energy, light and warm. But in John Donne's poem, the sun becomes a bad guy who wants to seperate he and his lover.This new view on the sun is suprising me. I have never think the sun can be a negative meaning. Line 13 in poem "I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink."is interesting. He challenges the sun that he could eclipse it just by a wink.
In final stanza, He uses all best things to describe his lover. For example,the Indias of spice and mine,...etc. He believes that he has gotten the most precious treasure in the world when they love each other. This is a hyperbole way to describe their love, bot let me be impress.
Over those poems we have discussed so far, I think the most impressive one for me is “Death, be not proud” written by John Donne. The way Donne uses the metaphors in this poem is very bold. During the 16th, people were very afraid of death and looked upon it as a taboo. But Donne wants to convey that actually, dead has no power over a Christian soul. In line 9-11, he even tries to express that there are things can master death: fate, chance, kings, and desperate man, poison, war and sickness. In this poem, he personifies death as a man whom he looks down on and discuss that he doesn’t fear death. The metaphor used in here is very challenging in that period of time, and I think John Donne may be have some influences on his readers, and make death no longer so dreadful.
The poem “The Sun Rising” attracts me in John Donne’s poems. In this poem speaker describes sun rising is a terrible thing but ordinary people‘s idea think sun rising is a wonderful day. Sun rising symbols a new start, new day and new hope. However, speaker has different view. In this poem, speaker complain sun rising disturb him. Besides, another poem also attracts me. The poem is “The Flea”. In this poem, John Donne use wit way to describe his love. I think using “flea” this word to describe his love with his lover is special. I prefer one stanza because speaker mentions his blood and his lover’s blood all mingle in flea’s body. I think this sentence is romantic. And, I think John Donne is wit person when I read this poem. Flea and love are not especially relative but John Donne can connect these words and create amazing poem.
I prefer the poem “Batter my heart, three-personed God”. I think that it is because I was a Christian, too, so I would be more touched with the topic of God.
In this poem, Donne wished God could treat him violently instead of gently, so that he shall be free. Maybe it is because that he considered himself too sinful and the power of evil in his mind was too strong, thus there must be a more powerful force to defeat the devil in his mind. Moreover, he wanted God to enthrall him or he will never be free and ravish him or he would never be chaste. There is an obvious oxymoron, it sounds weird but feels reasonable after thinking more of that.
Some people are always thinking themselves as wretches. In order to gain salvation, they need the strong power to force them to amend. I think it is quite a good way to break away from evil ways and return to the truth.
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