Post 2

Reaction to Donne's "The Flea"

Part I-

I really enjoyed reading this poem. The flea metaphor was unexpected but kept me interested throughout the poem because it was so peculiar. I also like how sex is inferred to in this poem but never explicitly stated because the reader can come to their own conclusion of what this poem is about, like poetry.



Part II

Choosing one of Yeats's, Donne's, or Frost's works, focus on a particular image or metaphor from the poem and discuss how that one moment relates or is critical to the meaning of the entire poem.

The obvious metaphor in this poem is the flea. This flea, having bitten both the speaker and his lady friend, has joined them together in a way "more than we would do" (9). Throughout the poem, the speaker is trying to convince his lady friend to sleep with him. The flea image is so important because it is the flea that has united the two lovers like they never have before. The flea is an important image because it's such a trivial, everyday object and, in using it to convince his lady lover to engage in sexual intercourse, he hopes it will make her more accepting of such an intense act. Containing the blood from both lovers, the speaker feels that they are intimately connected and wants to consummate this intimacy by doing the ultimate act, intercourse.

The reader is lead to believe that the reason that the lady lover is not engaging in sexual intercourse is due to the dishonor that it would bring to herself and her family. Knowing that honor is an important virtue to his lady friend, the speaker beseeches the young lady not to kill the flea, telling her that she would be ending three lives with the killing of the flea. Because the flea contains the blood and livelihood of the lovers, killing it would cost just as much dishonor as sleeping with him would.

Post 1

Part I

I had a little bit of difficulty with this particular poem, mostly because of the language. But, based off of what I got from it, I liked it because I feel that the speaker is optimistic about things in life. Throughout the poem, the speaker looks for the beauty in the drawings on the urn. I think that's important, especially today, because we often don't take the time to appreciate simple things like that.


Part II

In the first stanza, the speaker describes the urn as a "historian" that has seen many things in times. He asks the urn questions about the pictures on it. In the second stanza, the speaker is talking to a young musician whose song cannot be heard and tells him that an unheard melody is sweeter and encourages the musician to continue to play. The speaker also speaks to a lover that cannot kiss but tells him not to grieve because her beauty will remain forever. In the fourth stanza, the speaker notices some strangers going to the green alter to sacrifice a heifer and wonders of their origins. The various pictures on the urn have taught the speaker how to seek the beauty in seemingly ugly things.
In the last stanza, the speaker thinks about all of the various pictures depicted on the urn and how they will remain there forever. Future generations will learn from it that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" and that is all that one needs to know.
The speaker feels that the urn can teach future generations from its pictures just as it has taught him. In each of the drawings, the beauty was not straightforward, the speaker had to look for it and interpret it. The lesson learned is that in life, the beauty is always there, it's just that sometimes, it's a little more difficult to see.