Examine the ways in which the poets in
Judith Johnson
Examine the ways in which the poets in "The Flea" and "To His Coy Mistress" try to
persuade their mistresses.
Both "The Flea" by John Donne and "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell are seduction poems, written by the poets to seduce their mistresses. Both have three stanzas and a basic couplet rhyming structure. Donne and Marvell are metaphysical poets from the 17th century. They have taken simple ideas and stretched them far - for example, using a flea as a symbol of union. They have made philosophical poems about simple facts of life - for example, the fear of death seen in "To His Coy Mistress". The similarity seen between these poems is quite surprising - the use of imagery, enjambement and variation in rhythm and rhyme to relate their ideas, and the way they put forward their arguments to seduce their mistresses.
In "The Flea", the flea is used as a symbol of their love, or his love for her. The word 'flea' has many connotations and denotations, but interestingly, when spoken sounds the same as the verb, to 'flee'. In addition to perhaps suggesting the fleeting nature of love, the word also connotes danger: "to run away as from danger; to take flight; to try to escape", is the Oxford English Dictionaries definition. It can also connote an abrupt ending "to run away from, hasten away from; to quite abruptly, forsake (a person or a place, etc.)". This insight would give an added dimension to Donne's use of a flea in his poem. The OED also provides us with the definition "a small wingless insect well known for its biting propensities and its agility leaping." The finding that fleas do not have wings could be quite significant, because in "The Flea" the flea plays the role of Cupid. Using the imagery of a flea crushes any expectations of high, pompous language and describes love in basic, common terms. The flea is the subject of much of what the poet talks about, and the imagery used is interesting. He uses the flea to convince his mistress of his love for her, and to persuade her to have sex with him. In "To His Coy Mistress" there is no one object used to symbolise the love, but interesting and significant imagery is used often, and to great effect. Different images are used to persuade the poet's mistress that to sleep with him would be a good thing.
In stanza 1 of "The Flea" we see as the poet begins by trying to convince his mistress with the idea that sex is not an important thing. He claims that the flea has already mixed their blood, after he bit them, so they're already together in that way, "And in this flea our two bloods mingled be." In this stanza, the poet has taken a firm, instructive manner - the first line reads "Mark but this flea and mark in this". This is an instruction, which tells us how the poet is feeling: confidant, sure and certain. He describes what she is denying him as "little", which follows with his persuasive argument to her that sex is a small unimportant thing. There is an image of pregnancy as Donne describes the flea as "pamper'd swells with one blood made of two". Here is talking about what could happen if they did have sex; but reading it from the angle of a biting flea, giving it a seedy - almost repulsive edge. This stanza is rounded up, and sort of evaluated in the final line "And this, alas! Is more than we would do". It is a complaint. He is annoyed because he believes that the flea has taken their blood and mingles it - and has done more by itself than they have done together, sexually. He has added annoyance as the flea didn't even have to go to all the effort of wooing her - like is doing - just took what he wanted and left. This stanza shows the man trying to woo the women by telling her that she is making a problem out of something that need not be a problem; denying him something that is causing more trouble than its worth to her.
The first stanza of "To His Coy Mistress" would lead us to believe, at first glance, that this was a simple love poem. However, with a little insight we notice words and phrases that seem oddly placed, providing us with a glimpse of what is to come in the second stanza. Indeed, the first lines "Had we but world enough and time, This coyness lady were no crime," set the scene for the rest of the poem. It is interesting that he uses the word "crime", as this is sinister - he is not using the word "problem", for instance. Using that word makes what she is doing to be wrong, sinister - worthy of punishment, and is a little disconcerting. The poet is claiming here that if there were all the time in the world, he would never pressurise her or hurry her. He tells her of all the things that they would do together "To walk and pass our long love's day". This is a very lovely idea, and is followed by the way he describes his love for her. He describes his love as being as long as all time "I would love you ten years before the Flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews". The first of these events lies at the beginning of the bible, whilst the second is at the end in Revelations. Not only does this effectively cover the whole of time, it brings in the element of religion that is also seen in "The Flea". This element of religion brings out the subject of the poem as being deeper - more dramatic. Marvell describes his love as being an empire, "My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires". The use of the word "vegetable" is slightly odd. It taints the beauty of the phrase. A vegetable is basic, and - as Donne does by using a flea in his love poem - brings the reader out of a dream of using pompous and beautiful language to describe love, pulling love down to a common, domestic and necessary status. The word "vaster" is a word that causes us to slow down - it is a slow word in our mouths that demands attention to it, and forces us to notice it. The poet goes on to claim that he would spend an age just admiring her "An age at least to every part", and how much time he would spend on her different parts "Two hundred to adore each breast". This is all very romantic, until we realise that there is a catch; he would do this - if only he had the time! He ends the stanza by telling her that she deserves all this, and that "Nor would" he "love at lower rate." This is a beautiful part of the poem, and really goes to an effort convincing her of his love, but the first line of the next stanza of the poem brings this façade crashing down. In this part of the poem, Marvell uses his love as his persuasive argument towards his mistress - that she should have sex with him because he loves her eternally.
The second stanza of "The Flea" begins with another instruction, "O stay". This is important, because it shows that the poet is still taking the same standpoint of authority, still confident in what he is saying to persuade his mistress. We see how his argument progresses in this stanza, how he takes his persuasion further. He now starts to claim that the flea represents their life together "three lives in one flea". We see later in the poem how this becomes a central part of the flea's entire importance in the poem. In the second line the poet ...
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The second stanza of "The Flea" begins with another instruction, "O stay". This is important, because it shows that the poet is still taking the same standpoint of authority, still confident in what he is saying to persuade his mistress. We see how his argument progresses in this stanza, how he takes his persuasion further. He now starts to claim that the flea represents their life together "three lives in one flea". We see later in the poem how this becomes a central part of the flea's entire importance in the poem. In the second line the poet claims that in the flea they are even more than married "Where we almost, yea, more than married are". Here he is building up the importance of the flea, really warming to his persuasive argument. The poem has a simple couplet rhyming structure (AA, BB), but though the first two lines of the second stanza look as though they should rhyme, do not. This is perhaps also telling of the poem - that although it looks as though it all runs nicely together, there's something about it that just makes it awkwardly disjointed. That there's something that doesn't quite fit together. This, of course, is the use of a flea in a romantic poem. After emphasising his idea that the flea represents them - "This flea is you and I", he goes on to talk of what the flea is in their relationship. "Our marriage bed and marriage temple is" - he is saying that the flea is their marital sex, and where they exist. The use of the word "temple" brings the element of religion into the stanza. This, as well as dramatising what the poet is suggesting, purifies the act. In religion there is holiness, and perhaps Donne is trying to sell his proposal of sex with this in mind. The next line of the poem is particularly interesting "Though parents grudge, and you we're met". It would appear that everyone except him apposes this union. Maybe this line is here to show how much he likes her, as he obviously has little or no support from others in his union with her, and to show how important it is that his persuasive argument works, as he has no other means of persuasion. The religious element is brought in again as he describes him and his mistress as being "cloistered in these living walls of jet". By the "living walls of jet" he means the flea. Cloisters are somewhere peaceful and calm, and sheltered, and we know that "jet" is black and glossy. So this line is clearly an exaggeration, as they are not sheltered within the flea, and the flea is not really like jet, but just black. This exaggeration builds up the meaning of the flea, preparing us for what is to come. The last three lines of the stanza are devoted to convincing his mistress that killing the flea would be killing him, killing her and killing their relationship. He tells her it would be "self-murder". "And sacrilege, three sins in killing three", that to kill the flea would be three sins, three murders. The use of the word "sacrilege" and "sins" is using the religious side to full effect - telling her that it would be against God, morally and religiously wrong to kill the flea. This stanza continually emphasises the idea that the flea is symbolic- symbolic of them and their relationship - and that to murder the flea would be murdering them and quashing the relationship. It builds up the meaning of the flea as tension is built up in stories. In this stanza Donne uses religion more times than in the other stanzas. His persuasive argument here is that now they're together in the flea, and their relationship is made. When he tells her that to kill the flea would be "self-murder", maybe the implication is that to kill the relationship would also be to kill herself.
The second stanza of "To His Coy Mistress" contradicts the style of the first. The first line of the poem reads, "Had we but world enough and time, This coyness Lady, were no crime." He then goes on in the first stanza to list what they would do if they did have "world enough and time". So much so, that you almost forget that they don't. The second stanza, however, tells of the true fact that time moves fast. The first two lines set the scene for the rest of the stanza, "But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near". Maybe the poet is quite old already, or maybe he is just aware of time, but it is clearly something that worries him. The imagery used loses beauty and becomes alarming, "And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity," this does not make eternity sound pleasant, but the words "deserts" and "vast" imply huge, barren, dry and frightening. Like "The Flea", Marvell's poem has a couplet rhyming structure. Two of the couplets, though, in stanza two, use an irregular pattern that reinforces the poem's theme. Lines 23 and 24 ("lie"/ "eternity") put a jilt in the poem. He has purposely done this because it is unexpected, and we stumble, and therefore focus on what has been written. He does this at this part of the poem because it is a part that needs attention, when the style is changing, and also makes the poem feel uncomfortable- disjointed. This is done again with lines 27 and 28. Once again we stumble, and focus on the word "virginity". Perhaps the variations from the conventional rhythm of the poem suggest that the strictures of conventional morality should also be avoided. The rest of the stanza is used to create an elaborate, if very ugly, piece of imagery of the possible future. He talks about when she is dead, and no longer beautiful "Thy beauty shall no more be found", this is almost a threat - that she won't be beautiful forever, and maybe implying that he won't want her then. He tells her that when she is dead in her "marble vault", he will no longer be there, speaking to her. He describes his words as an "echoing song", which conjures up images of a creepy, repetitive, faint tune. He is trying to make what he says appear as though it were a thought going round in his mistress's head, a memory of what could have been. Marvell chooses here to place one of the most effective - if revolting - uses of imagery in the poem, "worms shall try That long preserved virginity". He is saying that if she doesn't let a man take her virginity in life, then the worms will take it in when she is dead, as her body rots in the earth. This is a very frightening prospect, and shows how far the poet is willing to push, to work his persuasive argument. In the next line, he calls her "honour", "quaint." The Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word "quaint" is: "old fashioned, daintily odd". This is not really something that most people would to be described as; it is not a pleasant way to describe a person. When Marvell writes "And into ashes all my lust", he is almost laying the responsibility of his lust on her, adding this pressure to his persuasive argument. The second stanza is ended with sarcasm and irony, "The grave's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace." Marvell is saying that there is no physicality after death. He is saying this so sarcastically that its unpleasant; it is patronising and you can see the way he really feels about his mistress - that she is being stupid to deny him her virginity. This stanza has taken a real turn compared to the first, and here, instead of using his love for her as reasoning for her to sleep with him, he uses time's passing, and threats. He tells her that time is rushing by, and that she will die a virgin, threatening her with ugly images of her dead and what it will be like in her coffin as a virgin. This is his method of persuasion in this stanza - that if she doesn't sleep with him she will die a virgin.
In the third stanza of "The Flea", there is a change of tone. This is because, we realise, the woman has killed the flea. Donne calls this act "Cruel and sudden". The word "Cruel" is put first because not only does it means more emphasis is vocally placed on it than the word "sudden", but it ensures that we know her act of killing the flea was not cruel because it was sudden, but was cruel and also sudden. Instead of being instructive in the first half of this stanza, we wonder if the mistress's killing of the flea has perhaps shocked Donne slightly, as he asks some questions. He asks her whether she has "since purpled thy nail in the blood of innocence?" He uses "purple" as the colour instead of "red", as red is a colour of passion, a pure colour, often used to describe and rage, and is connected with love. Purple, however, is a darker colour, colder, and not connected with emotions. It helps to make her action appear as more evil - thought through, calculated and not rushed into. In this question, Donne calls the flea's blood "blood of innocence" - he is calling the flea innocent. As the flea symbolises their love and union, this would translate to his feelings for her as also being innocent. We see here that when his mistress killed the flea - rubbishing everything that he'd said about the flea's meaning to them as a couple - he was not thrown, but simple changed his argument, persuading with a different angle. Donne is now trying to convince her that sex is innocent, and would never hurt, whilst she is cruel for denying the flea life - and also denying him her virginity. He expands on this argument with the next two lines of the stanza "Wherein could this flea guilty be, except in that drop which it sucked from thee?" All the flea took was a drop of blood - how could it be guilty? Similarly, all he wants is her virginity - how could that be guilty? His argument is slightly different once again in the final lines of the poem, "Yet thou triumph'st and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now." He is saying that she managed to kill the flea, and yet, they are both still fine and healthy - implying that if they are fine since she has killed the flea, they will be fine if they have sex. He calls her fear of losing her virginity a "false fear", before finishing the poem with the final lines being an evaluation to all that he has said, "Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee." Here is saying that when she loses her virginity to him, she will only lose as much blood (meaning the blood that usually occurs when the hymen is first broken) as when the flea bit her, and the flea had to die for it. This final stanza sees the mistress killing the flea, and because of this, the need for the poet to change his persuasive approach. The beginning of the stanza sees his approach as one of making her feel guilty for killing the innocent flea - making her feel guilty for denying him sex. Then his persuasive argument is changed once again towards the end of the stanza as he tries to convince her that if killing the flea didn't affect them, then nor will it if they sleep together. The poet is not perturbed by her killing of the flea: he simply uses it as another chance of convincing her of what he's just said.
The third stanza of "To His Coy Mistress" is an evaluation of the two previous stanzas. It is a reminder that time is passing quickly, but does not have the same cruelness that the second stanza holds. The stanza opens with the line "Now therefore, while youthful hue sits on thy skin like morning dew". This is a piece of imagery that makes her youth seem like a possession - something that isn't part of her, just an object that she's allowed to possess until it wears out. This is an interesting way of viewing youth, and is designed to scare his mistress into realising that she won't hold her youth forever, and should make the best of it while she possesses it. "And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires", here Marvell is using imagery again, this time to convince his mistress of the passion of sex, and how powerful it is, and is still bringing the element of time in by calling the fires "instant". The next line begins with the emotive word "Now" to enforce all he is saying about the need to waste no time. His next piece of imagery follows the same idea as the previous - to convince his mistress of the passion of sex "let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey". However, this line has a slight oddity in it, which makes it seem more vulgar than passionate. The word "amorous" means love, but the use of "birds of prey" gives an unexpected twist - as that connotes to us physical, deadly, cruel, powerful - it is not romantic, more frightening, and the repeated use of the word "now" makes it even more imposing. The next lines are devoted to time and use slow words - words that take careful sounding, such as "devour", "languish", and "slow-chapt". "Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power", here the poet is making time into a man, and is telling his mistress that they should rather take all their time at once, than let Time devour theirs for them. "Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball", this line has a repetitive feel to it, and has a different rhythm to the other lines. It echoes the sounds and puts an accent on almost every word, slowing the line down. This line is taking a slightly different angle than that of the previous in this stanza - it isn't focusing on time, but trying to persuade her that sex is the bringing together of two people's "strength" and "sweetness". It is also using Plato's philosophy of the symposium - that each person is a half, looking for their other half to make a whole. The last two lines of the poem are designed to be empowering "Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run." Marvell is telling his mistress that though they do not have the power to stop time, they can make time run if she will sleep with him. This stanza uses time, and imagery of passionate love to convince his mistress to sleep with him. Persuading her by telling her that they should take the action that they can - that though they can't stop time they should do what they can to not be ruled by it. It isn't romantic like the first stanza, nor threatening like the second, but it gives the impression that sex is passionate, and uses this idea to convince her to lose her virginity to him.
"To His Coy Mistress" has an element of fear about it - the fear of time. From the very beginning "Had we but world enough, and time", we see that the poet's motivation to woo his mistress probably derives from his fear. Whilst the first stanza is spent dreaming about if they did have all the time - he uses his romanticism to persuade her, but the first line of the second stanza is a pivotal point for the poem, "But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near". The tone after this is crude and threatening, all looking to the bleak future and death. The third stanza loses the threatening and cruel edge, and becomes more pro-active, now focused on how time could be beaten. We still see, though, how the poet is obviously haunted by time's ultimate power "Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power."
The use of enjambment is frequent throughout both poems, though much more frequent in "To His Coy Mistress". In "The Flea" it is used four times altogether. It is used once in the first stanza, "Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead". He uses it here because the first line's (up to "be said") meaning lies in the second line, and the stress should be placed on the word "sin", as this is more important than "said". For the same reasons, enjambment is used in the second stanza "This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is". In the last stanza, the enjambment gives a rather different feel. "Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?" We can see that Donne has put enjambment here as it gives the impression of shock - the speaker is so shocked that his words run together - putting punctuation here would give it a relaxed feeling, and that was not Donne's aim. When it is used the second time it gives an impression of excitement "Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now." Here the poet has just found another angle from which to present his seduction argument, and he shows this by making the lines running together - in effect, they become faster when spoken. In "To His Coy Mistress", enjambment is used fifteen times altogether. It is used to put even more emphasis on the word "Vaster", in the phrase "My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow". There is already quite a lot of emphasis on "Vaster", as it is a slow word, demanding the attention of the speaker, but when interwoven with the tool of enjambment, Marvell really relates his point. In the second stanza it is used to make sure there is no musical, repetitive rhythm, but focuses all attention on the meaning of the words themselves "My echoing song: then worms shall try That long preserved virginity". Marvell's use of sound and rhythm often relates to feeling he wants to create. In this phrase he doesn't give a punctuation for a surprisingly long time - effectively stressing the word "virginity" - here he wants to create an uncomfortable feeling. The last use of enjambment appears in the last two lines, "Thus, though we cannot make out sun Stand still, yet we will make him run." This is because the end of the sentence doesn't arrive until the words "Stand still", and to put punctuation in at the end of the sentence would lose the meaning. It also means that the final phrase of the poem is short, and this gives it a quick, brisk feel, making those final words stick in our minds. In "The Flea", the enjambment is sometimes used to tell us of the poet's emotion - this enforces Donne's seduction argument by making it seem like he really means what he is saying. It also places the emphasis where he wants it - this is true for "To His Coy Mistress", too.
These two poems are written by men trying to woo their women. We do not get the impression that these men are in love, but more that they are trying to pretend they are so that they can persuade their mistresses to have sex with them. There are four different arguments presented by Donne in "The Flea" to persuade his mistress to have sex with him, whilst Marvell presents three. Donne starts with complaining that the flea has done more than they have together, sexually, moves on to the idea that the flea has already brought them together, so sex is naturally the next step, and the last stanza sees as he starts by claiming that sex is innocent and natural, and ends with the argument that the flea has already taken her blood, and that sex with him will take no more from than the flea did. Marvell's first persuasion tactic is a romantic one - that he loves her so much she should have sex with him, the second persuasive argument is that if she doesn't have sex with him, time will pass and she will die a virgin. His last is again one of time - that they should take hold of time how they can, and make "him [Marvell personifies time in his poem] run". The imagery in "To His Coy Mistress" is very effective, and the use of a flea as a symbol in a love poem holds together quite well, even if it is a rather surprising choice. The enjambment in both poems really gives the poems meaning, creating a tone in each of them, and whether the mistresses they were trying to persuade were every actually persuaded or not, it is clear that the poets went to great lengths in their attempts.