“Thy soule the fixt foot, takes no show
To move, but doth, if th’other doe.”
In “The Flea” Donne uses yet another strong and prominent image, the flea, to try and persuade the woman in the poem to sleep with him. Donne shows the flea as something just as extreme as them sleeping together; because it has bitten both him and the lady their blood is mingled.
“Mee it suck’d first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;”
Since the 17-century idea was of sex as a "mingling of the blood", he realises that by mixing their bloods together in its body, the flea has done what she didn't dare to do. This is a very shocking image but Donne uses it to contradict and almost trick the woman into sleeping with him. This is unlike “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”.
In “A Woman to Her Lover” is almost the woman’s view to “The Flea”. In the third verse of “A Woman to Her Lover” Christina talks of how her body is not something that her lover can use for his physical desires.
“My skin soft only for you fond caresses
My body supple only for your sense delight”
Christina uses alliteration of the soft f’s and s’s these gentle sounds echo the sensual feeling that her lover has and emphasises the point she is trying to make.
“A Woman to Her Lover” is like “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” in the way that the man in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” feels that their love is not revolved around them being physically together.A good way to think of it is that the man in “A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning” would like his lover to think of love in the way the woman does in “A woman to Her lover”. Christina is trying to prove how she down not want the stereotypical physical love but wants the more romantic and almost holy love, in “A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning” Donne is trying to prove how because their love is so romantic and holy they do not have to be constantly physically together like the normal stereotypical lovers.
In “A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning” the man tries to prove this point by saying that their love is immortal and how the normal, “mundane” lovers cannot cope with absence because they will lose their love because it is so superficial unlike their love.
“Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.”
There are Biblical references in both “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and “A Woman to Her Lover” both representing how special the love is, in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and how the woman thinks it should be in “A Woman to Her Lover”. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” Donne use the Biblical reference.
“T’were prophanation of our joyes
To tell the layetie our love.”
Here Donne shows how the man and woman’s love is so deep that he compares it to something holy.
In “A Woman to Her Lover” the last line is:
“Until we reach the very heart of God.”
Christina Walsh is showing how the woman wants their love to be so very special and holy.
Another poem which uses Biblical reference to show the speciality and the everlasting love that the person has is “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here she is using the strong image of the feeling of pureness you feel just after you have prayed or confessed your sins. Showing how her love for him is free of sin and is just pure true love.
“I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.”
In both “The Flea” and “A Woman to Her Lover” there are references to marriage. In Donne’s poem the man uses as an excuse to sleep with the woman.
“Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is:”
Here Donne is trying to explain how because that is where they have been married it is there and then that they should sleep together therefore showing how he is using marriage as an excuse to sleep with her.
In “A Woman to Her Lover” the woman also thinks the reason her lover wants to marry her is so that he has a perfect reason to sleep with her. Not for love but for physical and possessive desire.
“To make me a bondslave,
To bear you children,”
The woman’s idea of marriage is a lot more on the Biblical side, once again the marriage side. In explanation the woman talks about how she wants their love to be “Of passion, and of joy and sorrow”. This is much like the wedding vows, “In sickness and in health.” This shows how the woman wants him to love her through and through whether she’s, sick or healthy, happy or sad.
In the poems “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and “A Woman to Her Lover” we can see there are two references to the “spheres”. In both poems the spheres are used as a strong image of love.
The precession of the equinoxes under the Ptolemaic system was explained as caused by the shaking or trepidation of the outermost, crystalline sphere of the universe. This is a very strong image to use, Donne is saying that their love is so great that even the movement of the Earth does not surpass it.
“But trepidation of the spheares,
Though greater farre, is innocent.”
In “A Woman to Her Lover” the reference of the spheres is also shown as the moving of the planets but as a celebration of their love. Christina Walsh talks of the music of the spheres, this is because as the planets moved the planets made music so joyous the heavens rejoiced in their love. This is a strong and another Biblical image to show how greater love the woman wants to have with her lover.
“And we shall have the music of the spheres for bridal march”
These three poems represent three couples who seem completely different because of the way they want to show their love but also alike. “The Flea” is an example of the stereotypical desire for physical love, “A Woman to Her Lover” is an example of a woman who is expecting this stereotypical love but yet wants true and holy love. Finally “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is an example of this pure and great love that does not have physical needs, the love that the woman in “A Woman to Her Lover” wants.
