Comparison Of A Modern Love Poem With 'The Flea'.

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English Coursework

Comparison Of A Modern Love Poem With ‘The Flea’

By Daisy Townsend

Written by John Donne in the sixteen hundreds, ‘The Flea’ is a poem in which Donne uses a flea as an extended metaphor to try to persuade a woman to sleep with him. In comparison to this, ‘Valentine’, by Carol Ann Duffy, was written in the late twentieth century. In this, Duffy uses am onion as an extended metaphor as a comparison to relationships and how she feels towards the aspects of love. These poems, though about love, have very different attitudes to both love and their partners.

Already by studying the central purpose and idea of both poems, a clear difference is arising between the two; whereas Carol Ann Duffy is honest about her thoughts and feelings, John Donne manipulates the truth. For examples, Duffy states she is, ‘just trying to be truthful.’ However, Donne says to his partner although they are not married, but may as well be, ‘where we almost, yea, are,’ – essentially, this is not true.

Another difference between the poems is the mood and tone of each poem. Donne’s mood and tone is very persuasive. He is very blatant in what he wants, this is shown by him being sordid - he doesn’t directly explain his purpose for the poem nor his desired intentions. In addition, the fact he uses a flea suggests he may not consider this issue a relatively important one. For instance, a flea or the image of it is not considered particularly grave or serious, but rather humorous and small. In addition, he is even playful at the end of his poem:

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‘Just so much honour, when thou yeld’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.’

This quote is an example of Donne being playful at the end of his poem. Donne admits that killing the flea has made no difference to her life, but at the same time, sleeping with him will make no difference to her honour.

However, his language and style of writing does suggest he has taken a lot of time to write the poem. For instance, he uses rhyme, as we see in his first stanza: ‘this’/‘is’, ‘thee’/‘be’, ‘said’/‘maidenhead’, ...

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