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Introduction

Metaphysical Poetry John Donne's "The Sunne Rising" and "The Flea" and "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell Metaphysical poetry necessitates the understanding of mankind but concentrates on topics such as romantic love, s****l love, faith, loyalty and religion. The poems are very short and have a formal tone, metaphysical poems are characterised by arguments and theories yet to be proved. It was written between 1572 and 1695, these were chaotic time as there were lost of changes taking place. For instance in 1577 there was the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The "Gunpowder Plot", dissolution of parliament, civil wars and the plague followed this. These poets want to show off their intelligence and wit. The poems usually contain conceits (these are sharp and unpredicted uses of metaphors and comparisons), for example: romantic lovers are compared to "a pair of compasses" (inseparable) and a woman losing her virginity is called a "flea bite", as in, the little drop of blood women shed when they first have s*x. The poems are supposed to be direct, dramatic and straight to the point. Sometimes, the poems have a "carpe-diem" theme. ...read more.

Middle

theme to persuade the woman. He uses both persuasive, "Time's winged chariot hurrying near;" (which says time is chasing them so they need to hurry up) and complimentary techniques. The 1st stanza is full of hyper bole which is complementing the woman, for example "An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on forehead gaze." Which is saying he would stare at her eyes and face for a hundred years if there were time. The poet also makes references to death quite often in this poem, because he says that there is not a lot of time left and she should not want to die a virgin. "The grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace." There are lots of examples of language and poetic devices in the poems, some of which make the poems similar. I first looked at The Sunne Rising and broke it down into the three verses. There is a very direct opening and we read straight away that he is annoyed at the sun because it is shinning through their window and is about to wake them up. ...read more.

Conclusion

Each verse stages a different part of a 3-step argument. The First verse is written in the conditional tense, saying if they had all the time in the world things could be different. The second verse is written in the future saying she will die. The third and final verse is written in the present telling her that she knows she wants to, "And while thy willing soul transpires" and that he is ready to do it "At every pore with instant fires." In conclusion, I think the main similarity between all three of the poems is the fact that all three have three verses and the structure is quite similar. There are also a lot of similarities between just two of the three poems, I think the most important of these is the theme of s****l love in 'To His Coy Mistress' and 'The Flea'. I, personally believe that 'The Sunne Rising' Is the best poem because of the complimentary language and the way he is kind to the woman, because in the other two poems, the men seem desperate and try to trick the women into thinking they should sleep with them, especially in 'The Flea' because of the way John Donne turns her argument around to suit him ...read more.

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