John Donne

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John Donne

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The Flea
John Donne was already married to his wife when
he wrote this poem to her. She was above his
status and her parents disapproved of their
marriage and so they couldn't get together
yet. The poem is about seduction of the woman
with the use of the flea as a metaphor of their
marriage. However she kills the flea in the
third stanza and tells him that true love does
not bear such false fears as the death of the
pesky flea. He agrees with her and that's pretty
much the whole poem.
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The Flea
Form The rhyme scheme in each stanza is
similarly regular, in couplets, with the final
line rhyming with the final couplet AABBCCDDD.
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Song
The persona in this poem, which is also a
dramatic monologue, is telling his listener
about the fickleness and inconstancy of women.
His use of mythological characters and
situations suggests that a constant woman is
also just a figment of the imagination. In the
second stanza, he tells his listener that if they
were to ride for an age they would still never
be able to find a woman who is "true, and fair".
And, he continues in the third stanza, even if
he did, by the time the persona meets her, she
will have shown her true colors.
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Song
Form The rhyme scheme in each stanza is
similarly regular, in couplets, with the final
line rhyming with the final couplet ABABCCDDD.
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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,      And
whisper to their souls to go,  Whilst some of
their sad friends do say,     "Now his breath
goes," and some say, "No."                      
So let us melt, and make no
noise,                                       5
    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move
'Twere profanation of our joys      To tell the
laity our love.  Moving of th' earth brings
harms and fears     Men reckon what it did,
and meant                               10 But
trepidation of the spheres,      Though greater
far, is innocent.  Dull sublunary lovers' love 
    Whose soul is sensecannot admit  Of
absence, 'cause it doth remove                    
                 15     The thing which
elemented it. 
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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
But we by a love so much refined,     That
ourselves know not what it is,  Inter-assurèd of
the mind,      Care less,
eyes, lips and hands to miss.                     
       20 Our two souls therefore, which are
one,      Though I must go, endure not yet  A
breach, but an expansion,      Like
gold to aery thinness beat. 
If they be two, they are two
so                                          25
    As stiff twin compasses are two   Thy
soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show      To
move, but doth, if th' other do. 
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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
And though it in the centre sit,  Yet, when
the other far doth roam,                          
      30 It leans, and hearkens after it,     
And grows erect, as that comes home.  Such wilt
thou be to me, who must,     Like th' other
foot, oblqiuely run Thy firmness makes my
circle just,                                   
35     And makes me end where I begun.   
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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

• Metaphors
• "As virtuous men pass mildly away, and whisper to
  their souls to go
• so let us melt, and make no noise. "
• Here the author uses
• metaphor of a virtuous man passing away that
  refers to his long departure,
• and asks his lover not to be sad, and do not cry.
  
• 2. "No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move. "
• John Donne uses floods to compare with tears, and
  tempests to compare with sign.
• Hyperbole and natural phenomena are used to be
  compared to this love relationship.
• He uses this kind of emotional outbreak of
  laity's reaction to separation,
• so as to highlight how refined his love is.

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A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
3."Moving of the earth brings harm and
fears though greater far, is innocent." (the
third stanza) The author implies the terrifying
earthquakes as physical departure of those laity
people. The movement of the spheres implies the
spiritual departure of his lover and him.
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Symbol

• 1.melt
• physically and spiritually mixed together.
• 2.The sphere
• perfection which represents the union of souls in
  a relationship.
• 3.The circle
• it means perfection, too.
• 4. The compasses
• combination of two lovers closely related to
  each other. That kind of relationship which
  cannot be separated.

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Structure

1. Stanza one We consider it as a "foreword". It
   talks about a man is going to leave far away and
   ask his lover not to be sad for their love is
   noble.
2. Stanza two to five (the first persuasive view
   point) The speaker convinced the woman, his
   lover by telling her that his departure will not
   change their love for their love is based on
   inter-assured of the minds, not on physical
   contact, such as eyes, lips and head. The author
   also tells readers that their love is noble so
   laity people cannot understand it. Besides, he
   uses metaphors. For example, in stanza three, he
   compares the pain of two lovers physical
   separation to the earthquakes.

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Structure

• 3. Stanza five to the last stanza (the second
  persuasive view point) The speaker still uses
  metaphors such as the endless expansion of gold
  to imply no matter how far they are apart, they
  are always together. He also compares their
  closely related and inseparable relationship to
  the compasses which its two legs are combined
  together whenever. The compasses means that even
  one part of them are separated, the other parts
  are still together. Plus, the outer leg moves
  (the man), the inner leg (the woman) moves, too.
  This metaphor describes perfectly their
  relationship.

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The Anniversary
ALL kings, and all their favourites,All glory of
honours, beauties, wits,The sun it self, which
makes time, as they pass,Is elder by a year now
than it was When thou and I first one another
saw.All other things to their destruction
draw,    Only our love hath no decay This no
to-morrow hath, nor yesterday Running it never
runs from us away,But truly keeps his first,
last, everlasting day.
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The Anniversary
Two graves must hide thine and my corse     If
one might, death were no divorce.Alas ! as well
as other princes, weWho prince enough in one
another beMust leave at last in death these
eyes and ears,Oft fed with true oaths, and with
sweet salt tears     But souls where nothing
dwells but loveAll other thoughts being
inmatesthen shall proveThis or a love increasèd
there above,When bodies to their graves, souls
from their graves remove.
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The Anniversary
And then we shall be throughly blest     But
now no more than all the rest.Here upon earth
we're kings, and none but weCan be such kings,
nor of such subjects be.Who is so safe as we?
where none can doTreason to us, except one of us
two.    True and false fears let us refrain,Let
us love nobly, and live, and add againYears and
years unto years, till we attainTo write
threescore this is the second of our reign.
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Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
Summary First stanza The speaker says that
since he will soon die and come to "that holy
room" where he will be made into the music of God
as sung by a choir of saints, he tunes "the
instrument" now and thinks what he will do when
the final moment comes.
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Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
Summary Second stanza He likens his doctors
to cosmographers and himself to a map, lying flat
on the bed to be shown. Third stanza He
rejoices because death will not harm him. West
and east meet and join in all flat maps and in
the same way, death is one with the resurrection.

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Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
Summary Fourth stanza The speaker asks where
his home is and says that only straits can
offer access to paradise. Fifth stanza The
speaker says that "Paradise and Calvary, /
Christ's Cross, and Adam's tree" stood in the
same place. He asks God to look and to note that
both Adams (Christ being the second Adam) are
unified in him.
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Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
Summary Sixth stanza He asks God to receive
him wrapped in the purple of Christ. As he
preached the word of God to others' souls, he
says, let this be his sermon to his own soul
"Therefore that he may raise the Lord throws
down."
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Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
Form Each of the six five-line stanzas follows an
ABABB rhyme scheme, and the poem is metered
throughout in iambic pentameter.
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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Death, be not proud, though some have called
thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so
Donne is saying that Death likes to think of
himself as powerful and terrifying, and indeed
some people have called him that, but he is not
so in truth.
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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost
overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst
thou kill me. Death thinks that he is
"overthrowing" men when he takes them, but he
does not cause them to fall. He helps them to
finds Resurrection. Donne is sarcastic with "poor
Death", who is so deluded as to think himself a
bane on man's existence. And again, "nor yet
canst thou kill me", hearkens back to the same
idea that Death does not kill, but is instead the
enabler of new, immortal life. Death cannot kill
him, thus he holds no power over the speaker.
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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure then from thee much more must
flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Here we have the Renaissance idea of sleep as
death's image . They go with Death, their bones
get to their rest (in the grave), and their souls
get "delivered" (set free), containing the
meanings at the same time of  1.  being freed
from the human body   2.  freed from the fear of
death 3.  delivered into heaven  4. delivered in
the sense of being born, or reborn.
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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

• Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and
  desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and
  sickness dwell,
• Here, Donne furthers the idea that Death is not
  mighty, but indeed is a slave, with fate,
  chance, kings, and desperate men" as his masters.
  The personified Death does not always have the
  power to choose who is to die and chance may
  suddenly take someone, kings on a whim may doom
  people
• to their deaths, and desperate men, who see no
  way out,
• may take their own lives, thus cheating Death of
  his control and mastery.  Next, Donne likens
  Death to a scavenger who cleans up where poison,
  war, and sickness have raged.
• How proud is his position now?

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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

• And poppy,or charms can make us sleep as well,
  And better than thy stroke   why swell'st thou
  then ?
• Donne notes that drugs alike have the power of
  producing sleep, and in fact, create a truer
  sleep than Death. Thus, Death's omnipotent
  self-image is again belittled and shown as false
  hubris. Since this is the
• case, what reason are you, Death, proud?

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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

• One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And
  Death shall be no more   Death, thou shalt die.
• After we are dead a fleeting moment,we will wake
  up resurrected, to eternal life, never to sleep
  or die again. Then, death will cease to exist
  altogether, will die.

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Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Here now the personified Death has been shown to
be not mighty and dreadful,but a mere mortal,
since he will die an eternal death at the
resurrection, whereas we mortals will enjoy
eternal life. The final pronouncement completes
the idea that Death is the one who should be
afraid, not the one to be feared.
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Thank You !