Barriers To Love Flashcards
What barrier to love is presented in the flea?
-Society’s expectations have long shaped the language of love, turning it into a battleground where personal desire clashes with external constraints
-Donne’s The Flea grapples with these restrictions as the speaker playfully seeks to circumvent societal expectations of chastity
What does circumvent mean?
To circumvent means to find a way around or overcome an obstacle or rule, often in a clever or indirect manner.
What would a big idea be? (1)
-In The Flea, John Donne critiques the religious and societal norms that confine love, particularly the expectations imposed on women:
-The speaker’s audacious conceit of the flea as he plauys upon ideas of the renaisance that mean women can only uses
What does the quote “in one flea spare / Where we almost, nay more than married are,” suggest?(2)
-The declaration, “in one flea spare / Where we almost, nay more than married are,” humorously mocks the sanctity of marriage, suggesting that their union is as binding as a legitimate one.
What do the uses of “marriage bed” and”marriage temple” suggest?(3)
The use of “marriage bed” and “marriage temple” reinforces this subversion, comparing the insignificant flea to sacred spaces and highlighting the absurdity of society’s restrictions on love.
What does absurdity mean?
Absurdity means something that is unreasonable, silly, or laughably foolish.
What does the opening quote “Mark but this flea” suggest?(4)
-Donne’s use of the imperative “Mark but this flea” is spoken with a condescending tone and monosyllabic language, evoking the way one might speak to a child and implying his sense of intellectual superiority.
-This emphasizes the power imbalance between the genders and reflects the larger societal expectation that women remain passive, bound by rules that deny their freedom
What is a quote from a critic that relates to the flea?
-As Ian Ousby notes, the metaphysical poets “reacted against the deliberately sweet tones of 16th-century verse,” and John Donne’s raw and provocative approach exemplifies this shift.
-In The Flea, Donne’s use of bold imagery and the carpe diem theme, urging the woman to “seize the moment,” starkly contrasts the rigid conventions of the time and the societal constraints imposed on romantic and sexual freedom.
-The loose, almost conversational form of the poem overtly mirrors the speaker’s defiance against these norms, emphasizing the freedom he seeks in love.
What could you compare the poem with?
-who so list to hunt
-While Wyatt’s tone is heavy with resignation, Donne’s speaker jests with witty defiance, yet both poems reveal how the societal norms of their time act as barriers, distorting love into a struggle against external forces rather than a true union.
