John Donne Flashcards
Subject of Donne’s Early Poems
Developed Knowledge of English Society couple with sharp criticism of its problems
Images of Early Poems
Satire using images of Sickness, Vomit, Manure, and Plague
Erotic Poetry
Elegies (The Flea, To His Mistress Going to Bed)
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day
Concerns the Poet’s despair at the death of a loved one
“Death Be Not Proud”
Holy Sonnet X
Donne’s Style
Metaphysical style- broad conceits, use of metaphor
Donne’s work expresses…
a healthy appetite for life and its pleasures, while also expressing deep emotion
Metaphysical Conceit
An extended metaphor that combines two vastly different ideas into a single idea, often using imagery
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
Compares two separated lovers to the legs of a compass
Metaphysical poems begin…
in the midst of an occasion
Metaphysical poems then proceed to…
a device by which the extremes of abstraction and concreteness may be woven together by wit
Metaphysical poems may deal with broader subjects of…
philosophy, religion, science, politics, or mathematics
Definition of Wit
Verbal Dexterity, skill, and imagination that could bring quite different ideas and images together in unity
The Flea
Derives from a pseudo-Ovidian medieval poem which a lover envies the flea for the liberty it takes with his lover’s body
