Love Vs Sin Flashcards
How is love vs sin presented in the flea?
-The tension between love and sin has long offered a rich vein for poetic inquiry, often blurring the line between desire and transgression.
-Donne’s The Flea, with its hallmark Metaphysical wit, adopts a more playful stance, using the flea as a sly metaphor for sexual union to subvert the moral conventions of the time.
Big idea?(1)
The speaker’s bold conceit of the flea—symbolizing the mingled blood of the lovers—challenges conventional views of marriage, chastity, and the sinful nature of intimacy.
What did the quote in one flea spare / Where we almost, nay more than married are,” suggest?(2)
The declaration, “Oh stay, three lives 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 does the use of “marriage bed” and “marriage temple” suggest?(3)
-The use of “marriage bed” and “marriage temple” contrasts the trivial flea with sacred symbols, emphasizing the absurdity of society’s rigid restrictions on love and the perception of sin.
-By equating their union within the flea to a sacred bond, Donne critiques the hypocrisy of moral codes that prioritize artificial purity over genuine connection.
What does the 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.
-The condescending tone also hints at how women were viewed as passive and constrained by religious teachings, underscoring the speaker’s arrogant attempt to shift the power dynamic and explore love beyond the boundaries of sin
What does the critique “reacted against the deliberately sweet tones of 16th-century verse,” suggest?(5)
-As Ian Ousby notes, the metaphysical poets “reacted against the deliberately sweet tones of 16th-century verse,” and Donne’s raw and provocative approach exemplifies this shift, presenting love as an act that defies the boundaries of sin. -The poem’s loose structure mirrors this defiance, breaking from conventional form to emphasize the speaker’s rejection of societal constraints. The phrase “carpe diem” urges the woman to seize the moment, reinforcing the idea that true love and desire exist beyond rigid moral codes, challenging the perception of sin that surrounds them.
What could you compare the poem with?
-absent from thee
-While Wilmot speaker’s grapples with love’s spiritual burden, Donne’s offers a starkly different view, presenting love—particularly in its physical form—as natural and inevitable.
-Yet both works, despite their contrasting tones, engage deeply with the complex relationship between passion and morality.
