"The Flea"

I thought “The Flea” by John Donne was a very interesting poem. Donne uses the symbol of the flea to represent sex and the speaker uses this symbol to persuade his love, this woman, to have sex with him. Because the flea first sucked the speaker’s blood and now the woman’s, he believes they are more connected “than [they] would do.” The speaker is also envious of the flea because the flea can enjoy his lover without even wooing her first. But because he can’t have her, he is also happy that the flea connects them in this way. In the last stanza of the poem, there is a shift—the speaker is angry at his love because she killed the flea. He asks what the fleas sin was, and says she lost no more honor than she would if she slept with him.

I think the killing of the flea is a metaphor sex. He compares them as two important acts; and since the woman thought the act of killing the flea was trivial, then he believes sex should be trivialized as well. Mixing of the blood could also be another metaphor. The speaker explains how since the flea mixed their blood, they were connected, like in marriage. The blood could also be related to the act of sex between the two as well.

God's Grandeur

The structure of God's Grandeur is an Italian sonnet. The octave, which is the first eight-lined stanza of the poem, describes the greatness of the natural world that God has charged and then comments on how in life we, generations of men, just go through the motions. We "smear" our life with "toil," and "sear" it with trade.
In the second six-lined stanza, the sestet, the speaker suggests that the greatness of nature is not yet over, that "there lives the dearest freshness." With God, all in nature is not lost-- he "broods...over the bent world." This poem overall comments on modern man (who I believe the speaker is addressing, the audience) and how God can save him.
A figure of speech in the poem is the metaphor in the beginning. Hopkins suggest the world "will flame out, like shining from a shook foil." Because of the "like," we would call this a similie. I personally enjoy this similie because the reader can actually imagine the glare coming from the foil, almost like lightning. It shows God in a very powerful and great light, which I think is what Hopkins was trying to do with this poem.

Welcome!

Hey everyone...this is my first blog post. My name's Becky, I'm 19 years old, and a freshman at Ohio University.