Themes within “The Flea” Salmon Rushdie once said, “A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep” (“50 Powerful Quotes About Poetry”). All throughout history, poetry has been written to portray many different aspects of life including feelings that are experienced by many human beings. When writing and reading poetry, there are always themes evident in the literature. As a writer, John Donne, wrote many things from satires and sermons to poems and epigrams. More specifically, Donne is known for his beautifully written poetry that contains themes of all kinds. One of his famous poems, “The Flea,” is out of character and slightly inappropriate for his time period furthering Rushdie’s quote of “naming the unnameable and starting arguments” (“50 Powerful Quotes About Poetry”). Donne wrote a poem portraying a persuasive act of seduction by comparing a flea to the act of love. In the poem, “The Flea,” he portrays the themes of sex, religion, and guilt with writing that not only makes the reader slightly uncomfortable but overall worried for the girl’s ability to stand strong by her faith and morals. To begin, one of the main themes within “The Flea,” is sex. Within the poem, the speaker is persuading the woman to have sex with him off of his idea that the actual act of sex has already been done within the flea that has bitten both of them. Donne showed this when he wrote:
Mark but this
This was a very well established foundation for the poems message as it was directed at simply reinforcing feelings and emotions that were already present within the population.
The national social and political dissent caused by the Vietnam War was also a very strong establishment for the poem “ And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” as it revisits the past pains of WW1 that can be easily akin to the present feelings of outrage and sorrow felt towards the Vietnam
1. The fall of man on the uninhabited, peaceful, and pure island represents how man is inevitably entropic and anthropocentric. Man is centered on humankind being the most important element of existence which is a threat to the surrounding nature. Jack and his team symbolize the arrogance of man and "mankind 's essential illness," which is the evil inside of us. Hence the creation of anarchy where the boys have the temptation to conquer everything.
What is the purpose of all the contrasting, descriptive imagery? What elements underlyingly stand for other items?
The poem opens with the speaker reflecting on their past and relating to frogs asserting that they
In “A Noiseless, Patient Spider,” Walt Whitman suggests that to survive and achieve emotional fulfillment, connections must be present. In stanza 1, the author mentions a spider trying to make a web on a “promontory” over the sea (1.line 2). The spider is personified in the first stanza and described as “noiseless [and] patient”, which helps the reader discover the spider’s initial personality and instinct. In lines 2 and 3, the writer uses the repetition of the word “mark’d” to signify the importance of the next lines, in which he parallels the speaker to the spider through word-choice and further repetition. The words “vacant” and “vast” provide the reader with a sense of the spider’s precarious nature and the words’ alliteration add emphasis to the magnitude of the setting and
He refers to the bed full of fleas as appropriate and good for creative thought. The bed is unclean and shows how negative it is to believe that it is good for creative thought. It is harmful to the person who practices “unjust argument” as well as those around him, just like the bed of fleas is harmful to the person sleeping on it and people around
Introduction
Hook: In the words of Edgar Allan Poe himself, “ With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion”
Transition: Moreover, this quote supports the idea that during stressful times, writing was his coping mechanism.
Thesis: Poe clearly experienced catastrophe, and because of this, literature became his creative outlet.
The ecology of sloths
When people hear “sloth” they usually think of a lazy mammal that does barely anything and isn’t that interesting, but they are wrong. Sloths are very interesting, they have many interactions with lots of different organisms. Sloths are arboreal{tree dwelling} mammals that live in the rainforest canopies of central and south America. A sloth’s diet consists of plants, when they are ready to defecate they go to the forest floor dig a hole and go, this sends the nutrients back into the ecosystem and makes an area for sloth moths to lay their eggs.. Sloth are very interesting mammals that are a big part of the arboreal mammals in some areas of central and south American rainforests.
I did not understand how a family could love an animal then slaughter it so violently. Despite my feelings, the poem emphasized the importance of using the entire animal. Although the way the family slaughtered the animal is not ideal, they at least maximized the use from the animal. It is more senseless to waste parts of the animals. In addition, I related the poem to how materialistic society is today.
Similes in the poem such as ‘till he was like to drop’ are used to create a more descriptive image in the reader’s mind. Metaphors when saying ‘He lifted up his hairy paw’ and in many other sections of the poem to exaggerate areas to give the reader a more interesting view. So the poet can express what he is trying to prove through and entertaining way. The imagery device enhances the poem to make it stand out more so it grabs the reader attention.
The poem was a very entertaining and humorous.
However, after reading the first stanza, it is evident to the reader that, there is oppression in the air. The first stanza reads that, “Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire and a hurricane of black pigeons splashing in the putrid waters,” and this is clear to the reader that, the New York Dawn is not a normal dawn and that life in New York is despondent. According to the writer, the dawn does not come with something to smile about.
After reading the poem, we realize the writer’s reason for entitling it as such.
Edgar Allan Poe is an influential writer who is well known mainly for his dark and mysterious obscure short stories and poems. Throughout this essay I will analysing how poe uses a series of literary terms such as diction and anaphora in order to convey a bleak, eerie mood and tone. Poe uses these terms in order to contribute to his writing in a positive way, creating vivid images and a cheerless mood. In Poe’s poem, “The Raven”, he uses words such as lonely, stillness, ominous and fiery to add to the building up apprehension within the poem. In addition, he also uses repetition to create fluent yet unruffled, tragic feel for the reader.
Let’s start by looking at the protagonist of the poem who illustrates a lot of psychoanalytical issues in his ordeal with the raven. From the start of the poem to the end, the reader can recognize and identify many defenses. Some of them include selective memory, selective deception, selective perception, denial and displacement especially towards the end. The most significant issue presented in the poem is the fear of being abandoned. Let me delve deeper into the subject.
Both people and animals walk on the streets and either could step on or touch something sharp and cut themselves. Animals could also eat trash and, depending on what it is, it could cause harm to them or potentially kill them. “As I turn up the collar on my favourite winter coat” (stanza 2, line 1), while not being a direct piece of figurative language, means that he has choices between which coat he wears. He is more privileged than others, which is a reason to help others. Also, more figuratively, turning up the collar on your coat can mean that you are shutting people out and only thinking about yourself.
The Sloth
The author of the Sloth is Theodore Roethke. The title shows that the whole poem will be based on the sloth and how it lives. In this poem the author uses figurative language such as personification, imagery and metaphors as well as sound devices like rhyme schemes, repetition and alliteration to emphasize and explain what the sloth does in the poem and how it lives.
Love can exist as affection, infatuation, obsession, pleasure and in many other ways, as love is abstract. Hence, there is no one single interpretation of love. Love is a theme that has been embedded into language and literature over the centuries, yet due to the ever changing perception of love people continue to search for a universal definition of love. Poems are able to showcase the inner feelings and desires of a poet as well as their own unique views on love. Nevertheless, through poems “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats, “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, “Mother in a Refugee Camp” by Chinua Achebe, “The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!”
