Linking the Three Poems, To His Coy Mistress, Porphyria's Lover and The Flea.
The Flea, To His Coy Mistress and Porphyria's Lover are all about power, love and murder. Discuss!
The Flea, To His Coy Mistress and Porphyria's Lover are three magnificent poems written by three of the greatest poets of their era. Two of the poems, "The Flea" and "To His Coy Mistress", are two of the most supreme metaphysical poems written by two of the best known metaphysical poets in history. John Donne and Andrew Marvell. John Donne was responsible for writing "The Flea", Andrew Marvell was responsible for "To His Coy Mistress", and Robert Browning for "Porphyria's Lover". If these poems are examined carefully then you can easily tell that all three have both their similarities and opposites. However one thing that they all defiantly have in common is that they all share the same themes: Love, power, religion, sex and in two of the poems rather than all three, murder. Furthermore two of the poems, again, rather than all three share the fact that they are metaphysical. Metaphysics means that nature was displayed as a force. In addition to this the poets also used intellect and used Patrachan conceit. They also include, as you will see later, that they worship women. This meant that all three speakers somewhat more than the authors were intrigued by the mistress and were adamant of possessing a woman's virginity whatever the cost.
In "To His Coy Mistress", love is represented by the speaker loving the mistress but the mistress does not love him know that he exists. This shows unrequited love. The speaker wants his mistress's virginity before time destroys their lives. Andrew Marvell follows a three stanza argument where his speaker try's persuading and seducing the woman with words. An example of this would be when the speaker says, "I would love you ten years before the flood, and you should, if you please, refuse till the conversion of the Jews". The speaker is saying that...