Donne, Marvell and Time
never allowing the reader to separate the flea and the mistress, binding them together in a stunning, memorable visual.
The use of the image of the flea and Donne’s extreme conclusion at the end of the poem lead us to question the true tone and aim of the poet, and whether it is much like Marvell’s ‘Coy Mistress’ at all. We question whether Donne, in his carefully and measured steps through his argument in favour of consummation, is aiming to seduce, or instead, playing a deft game, with reader and lover alike, in mockery of ‘ carpe d iem’. The interpretation of the poem hinges ultimately upon its ending: for which Donne holds the most powerful words in all his three stanzas: the adjectives ‘cruel and sudden’, abstract noun ‘honour’ and verb ‘yield’st’. Seemingly, Donne’s compelling of his lover to yield their ‘honour’ to him (give him her virginity) in the closing lines, simply for the throwaway ease at which they can kill the flea, hence ‘killing three’, offers the interpretation that the poem is truly a mischievous and far - fetched attempt at se duction. However, Donne’s interlacing of religious and mortal themes throughout the poem implies a second interpretation, one of the poem being a game, a form of an erudite argument between a mock preacher (Donne spent a large majority of his life as a deacon and priest), persuading and educating his lover in favour of mercy. One must question the tone of the poem, and deem it desperately pleading, or humorously patronizing – certainly I find that Donne’s phallic imagery and witticism of a flea ‘pampered swells with one blood’ combined with the added fact that , although his lover is not persuaded, and crushes the flea, her actions are in favour of his argument, empower the image of Donne playfully using the flea as a vehicle to simply win an argument. This differs wholly from Marvell’s attempt at seduction in ‘Coy Mistress’, where the tone can be discerned as genuine, and most certainly pleading. His presentation of the attribute coyness interlocked with criminality immediately confronts us with his poetic polemic, placed at the forefront of his poem, almost like a poetic thesis, where he chooses to highlight the problem first, before releasing his argument and ending with his proposed solution. While the poem's structure initially seems unbroken, the iambic tetrameter and closed couplet rhymes change strongly in subject matter in a tonal shift halfway through the poem. Where Marvell initially elaborates upon ‘Had we but world enough, and time’, particular izing his profound love for his beloved, it is only in line 21, ‘But at my back I always hear,’ where we shift into the presentation of his argument. Here, the iambic tetrameter gives new effect, where it previously emphasized the plethora of forms of adoration Marvell has for his lover, the galloping nature of the metre presses speed upon the poem, along with the most powerful metaphysical comparison of the poem, the personified ‘Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near’. Marvell then describes, in more metaphorical detail than his affection for his beloved, the bleakness and finality of life ahead: casting the time before the couple as ‘deserts of vast eternity’ and comparing his proposed love -rich present with the gruesome grave where ‘worms shall try that long - preserved virginity’ and ‘none . . . do there embra ce.’ Marvell enlightens his partner’s present by contrasting it with death, where ‘the quaint honour’ that his mistress so protects will ‘turn to dust’ and similarly, disseminates ‘into ashes all my lust’. Marvell deeply encourages in favour of experience and consummation, the simile of ‘youthful glue/ sits on thy skin like morning dew’ emphas izing by dew’s fleeting nature, his urge to love while beauty still remains upon their skin. Similarities can be cast to Herrick’s ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Tim e’ , 7 where, beyond the shared subject matter of virginity and marriage, Herrick also considers
7 See Poetry Foundation, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.
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