Example of scansion1/14/2024 ![]() Next we actually go inside the flea, where a marriage is consecrated with the mingling of two bloods. The insect swells up like Violet Beauregarde turning into a giant blueberry in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Hear the buzzing of the flea as it lands on her skin and begins to delicately suck her blood. Imaginatively, the poem begins by zooming in on the woman's smooth, pale arm. No exterminators back in the day, you know. Seriously, we're sure there were fleas even in the royal palace. ![]() ![]() Literally, the poem is set anywhere you might find fleas, which in Renaissance England included.everywhere. SETTING Like many works by the Metaphysical Poets, "The Flea" contains wild shifts in the imaginative setting of the poem (the images you think about as a reader), even as the literal setting stays in one place. His greatest wealth is his capacity for language. In other words, he's probably not some gorgeous prince with three estates and a lot of fancy paintings. He has a lot of work to do on that front, because apparently neither her parents nor the woman in question have much interest in their marriage. He talks a lot about the sanctity of marriage, probably because he wants to convince her that he's an honorable gentleman, not someone looking for a one-night stand. He uses religious imagery, including allusions to Jesus Christ and the Trinity, to argue that killing the flea would be a horrible sin. Interestingly, the speaker also seems to be a devout Christian, or at least he wants the woman to think he is. Then this argument is exposed as a fraud, which he thinks proves the first argument. Then he says it's too late to worry about shame because they are already married. At first he claims that falling for his charms won't cause his beloved any shame. In this poem, for example, he changes his argument a couple of times. You could catch him in some ridiculously absurd conclusion, and he would be like, "A-ha! But that just proves that this other thing I said was right!" And then you would go: FACEPALMS. THE SPEAKER The speaker of "The Flea" is a smarty pants who will never admit to having lost an argument. Each stanza has nine lines, and the first and last line of each stanza has eight syllables. The lines alternate between eight and ten syllables (iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter). Our mar-riage bed, and mar-riage tem-ple is (lines 12-13) The poem's main rhythmic unit is the iamb: a short, unaccented syllable followed by a long, accented syllable: He manages to unite the couple in rhyme, if not in real life. The most commonly used rhyme words are "thee" and "be." Notice, too, Donne's clever pairing of "me," "thee," and "be" at the end of the poem. The rhyme words are very simple, usually limited to one syllable: this/is, thou/now, met/jet. So each time we get a new rhyme, we're also getting a new idea. These couplets (and one triplet at the end of the stanza) help you keep track of the speaker's argument, which generally proceeds in two-line units. Let's start with the rhyme scheme: AABBCCDDD. Donne makes the writing look so easy that you hardly notice everything going on beneath the surface. Send us feedback.Rhyming Couplets in Iambic MeterThis little poem is a marvel of form and rhythm. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ascension.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. 2023 After all, his ascension to CEO is said to have resulted from the rising criticism Toyota has faced from investors, environmental activists, and others due to its general resistance to EV adoption under outgoing CEO Akio Toyoda. NBC News, 18 July 2021 For the Nazi mystic Captain Blicero (father of the 00000), the rocket will catalyze humanity’s ascension to a higher realm of being. Globe Staff,, This quick ascension is unique among academics at any college, but particularly rare for a Black professor at a predominately white institution. 2022 But Udoka remained steady through it all and deserves plenty of credit for this ascension. 2022 In response to Gray's likely ascension, a committee of the Wyoming Legislature late last month voted to draft a bill that would remove the secretary of state from overseeing the state's elections. 2022 The first ascension of a monarch in the modern age. 2022 The World Cup quarterfinals are full of soccer powerhouses like France and Brazil, plus the exciting ascension of Morocco. Recent Examples on the Web Following an ascension of the townhouse’s grand staircase, one is immediately welcomed into an intimate foyer.
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