Poetry is an old form of art constantly affected by rebirth. The word poetry comes from the Greek word poiesis, which means making or creating. Lyric poetry is nothing but language sung, chanted or spoken. In the modern sense of the word any short poem is listed within the borders of lyric poetry, which expresses the mood, feeling, or meditation of a single speaker.

In ancient times a lyric was a song which could accompany the tunes played on the lyre, or it could be a choral lyric, which was sung by a group of people. Since the Renaissance this word, lyric, suggests that a poem has song-like qualities. Lyricism is the song-like, emotional quality, the lyrical possession of all lyric poetry ¹.

            If it comes to the form of poetry, we know no borders at all. Some forms are just the specific elements of cultures or genres, some are the properties of eras or poets. The forms, conventions, patterns, syntax and collocates used by the poet always have one aim in common: to cause pleasure or grief, to shock us out of our complacency. So the poet has to do nothing, but, by the use of verbal extravaganza, create a fresh ambiance in which the reader can elevate his or her soul. Of course, the success of a verse depends on many things, but there are crucial particles of it without which poetry cannot work. I am going to list the most important ingredients of poetry by one of the poetic landmarks of John Donne.

I am going to observe one of his verses: The Flea, to start with, from a distance. Without reading it, anyone can see that it has a title and its words create a bigger unity, lines. These are to form the stanzaic uniform of poems, a common property of a prototypical poem. Of course, in many other works there are other well-known structures, for instance, written in blank verse or heroic couplets, or free verse as well, but those stichic structures are not so typical to my mind when we speak about poetry forms ².

If we go a bit closer to the poem we can see that it has three stanzas, and its lines contain eight stressed syllables per line. This iambic tetrameter gives a basic rhythm to the lines, but this rhythm is disturbed by pentameters. There is probably just one aim in this concept, namely, to give special emphasis to certain words. For instance, the first line, instead of an unstressed iambic upheaval, starts with the stressed word Mark, and with this technique the poet puts the word in the limelight at once. I think, because of this structure why the poem is accentual. We can only see the number of stressed syllables spread evenly in the lines, the unstressed syllables vary in number ³. Then comes another trick: Donne uses a pyrrhic method by jotting down the neighbouring words but and this, so the emphasis is irrefutably put on the word flea.

This structure is reinforced by the rhymes, which are really against boredom. The first two lines have rhyming endings, then the third and the fourth, after that the fifth and the sixth line do this again. Then comes the next three lines as a closer of a stanza, and the whole lot rhyme: woo, two, do; me, be, three; be, me, thee. These within-the-stanza tercets close one track of thought. Then the within-the-stanza couplets restart the thought again. The rhyme scheme is aabbccddd. The term stanza most of the time is referred to groups of four lines, so from this point of view this poem of Donne’s is quite revolutionary.  Its first merit is giving us something new by the use of this unique form.

Rhymes give the poem the repetitive pattern by which its rhythm develops, so language starts fluctuating in our ears not just in our eyes, and through this, it starts becoming a unity of perceptions and experience. However, this process is helped by some other poetic devices as well. These can be alliterations, assonances, or consonances. Alliterations or head rhymes are the repetitions of the same sounds, usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables. In the past, using alliterations was a compulsory element in Germanic languages, where its occurrence is dominant in alliterative verses. Donne does not use this pattern, so it makes the verse quite modern due to its do-away-with-the old ideas nature. There are just a few of these in the verse: false fears, will waste. Assonance which is the occurrence of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighbouring words is not frequent either, but ‘three sins in killing three’ is typical of it. But the rhyming word pairs do the same things at the end of the lines: woo, two; met, jet; thou, now.

What makes poetry special lies in the poetic diction, which is the choice of words, collocates, phrases and figures of speech in poetry ⁴. The first important element of this which occurs in the poem is a kenning. Kennings were used especially in Old Norse and Old English poems, it is nothing else but a circumlocution in place of a much more well-known word ⁵. The flea is called here the walls of jet. This method of the really strange use of words with reference to a minute, ugly insect in a love poem context is quite shocking, but this made Donne especially distinguished in his early 17^th century setting. The far-fetched creations of his mind mixed together under his creative gown altered what people thought poetry had been. The technique of putting together the two unusual one is after all the result of the poetic mastermind, this is why poets became the reverend members of the art-world. Anyway, these far-fetched arguments and conceits brought negative opinions of Donne and his art at the time. A lot of his critics said that these pieces had been just the proofs of lack of taste.

There is a metaphor, with ideas really far-fetched in the poem, and this metaphoric specialty is mounting up in the middle of the verse, as a real shock for the reader. The flea becomes the mariage temple, in which three bloods are circulating, so an upper state of living, a supercreature is the one, which is not allowed to be killed, with such a noble liquid in its cells. The flea becomes the sanctuary of sacred love, the out-pumped blood from hearts makes the creature itself a holy unity, circulating in the form of this red triad. The circulatory system is an organic part of bodies, which nowhere starts or ends due its circulatory nature, so love in the form of this roundness cannot be more blessed, elevated or perfect. This image is the true metaphor of the most intimate feelings of men here. Love in a way like this can be really physical and philosophical in the hyper-everyday, almost disgusting surrounding. Its wit, however, is fascinating. It took a long time while others discovered the thought of a complex brain in Donne’s poetry. Donne could reveal his intellectual powers through his wit ⁶. Because of this and other surprising conceits of his, let alone the paradox imagery, he truly deserves to be in the group of poets called metaphysical, equipped with highly sensual thoughts ⁷.

It is no small wonder that Donne uses images from the very far ends of his world scale. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a thing, idea, action is referred to by a word denoting a totally different thing, idea or action. The whole base of creating this figure of speech is the mere suggestion that the two things brought together in a line have common properties, attributes, or overlapping qualities. In The Flea what can be this common quality shared between human love and this hopping parasite? It can be the fact that this insect destroys the surface of our virgin bodies, it comes into us, just like the man who destroys the virginity, sanctity of his love, a woman. The common quality can be blood too, I think. Blood, which can be the harbinger of our minds and feelings, so it has the closest connection with our love organs: our hearts. It is liquid, so it can travel easily into cells, it can mingle and can create a holy fusion in the flea, just like the copulating couples do. So we end up being fascinated by this marriage temple, we feel somewhere deep down in the valley of ridicule, and we feel elevated by superior entity at the same time. Our thoughts paradoxically turmoil, just like our blood does in an insect. The kind of metaphor, which wakes up ridiculous thoughts in us just like the one in Donne’s poem, or based on an illogical connection is referred to as a mixed metaphor ⁸.

Another element of poetic diction is the use of parts of speech, and special syntax. A poem is not about the words of action. Its main aesthetic effect depends mainly on its collocates, by using nouns and adjectives. If it comes to verbs it is probably the strange patterns in their usage which can make the verse pulsate. From the point of view of parts of speech The Flea contains some really harshly matched nouns like mariage bed, walls of jet, blood of innocence. From the point of view of grammatical patterns Donne uses his mobility force, and transports some verbs from their proper places, and by using this method emphasises meaning or causes dramatic effects like in the lines: Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

The assumed identity in a lyric poem most of the time refers to the writer through the appearance of the pronoun I. By using these allusions to him Donne creates a “story” in which I and me rule the first two lines, and then comes the second person, in the form of thee, with whom I, the poet, can unite in the form of a flea. The flea represents the third person singular, as a distinct creature which can imply the pronoun we in its small body. So Donne travels through the scale of pronouns, the route of his voyage was he himself, then he arrives at a higher stage. It is like a kind of metaphor again. God, who symbolizes the number three, as he unites the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son, he is all the pronouns in one. The flea does the same trick, it is an I, a you, and an it, and finally a superior we, with all the strengths of love. This final persona is equivalent to the implied author, and by the implied three-ness is equivalent to mankind as it is. Everyone is in it.

When all these above mentioned poetic specialties, ingredients of poems are mixed together, and nouns, adjectives, and all the pronouns are accumulated in the verse, then comes the most powerful metaphor in which Donne can symbolize love, holiness, as it is a temple and a bed at the same time. It is a strong exaggeration for the sake of emphasis; it gives the verse a really inflated style, so a new figure of speech comes into view here, namely the hyperbole ⁹. Its effectiveness lies in the fact that really distant qualities are the juxtaposed here, and while the mariage bed and mariage temple are neighbouring elements within one line, they carry an enormous inner conflict too. A bed, the symbol of physical love, and human sin, can hold the worldly point of view of men. While the temple, where everything is sacred, blessed, where the soul lives, the place which can elevate us from the dirt, closes the line.  It is a true reference to human beings, who are tortured by physicality and overwhelmed by faithful feelings at the same time, and usually fight a constant battle throughout their lives against their very own bodies. The image is absolutely complex to my mind. It has multi-dimensions, beautiful, shocking, and true in its compoundness.

Lyric poetry, language sung, the song of the self with feelings broadcast, has many columns on which it stands. The structure of the words, the language particles in it, and the numerous images, figures of speech which can spice up thoughts are all inevitable. Donne was the master of these elements, the proof of this lies in the fact that his poetry is original, entertaining, and can talk to us even today, because the idea behind them is timeless and everlasting.

Notes

¹ C. Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,  2001): 143.

² Baldick: 242.

³ Baldick: 2.

⁴ Baldick: 196.

⁵ Baldick: 134.

⁶ S. Coote, The Penguin Short History of English Literature. (New York: Penguin    

Books, 1993): 162.

⁷ Baldick: 153.

⁸ Baldick: 153.

⁹ Baldick: 119.

Works Cited

Baldick C. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford, Oxford

     University Press, 2001.

Coote S. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. New York, Penguin Books,

     1993.