Last lesson, we considered this idea: "Unless we identify and agree what the literal meaning of a word or expression is, we cannot identify and agree what is metaphorical " (from Knowles and Moon Introducing Metaphor) and discussed how the almost-banality of the image of the Flea itself is transformed by Donne into an image which is scientific, transcendent, spiritual and creative. We looked at the nexus between the ordinary and the extraordinary in the poem (for instance, the references reminiscent of the Trinity or the redemption, juxtaposed with references to killing parasites)
The question you are then to write on is this:
“Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language” (Lakoff and Johnson Metaphors We Live By cited in Critical Anthology, p.13)
How does Donne negotiate the ordinary and the extraordinary in The Flea?
Essays should be in by Thursday.
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