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John Donne Poetry The Flea and No Man is an Island

John Donne was born in England and was a poet, satirist, cleric and lawyer. He is seen as the ultimate metaphysical poet. Such metaphysical poets lived in the 17 th century and were a loose group of learning poets that used conceits. A Metaphysical conceit is a comparison of two things that concede likeness even though the things may not actually be alike. For example, the concept of a flea biting both a man and his lover might mean that relationships should not be denied just because they are not married.   You can see that association in Donne’s poem “The Flea”: Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yea more than married are.    This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is. As you can tell from the poem, John Donne was using far metaphors and wit to get his point across. This type of poetry is based off of neo-Platonism. It is the attempt to find perfection of beauty in the world as the perfection of heaven. Their work