Purify my heart for I have sinned: An Irony In John Donne¡¯s ¡°Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You,¡± the moral and religious qualms of the speaker are manifest in a sonnet which seems at first almost like an avowal between lovers. These convictions of guilt, whi...

Arguing For Romantic Love One of the biggest debates at the turn of the seventeenth century was determining who was responsible for choosing a mate and what criteria that mate must possess in order to be suitable for marriage. The Canonization by John Donne continues with the metaphysical style o...

John Donne's "The Flea" and Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" are poems with very similar underlying messages. They each have a male speaker and in each poem, the narrator is trying to persuade a young woman to relinquish her virginity. Although the message is obfu...

Mafika Gwala's 'We lie under Tall Gum-Trees' explores a new level of sexual intercourse. In this essay Gwala's ironic ideas of love, union, emotional wars and sexual activities will become apparent throughout his poem by exploring his past and splashing into the deep end of his ...