Donne and Milton address the nature of man’s relationship with god.

In what ways do these poets

agree or disagree, and what concerns do they express in their religious poems?

The seventeenth century was a time of universal expansion in Europe (England). Society was dealing
with changes in monarchy, a civil war, a shift in religion, and advancement in science. These issues were
refreshing the role of the individual in society. Some specific examples of the author in this century who
deal with issues and perspectives in their work are john Donne and John Milton. These two authors are
love, religion, about god, beauty, and political views. Both are English poets in English literature. Donne
was also a leading English poet of the metaphysical school, is often considered the greatest loved poet in
the English language. He wrote most of his love lyrics during this time. His work style old fashioned
works of Spenserian and concentrated their efforts on short poems and lyrics dealing with the themes of
love about woman and love or fear of God. Often poems are presented in the form of arguments. The
reader's sensory perception of abstract ideas. The main images of his poetry are “death” and “world”, the
world of lovers. Besides, the large use of conceit, Donne’s poetry is characterized by “roughness”.it
consists of the use of rhyme, meter, alliteration, and other sound effects. Another poet is, Milton’s is also
a metaphysical poet .His poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom, and
the political turbulence of his day. He was famous for his blank verse and sonnets, he won the praise of
romantic for his skills. Although he didn’t accept his religious views. He was a puritan who believed in
the authority of the bible and opposed religious institutions like the Church of England, and the monarchy
with which it was entwined. He wrote sonnets, lyrics, epic poems, drama verse, and poetic blank verse.
Although both are metaphysical poets, they have written fairly distinct poems, but their constructions of
devotion and godly poetics to be similar. Most of their poetic works are centered on their personal
relationship with spirituality, but the sexual realism in their poetries can’t be ignored. They use rhythms
in their poetry that are jarring yet rhythmic, metaphors that are contradictory and rich and they explore
deep emotional themes. Moreover, both poets believed that God and humankind have a gendered
relationship.

John Donne is known for the witty, sensual poems that he wrote during his early career. John Donne had
not started writing devout, seriously religious poetry up until his later career. The Flea happens to be one
of John Donne’s early poetic works, and therefore the major theme of this poem is seduction.
Nonetheless, Donne was a religious man, but unlike Milton, Donne uses religion, or rather God, to his
own advantage and against his lover, in the attempt to seduce her into giving in. Donne has borrowed a lot
of religious imagery in this poem, which gives him an added absurd authority over his lover. The Flea
might be a religious poem, but John Donne has employed religious terminology. Like The Flea, Donne
defends human sexual love in The Canonization by deploying religious language. Flea was a very popular
subject for ribald and amatory poetry during the Renaissance. Donne’s originality lies in the fact that his
interest is not primarily in the flea, but in the exploration of love-relationship. He emphasizes the need for
physical union, but physical love merges with the spiritual. The lyric has an intensity and immediacy of
emotion, which distinguished it from other poems on the subjects. Donne compares the body of the flea to
a temple and a marriage-bed. In this poem, as the beloved makes ready to kill the flea, the lover asks her
to stay and not to kill the poor creature. Their two types of blood have been united together in its body, as
they are united through marriage in a church. So, its body is a temple in which they have been married.
The respective blood of the lover and the beloved mingle through sexual intercourse. Now they have
mingled in the flea, so its body is their marriage-bed. They meet in the privacy of their body, despite the
objections of her parents and her own objections. She must not kill the flea, for the act would not merely
be cruelty to which she is used. It will be a sin, a sacrilege. It would be a triple murder. Donne’s use of
religious terms for the trivial act of killing a flea imparts a peculiar intensity and immediacy to his desire
for physical union with his beloved.

As we Justification Milton’s, of God to men is one of the major themes of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
However, Milton’s use of the word justify is often misunderstood by casual readers and those who are not
properly acquainted with Paradise Lost. They assume that Milton that asserts that God’s actions and
motives need to be explained and vindicated because they seem so arbitrary, and they consider him rather
arrogant for this. However, the truth is that Milton is not really being arrogant. By justifying, Milton is
not trying to prove that God’s actions are proper, rather he is trying to show the justice that underlies his
actions. He wishes to show that God is just and so are all his actions. He is trying to show the justice that
lies behind God’s actions. Milton’s attitude to God becomes apparent when he starts arguing about
disobedience and its opposite, obedience. Not only does Milton explain why mankind must be obedient to
God, but also presents his own views about God. He imagines a universe where God literally has his own
throne in Heaven, which is at the top. With this presence of hierarchy, Milton implies that God by
definition in this universe is a superior being, which He truly is, while mankind is His subjects and that is
why they must obey Him. Milton thinks highly of God, as any person should. However, there is nothing
in Milton’s poem that may suggest that mankind should be obeying God out of love for Him. Milton
presents obedience to God as a moral obligation for mankind.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the attitudes of Donne and Boone to God and love as found in
John Donne’s “The Flea” and Book One of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” After analyzing these poems,
two different attitudes about God and love have been revealed from the two poets. Milton is more serious
about God and religion, while Donne is satirical and witty. Milton takes it upon himself to defend God
while Donne decides to defend himself through God and religion. Milton’s poem has a pious touch while
Donne’s poems tend to be a bit blasphemous. For Milton, God is a superior being and mankind should be
obedient to him, but for Donne, nothing is more important than love, not even God. Although John
Donne’s poems that he wrote later in his life tend to reflect a very different attitude of God, everything
that has been analyzed above is what his poems reflect about his views of God and love. Despite certain
similarities in their poems and their devout Christian background, both the poets have rather contrasting
attitudes of God and love.