The Bait (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Donne
- First Published: 1633
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Love or romance, Nature, Rivers or waterways, Fishing or fishermen, Fishes
The Poem
“The Bait,” a seven-stanza, twenty-eight-line invitatory, reveals its indebtedness to Christopher Marlowe in its first line, which imitates the opening of Marlowe’s “Passionate shepherd to his love.” Moreover, the general construction of John Donne’s poem—four lines of two pairs of rhymed couplets, or quatrains, with the exception of an added stanza—is not, at first glance, unlike that of the earlier poem, in which a would-be lover entices his beloved by calling up scenes of exquisite bliss. Before and after Donne, this type of poem found a wide...
[The entire page is 1455 words long]
See Also:
John Donne (Cyclopedia of World Authors)John Donne (Poetry)John Donne (Dictionary of World Biography)
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