The Triple Fool

695 Words3 Pages
In the early seventeenth-century, English poets used metaphysical poetry to enlighten highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery in their works, which further advanced the poetic style of John Donne. Donne’s poetry makes use of complex images, which are remarkably convincing to the reader. Despite the use of extensive techniques and varying images, the greatness of Donne’s poetry is the simplicity in the ideas expressed. John Donne’s poem, “The Triple Fool,” suggests unrequited love and folly through his use of creative imagery, sorrowful diction, and assertive tone. Firstly, Donne's poetry is highly distinctive and individual, adopting a multitude of images. The poem offers elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things, “Then as th’ earth’s inward narrow crooked lanes, Do purge sea water’s fretful salt away,” (Donne, Lines 6-7) Donne's poem expresses a wide variety of emotions and attitudes, as if Donne himself were trying to define his experience of love through his poetry. Although, “The Triple Fool” gives a limited view of Donne’s attitude towards love, Donne treats the poem as a part of experience, giving insight into the complex range of experiences concerning love and grief, “I thought, if I could draw my pains through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.” (Donne, Lines 8-9) Overall, the imagery in “The Triple Fool,” contributes to Donne’s sorrowful diction of love and grief. Moreover, Donne explains that poetry is for love and grief, and not for pleasing things, but songs make love and grief even worse. The first verse of the poem states that he is two times a fool, a fool for loving, and a fool for admitting it, “I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry.” (Donne, Lines 1-3) Donne follows to say that he would still not be wise, even if “she” (Donne, Line 5) returned his love. Donne releases his emotions by
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