The Baite

The poem I chose was "The Baite" by John Donne. This poem is structured as seven quatrain es with the rhyme scheme aabb,ccdd,eeff,gghh,iijj,kkll, and mmnn. In this poem Donne makes analogy between fish and bait with love between women and men. Donne represents women as bait and men as fish. When a fish is caught by the bait it is implying that the man is caught by the love of the women. Another thing I found interesting about this poem was Donne's choice of words in the first and last quatrains. After I read the first quatrain I assumed that Donne wanted to be in love, but after I read the last quatrain it seemed that Donne didn't want to be in love by saying that the fish that remains uncaught is wiser than him. Throughout this poem Donne also uses such things as personification to paint in image for the reader. One example of this is Donne saying the river was whispering in the second quatrain. The main reason i chose this poem was because of the analogy that was used throughout the poem that helped paint a picture in my head.

-Frank Koelbel-