Point of View

"The Bait" is written from the first-person perspective of a (presumably male) speaker who attempts to seduce his beloved with flattery and idealism. In this way, the poem engages with and mirrors directly the Petrarchan tradition in which male speakers seek to gain access to a woman through poetic expression. Donne's speaker, however, is not strictly Petrarchan. While he flatters the beloved by comparing her to the sun and moon, he also shifts the role she plays in his piscatory metaphor. While the woman is the fisherman of the metaphor and the speaker, presumably, the fish, the speaker challenges the notion that fish are passive victims (an element of the Petrarchan tradition) and instead suggests that fish can benefit from being caught by this particular beloved. In this way, Donne's speaker uses the Petrarchan metaphor of pursuer/pursued precisely to disrupt the trope in favor...