The Speaker

The speaker of "The Bait" is writing directly to his beloved in an attempt to flatter and seduce her. Throughout the poem, he compares himself to the fish who willingly swim toward her to be "caught." Other times, however, the speaker is also the fisherman, happy to have "caught" the beloved in the water. The speaker of "The Bait" differs from Marlowe's speaker in "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love," in that Donne's speaker relies on paradox and intellectualized conceptions of eroticism rather than simple flattery and idealism associated with Pastoral and Petrarchan forms.

The Beloved

The beloved is the subject of "The Bait" and the poem is written directly to her, a structure that Donne frequently employs in his work. At first, the beloved is figured as a fisherman who attracts fish naturally with her beauty and desirability. As the poem progresses, however, the beloved is...