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Article: Marvell's metamorphic 'Fleckno.' (Andrew Marvell; poem)
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- January 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Rice University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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While the narrator of Andrew Marvell's "Fleckno, an English Priest at Rome," progresses through his encounter with the "Priest, Poet, and Musician," the poem's "Chamelion" figure--Fleckno--undergoes a continuing metamorphosis.(1) This early poem is a remarkable example of what readers have come to recognize as Marvell's characteristic poetic technique: a hovering between the serious and the comic. The interpenetrating elements of Marvell's oxymoronic style in this poem derive from dually allusive references to specific emblematic attributes, to biblical events and sacraments, and to literary styles and genres.
Marvell's use of the "sad Pelican; Subject divine ...