the flea

john donne

• showed poetry to selct group of friends. Donne scorned idea of making it publically available

• asks serious questions about nature of existance

• metaphysical poet: -conceit/ clever wordplay/witty ideas/ syllogism- logical arguments/ religious imagery/ colloquial language

stanza 1:“mark but this flea and mark in this,”

“mark”: means look, he command she compares flee to sex

monosyllabic first line, not high faulting language gives impression it is a conversation

stanza 1: “it sucked me first, and now sucks thee”

• four monosyllables, caesura and monosyllables echo first line creating sense of regularity

• sexual innunedo

• “thee”: creates intimate tone- suggests familiarity with speaker

stanza 1: “ a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead”

• tricolon- “logical” argument cannot be considered a sin

stanza 1: “yet… And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than we would do”

• purposelly indented lines to stand out- can be considered “summary points” like a lawyer (law background)

• “swells”: witty ideas/ double entendre/ about male pleasure showing she remains indifferent

• alludes to how she would be innocent if they were to have sex

• “more than we would do”: envious of flee

stanza 2: “O stay, three lives, in one flea spare,”

• sacrilageusly alludes to holy trinity: three persons one God head

stanza 2: “yea more than married are”

• already connected through flee more than married people

stanza 2: “our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;”

• consistent marriage references refer to fear of premarital sex

• “flea” represents “marriage temple”

• idea of a physical body being temple appears in new testament

stanza 2: “through parents grudge, and you, we’are met”

• “,and you”: parenthesis is grudging acknowlegement

stanza 2: “and cloistered in these living walls of jet”

• “cloistered”: lclose together

• elaborate conceit

stanza 2: “though use make you apt to kill me

ket not to that, self murder added be]and sacrilege,

three sins in killin three.”

• she killed flee so has supposedly killed marriage

• tricolon of murder links to holy trinity

• caesura slows down poen and gives it a medititave feel as though he pausing to consider argument

stanza 3: “cruel and sudden, hast thou since”

• suddeness of action emphasised by unexpected caesursa + word in poem

“purpled thy nail in blood of innocence”

rhetorical- blood of innocence- slightly oxymoronic, as spilling blood is supposed to be a sin- turn in poem in last stanza he is trying to make her feel bad

stanza 3: “Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;”

changes argument: nothing would change just like nothing changed when she killed flea

stanza 3: “just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me”

• assuming she will eventually give in

stanza 3: “ Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee”

• in the jacobean period death was a euphemism for orgasm (e.g petit mort)

• syllogism

• final rhyming couplet end suggests finality of his argument, accepted failure

form and structure: mostif of 3

• 3 stanzas, end in triplet: refernece to holy tinity- questioning church and society

• power of three is a literary technique observed first in homeric epics: describe things in three becuase it feels powerful

• connote to the power a man held over the women

form and structure: sonnet form

poem rejects typical sonnet form suggesting it is not a love poem

critical responses: amanda boyd

“donnes poetry does not demean women but in fact acknowledges and appreciagtes their capabilities”

critical responses: peter rudnystksky

“donne manipulates logic and mataphor”

jane eyre: links to separation, fact they are interlinked spiritually

separation intensifies love

theme of physicaldesire and righteousness, similar to Jane struggling to find balance between obligation to spirit and attention to her body

mens desire of sex is the driving foce of “love”, achieving sexual goals by decieving women as they are the inferior sex.

same as rochester decieving jane in regards to Bertha, asking her to run away with him and trying to comman and control her, which jane does not want