The Flea
About the Poet
John Donne was a famous Elizabethan and Renaissance poet born on January 22, 1572, in London. The United Kingdom. His father died in 1576 when he was only four years old. Starting his primary education at home, he went to Oxford University in 1583 but left his degree incomplete because of his religious belief as Catholic. He married Ann Moore in 1601, but the marriage was not approved for long. They bore twelve children and Ann died in 1617 giving birth to her last child. Her death added misery in his life which led him to poverty and mental unrest too. Then, he started religious preaching, writing and reading. He fell ill in 1624. This led him to more depression too. He met death on March 31, 1631.
Donne was one of the leading members of the metaphysical school of poetry. He became the Member of Parliament twice. Go and Catch a Falling Star, The Good Morrow, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, The Canonization, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Death Be Not Proud and Sunne Rising are some of his famous poems. Although he wrote masterpieces in his life, his Collected Poems appeared posthumously.
Summary of the Poem
The speaker convinces his beloved to make love by stating that they have been one inside a flea. The flea has bitten the speaker first and then beloved. The blood is mixed in the body of the flea. Their mingling can’t be called sin and shame and neither can be their love making. The speaker stops his beloved from killing the flea since it contains three lives. If she kills it, she will be guilty of the murder of three lives. Furthermore, the flea has been the holy place of their wedding place and wedding bed. He goes on saying that in spite of their parents disapproving of their mingling, they are already united in the living walls of the flea. That’s why, for the speaker killing the flea would be a disrespectful act.
The woman is not convinced as she has killed the flea with a fingernail. He calls her cruel and rash. He asks his beloved what was the fault of the flee, except sucking their blood. She is triumphant and says that neither of them is weaker having killed the flea. He then asserts that she should learn that how false her fears are. His opinion is that she will lose as much honor when she gives her virginity to him as the flea’s death took from her. There is no loss of honor if she yields to him and it would be as simple as an act of killing the flea.
Theme of the Poem
John Donne's ‘The Flea’ expresses the theme of love so much as sexual desire. In this regard, Donne is able to draw on an existing convention for the central conceit of his poem. It was quite common in those days for sex to be represented as the mingling of blood. And the flea's nature as a bloodsucking creature makes it a particularly suggestive metaphor to use in relation to such a risqué theme.
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