The Flea
Donne creates a couple of very interesting images in this poem. He talks about sex in terms of the flea, followed by marriage and the pregnancy of a woman. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that Donne is trying to play the guilt game with this woman that he is after. Apparently she will not have sex with him because he says "...use make you apt to kill me" (line16). That is, he cannot survive much longer if she won't give him her body. This sounds like the typical modern male to me. And further into this conceit of the flea, Donne tries to act innocent "except in that drop which it sucked form thee" (18). Could it be that the speaker has forced himself on the women before, only to get a "taste" before she got bothered enough to make him stop? The use of the flea as a conceit for sex makes the poem much more literary and interesting than if Donne simply wrote down his sexual ideas about this woman in plain English. He seems to be hiding behind his poetic devices, which can disguise his thoughts as more acceptable.
The poem itself is in an interesting form. There are three stanzas, nine lines in each, and an odd rhyming scheme. The lines are AA, BB, CC, DD, and then EEE. Perhaps these last lines ryhme and are also indented to draw more of a reading closeness to them. For example, in the second stanza the last three lines go as follows: "Though use make you apt to kill me,/ Let not to that, self-murder added be,/ And sacrilege, three sins in killing three" (16-18). The meaning behind these lines is absurd. It seems that Donne is trying to draw comparisons to the absense of sex and death. First he says that he will die without it, then he says that she will die without it, and finally he mentions that without sex no babies can be made, which is murder in itself. All in all, he is attempting to guilt-trip the woman into sleeping with him or otherwise it is considered a triple murder. Maybe it's not just about sex, it's about starting a family, but either way Donne is very forceful about his desire to make love.
Donne creates a couple of very interesting images in this poem. He talks about sex in terms of the flea, followed by marriage and the pregnancy of a woman. The only thing that bothers me is the fact that Donne is trying to play the guilt game with this woman that he is after. Apparently she will not have sex with him because he says "...use make you apt to kill me" (line16). That is, he cannot survive much longer if she won't give him her body. This sounds like the typical modern male to me. And further into this conceit of the flea, Donne tries to act innocent "except in that drop which it sucked form thee" (18). Could it be that the speaker has forced himself on the women before, only to get a "taste" before she got bothered enough to make him stop? The use of the flea as a conceit for sex makes the poem much more literary and interesting than if Donne simply wrote down his sexual ideas about this woman in plain English. He seems to be hiding behind his poetic devices, which can disguise his thoughts as more acceptable.
The poem itself is in an interesting form. There are three stanzas, nine lines in each, and an odd rhyming scheme. The lines are AA, BB, CC, DD, and then EEE. Perhaps these last lines ryhme and are also indented to draw more of a reading closeness to them. For example, in the second stanza the last three lines go as follows: "Though use make you apt to kill me,/ Let not to that, self-murder added be,/ And sacrilege, three sins in killing three" (16-18). The meaning behind these lines is absurd. It seems that Donne is trying to draw comparisons to the absense of sex and death. First he says that he will die without it, then he says that she will die without it, and finally he mentions that without sex no babies can be made, which is murder in itself. All in all, he is attempting to guilt-trip the woman into sleeping with him or otherwise it is considered a triple murder. Maybe it's not just about sex, it's about starting a family, but either way Donne is very forceful about his desire to make love.
posted by Melissa | 8:21 PM
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