The Flea ( Critical Summary)

It’ is an erotic metaphysical poem ( posthumously in 1633) by John Donne (1572–1631). The exact date of its composition is unknown ; but it is probable that Donne wrote this poem in the 1590s when he was a young law student at Lincoln’s Inn, before he became a respected religious figure as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. The poem uses the conceit of a flea, which has sucked blood from the male speaker and his female lover, to serve as an extended metaphor for the relationship between them. The speaker tries to convince a lady to sleep with him, arguing that if their blood mingling in the flea is innocent, then sexual mingling would also be innocent. His argument hinges on the belief that bodily fluids mix during sexual intercourse.

According to Laurence Perrine, this poem, along with many other of Donne’s poems, solidifies his place in the literary movement, creating what is now known as metaphysical poetry. Although the term was not found until after his death, it is still widely used and will continue to be traced back to work such as “The Flea”.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is;

It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

 And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two; 

And this, alas! Is more than we would do.

 

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,

And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

⁠Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.

⁠'Tis true; then learn how false fears be;

Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

The poem evokes the aphorism carpe diem, which is Latin for “seize the day”. Donne encourages the lady to focus on the present day and time versus saving herself for the afterlife. Donne is able to hint at the erotic without explicitly referring to sex, using images such as the flea that “pamper’d swells” with the blood of the lady (line 8). This evokes the idea of an erection. The speaker complains that “This is more than we would do!” (line 9) The speaker says it would be “sacrilege” to kill the flea. He holds the flea up in the second stanza as “our marriage bed” and “our marriage temple”, begging for the lady to spare its innocent life (line 13). He argues that by killing the flea, she would be killing herself, himself, and the flea itself, “Three crimes in killing three” (line 18). The lady, in the third stanza, kills the flea, presumably rejecting the speaker’s advances. He then says she will lose no more honor when she decides to sleep with him than she did when she killed the flea.

Biathanatos ( Greek meaning -violent death) is a work by the English writer and clergyman John Donne. Written in 1608 and published after his death, it contains a heterodox defense of “self-homicide” (suicide), listing prominent Biblical examples including Jesus, Samson, Saul, and Judas Iscariot. Thomas De Quincey responds to the work in his “On Suicide”, and Jorge Luis Borges responds in “Biathanatos”.

Donne begins by addressing his patron, Phillip Harbert, then divides the book, after a preface, into three parts, each part divided into distinctions, each distinction divided into sections. The first part focuses on "The Law of Nature", the second on "The Law of Reason", and the third on "The Law of God", before ending with a conclusion.

Pseudo-Martyr is a 1610 polemical prose tract in English by John Donne. It contributed to the religious pamphlet war of the time, and was Donne’s first appearance in print. It argued that English Roman Catholics should take the Oath of Allegiance of James I of England. It was printed by William Stansby for Walter Burre. He entered directly into one of the major debates of the period, supporting Sir Edward Coke against the Jesuit Robert Parsons. Coke in Fift Part of the Reports (1606) had made a historical argument on the powers of the King of England in church matters.

John Donne characterised the English mission, of Catholic priests trained to convert Protestants and sustain English Catholics, as “enemies to the dignity of all princes”, and seditious because of the theories of temporal power of the Pope supported particularly by the Jesuits. Donne used a comparison with the Circumcellions to denigrate Jesuit attitudes to martyrdom. A more subtle side to the argument is that it recognised that the oath had closed down the option of passive obedience to the king. Donne threw the onus of swearing onto individual conscience, discounting both arguments from the state and the authority of casuistry. The only acceptable basis was scripture and knowledge of nature, the duty of obedience being considered in the light of natural law.

Pseudo-Martyr launched him into a career as a clergyman of the Church of England, one of the reasons he wrote it. He also aimed it at English Catholics. The work influenced Thomas James, who praised it.

Ignatius His Conclave is a 1611 work by 16 or 17^th century metaphysical poet John Donne. The title is an example of “his genitive” and means the conclave of Ignatius. The work satirizes the Jesuits. In the story, St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, is found to be in Hell: But Ignatius Layola which was got neere his chaire, a subtile fellow, and so indued with the Divell, that he was able to tempt, and not onely that, but (as they say) even to possesse the Divell, apprehended this perplexity in Lucifer. Ignatius is subsequently ejected from Hell and ordered to colonize the moon where he will do less harm. The text mocks Jesuit evangelism and makes references to many scientists of the day, including Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe and Galileo. Marjorie Hope Nicolson sees Ignatius as derived from Johannes Kepler’s Somnium.