Much debate has arisen over the years about the moral suitability of taking part in sexual intercourse before being married to your true love. In John Donne's “The Flea” this topic is brought up when the speaker of the poem is trying to convince his addressee to partake in sexual intercourse with him although they are not married, by showing her that the act would be no more sinful or shameful than the bite of a flea. He uses the flea as a conceit in three main ways: first, after they have both been bitten, the flea now represents their union by the mixing of bodily fluids. Second, the flea represents innocence and the potential child they may bear together. Finally, he tries to prove that once she yields to his seduction she will have lost no more honour than when she killed the flea.
First, the speaker argues that participating in sexual acts with him would be no more sinful than the bite of a flea because the flea has bitten them both and now their blood is mingled within the flea representing their union. He compares the tiny flea to the sex that she is denying him: “Mark but this flea, and mark in this/ How little that which thou deny'st me is” (1-2), implying that what she is denying him is trivial or insignificant. The speaker then demonstrates that the mixing of their blood within the flea is not a sin, nor shame, nor loss of virginity: “Thou know'st that this cannot be said/ A sin, nor sham, nor loss of maidenhead” (5-6). He is insinuating that having sex with him would not be a sin either because it is nothing more then the mixing bodily fluids. He continues with his argument saying that the flea doesn't even have to woo her to get what it wants and it is pampered as it sucks her blood, which is more than he gets to ...
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...-27). The speaker has unfolded all of his lovers previous illogical fears, once she give in to his persuasion she will lose no more honour then she lost life when she killed the flea.
The speaker has presented his lover with evidence for his argument that being sexually involved with him would be no more sinful than being bitten by a flea because essentially they both involve the same actions; the mixing of bodily fluids, the marriage of the couple, and the conceiving of an innocent beautiful child. We can conclude that sexual acts are not something to be ashamed of, but something that brings two people closer together and creates a deep passion and beauty that simply should not be considered to be shameful or dishonourable.
Works Cited
Donne, John. “The Flea”. Immortal Poems of the English Language. Oscar Williams, ed. NY: Washington Square Press, 1952, 95-6.
p134). The quote which are the holy words of God testifies that a wicked person who has sex
The group known as the Valentinian Gnosticism feels that the experience of the bridal chamber refers to the sanctified union with God; in addition to a sacred sexual union with humans. Some present day Christian groups are quick to use this as a means to condemn early gnostics as rebellious heretical movement of sexually polluted pagan Christians, (referencing perversions within some text contained in the gnostic writings. ) However, there is a problem with this reasoning, due to fact that most gnostic groups believed a sexual connotation was corrupted by material flesh, some believing that ‘all’ sexual contact was impure; such as in Thomas the Contender, “Woe to you who love intimacy with womankind and polluted intercourse with them!”144. Distinctly, writings vary and this debate about what the truth meaning of the total sum of the gnostic texts is
Everett, Nicholas From The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamiltong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
...t P. and Stanley B. Greenfield, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1967
The Puritans in London think of themselves as righteous and worthy before God because of their “pure” ways of living. They view other humans that are not in their order vile, unclean, and incapable of God’s true love, even though one message of Christianity states that everyone is God’s children. One instance of this disdain and superiority is when a Puritan makes the statement to the Dog-Woman, “‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness,’” obviously noting her lack of wealth and access to hygienic products; to this she replies, “‘God looks on the heart, not a poor woman’s dress’… but there was no stopping his little sermon, which he gave with his eyes rolled back as piously as a rabbit’s” (Winterson 15). The Dog-Woman reveals to the audience that she is a sinner in her mind, but she still believes that everyone has a chance of being saved by God if they truly wish it. This particular event emphasizing cleanliness and purity, as well as a statement from the Dog-Woman that Preacher Scroggs “makes love to [his wife] through a hole in the sheet… ‘for fear of lust’” (Winterson 22), strongly contradicts the actions that take place in the brothel. For the importance of faithfulness and abstinence from lust, Preacher Scroggs and Neighbor Firebrace commit acts of homosexuality with each other. For the emphasis on cleanliness, they are creative with each other’s bodily fluids in their sexual acts. For the prominence of being faithful to God and having familial love with their fellow men, they burn down the Dog-Woman’s house in the name of Jesus and Oliver Cromwell. In an act of justice for herself and for the death of the king, the Dog-Women sets forth her own means of execution for Preacher Scroggs and Neighbor Firebrace, interrupting their affair and applying her own method of normalizing
He does go on to suggest that those who are sections of androgynes are “adulterers” “adulteresses” (191 d-e), but this can only show the rather bizarre belief that sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex does not constitute adultery.
The first century morality was not unlike our twenty-first century morality. Premarital and extra-marital affairs exist in both. Prostitution is common in both centuries. The speed in which sexual perverseness can occur in today’s society can occur at a much more rapid rate due to the Internet, however, with the same outcome as it was then, the defiling of one’s body, a body that belongs to God. God forgives us as Christians, as King David wa...
At first, this poem seems to be simply about a young, sexually hungry man who is trying to convince a girl to give into his sexual wishes. She denies the ?wanna be? lover because she believes that the act of intercourse before marriage is a dishonorable sin in the eyes of the church. The lady ends up killing the flea and symbolically killing the false world the man had constructed in the flea. She then says that neither of them are any worse by killing the flea, which the male agrees with. The man concludes his point by granting that the death of the flea does not really have any consequences, just like her fears to loose her respectability and honor. His main point in all his talk about the flea is to show her that her honor will not be ruined if she yields to him.
During the 17th century, certain poets wrote poems with the specific purpose of persuading a woman to have sexual intercourse with them. Three of these seduction poems utilize several strategies to do this: Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” and Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” and “The Flea.” Some of the reasoning used by both poets is similar to the reasoning used today by men to convince women to have sexual intercourse with them. These gimmicks vary from poem to poem but coincide with modern day rationalization. The tactics used in 17th century seduction poems are relevant and similar to the seduction tactics used in the 21st century.
In my case, the pleasures of lovers which we shared have been too sweet— they cannot displease me, and can scarcely shift from my memory. Wherever I turn, they are always there before my eyes, bringing with them awakened longings and fantasies which will not let me sleep. Even during the celebration of Mass, when our prayers should be purer, lewd visions of those pleasures take such hold of my unhappy soul….Even in sleep I know no respite. Sometimes my thoughts are betrayed in a movement, of my body, or they break out in an unguarded word (Letter 4,
...is wife and hides her body he does not own up to his actions but instead blames the cat as the one “which had been the cause of so much wretchedness”. (254)
The two poems The Flea and The Sunne Rising capture John Donne’s primary motive to get in bed with women. Donne wrote these poems at an early age, and at that time he was seeking nothing more than a sexual relationship. His poetry depicted clearly how sexist he was at the time and how he used to perceive women as a medium of pleasure. The content of his early poems express an immature and desperate image of Donne, who is dominated by his fixation on the sensuality of women. In The Flea, Donne shows his desperation to have sex by addressing a flea that has sucked the blood of both him and the woman he is persuading. It is quite awkward how the poet uses this obscure image of the flea as a symbol of love and sex to convince the woman that...
1 Modern Poetry. Third Edition. Norton. I am a naysayer. 2003. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Williams, William.
There is a similar theme running through both of the poems, in which both mistresses are refusing to partake in sexual intercourse with both of the poets. The way in which both poets present their argument is quite different as Marvell is writing from a perspective from which he is depicting his mistress as being 'coy', and essentially, mean, in refusing him sex, and Donne is comparing the blood lost by a flea bite to the blood that would be united during sex. Marvell immediately makes clear his thoughts in the poem when he says, "Had we but world enough, and time/ This coyness, Lady were no crime", he is conveying the 'carpe diem' idea that there is not enough time for her to be 'coy' and refuse him sexual intercourse and he justifies this thought when he suggests when she is dead, in ?thy marble vault?, and ?worms shall try that long preserved virginity?. He is using the idea of worms crawling all over and in her corpse as a way of saying that the worms are going to take her virginity if she waits until death. Donne justifies his bid for her virginity in a much longer and more methodical way, he uses the idea of the flea taking her blood and mixing it with his, ?It suck?d me first, and now sucks thee?, and then...
Lurie is a professor who fulfils his sexual appetite by exploiting his university students against their will. He considers women and animals as objects existing merely in the structure of the society to gratify his selfish sexual needs. As the plot advances in the novel there comes an instance when Lurie looks at a pair of tethered sheep and says to himself, 'They exist to be used, every last ounce of them, their flesh to be eaten, their bones to be crushed and fed to poultry.' (J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace, p. 123). However, in due course of time he is charged with a case of a sexual assault from his student and thereafter expelled from the university, that is where his character goes through a transformation and he experiences a breakthrough in his relationship with the way he treats both animals and women. In the first part of the novel there exist no real animals, but animals are often used in metaphors. For instance, Lurie describes his love making with Soraya as similar to that of snakes: ‘Intercourse between Soraya and himself must be, he imagines, rather like the copulation of snakes: lengthy, absorbed, but rather abstract, rather dry, even at its