The Flea by John Donne

The Flea by John Donne

“The Flea”, a witty poem of seduction and conceit, taken from John

Donne’s “Songs and Sonets” is the poem that I have chosen to compare

to “Song”, another poem of John Donne’s where he is passionately

pleading with his wife not to be disheartened about his departure

abroad.

Both poems which belong to “ Songs and Sonets”, written around the

time of the 16th century, show that their title suggests they are both

short poems, following the traditional form of a sonnet, consisting of

fourteen lines. However, they are not “songs” in the conventional

sense we think of and none of them are written as a sonnet. In fact,

Donne’s poems were intended for circulation around his local pub,

“Lincoln’s Inn”, where he could impress his male friends with his

bawdy poetic nature.

“ The Flea”, emphatically rejects the Petrarchan tradition of love

poetry, where the woman is seen as a goddess, an object of desire

worth worshipping by a man. Instead, Donne wrote poems that saw the

earthy reality of sexual relations between a man and woman. The poem,

whose historical convention probably started with Ovid, shows that it

was common in Elizabethan times to envy a flea for its access to the

female body. Donne throughout the poem makes references to the flea,

presenting a conceit produced of wit, integrity and persuasion.

The title, which presents the conceit, is in fact the structure of the

poem, the entire poem depends on this conceit. At first, this is a

puzzling image to the reader, it seems bizarre and inappropriate.

However, as the poem continues, Donne’s argument does also, and we see

how reality is conveyed by the vivid imagery of the flea. Donne uses

a three-part syllogism in this poem whic...

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...while, they will always have each other in each other’s hearts, and

that they will never really be parted. His final argument of

persuasion is that they don’t really need the physical presence, as

long as there is the matter of trust then he will return to her once

more.

Overall, by the structure and language used in “Song”, the poem is

very consoling and reassuring. Compared to “The Flea,” it is very

different as the respect for the women the two poems are written for

differ enormously. Indeed both poems are extremely clever and

logical, with well thought out ideas for argument and persuasion, and

are full of wit and clever analogies. However, “Song” shows a

different side to John Donne’s character than “The Flea” presents, he

appears more softer and respectful, consoling and loving than when he

appears bawdy and obscene, shallow and disrespectful.