The Flea

Questions

1) What are Exctasie and Good according to Platonic and Neo-Platonic views? What is the nature of relations between spiritual and sensible (and in the context of the poem sensual) due to these philosophic doctrines? Find out what was meant by “This Exstasie doth unperplex … and tell us what we love”? Is there a pattern of aspiring to Good? Give examples, paying attention to the stylistic means as well.

2) What is the difference between “wee said nothing, all the day” and “souls language”. Pay attention to Platonic views. Why “both spake the same”?

3) Do you find the question “But O alas, so long, so fare our bodies why doe wee forbeare?” ambiguous? Prove your point.

4) What is meant by “they (bodies)… nor are dross to us, but alley”.

5) Can you draw the picture of thought development? Is there any dialectics? Find out turning points.

6) What are uniting symbols at the end of the poem? Are there any allusions to Plato’s “Republic”?

7) Consider the use of the “vegetative” metaphors. Can you give any reasons for their possible meaning? Enlist the cases of metaphysical conceit if you find any in the poem.

8) Can you explain “small change” in the final line of the poem? Does Donne use a double plot in the poem?

9) Give precise implications for

- one anothers best (4)

- “our eye-beams” (7)

- entergraft (9)

- propagation (12)

- forbeare (50)

- th’intelligences, they the spheare (52)

- a great Prince (68)

Additional tasks

1) Donne's two major modes are religious spiritualism and erotic amorousness. How does he combine those two modes in some of his poems? In which poems does he not combine them? How does Donne distinguish between physical and spiritual love? Which does he prefer? Think especially about "The Flea" and "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning."

One of the main characteristics of metaphysical poetry is its reliance on bizarre and unexpected imagery and symbolism. What are some of Donne's strangest or most surprising images and symbols? How does Donne use symbolism to advance his themes?

Donne's use of meter is frequently surprising; he will often apply a regular ABAB rhyme scheme to lines of wildly erratic tempo. What effect does it have on the poems, either aesthetically or thematically, or both?

Donne often uses humor in his poems: "The Flea" is an elaborate joke, "A Valediction" satirizes Petrarchan love poems. What roles do wordplay and humor perform in Donne's poems?

The Flea

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

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

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sinne, nor shame, nor losse of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,

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

And this, alas, is more than we would doe.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where wee 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, w’are met,

And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.

Though use make you apt to kill mee,

Let not to that, selfe murder added bee,

And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.

Cruell and sodaine, has thou since

Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea quilty bee,

Except in that drop which it suckt from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st and saist that thou

Find’st not thy selfr, nor mee theweaker now;

“Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee;

Just so much honor, when thou yeeld’s to mee,

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

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