The Flea
- Created by: eleanorfarnold
- Created on: 09-04-15 10:42
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- The Flea
- Mark but this flea, and mark in this,/ How little that which thou deny't me is;
- Donne begins by setting out the premise of his argument
- 1000s of years of sexual flea poems - Donne reinvents it by making the flea a symbol of sex - an argumentative hypothetical tool
- Laurence Perrine: Highly ingeniuos and highly sophisticated reasoning
- is it that sophisticated? or is it actually sacriligious and smutty?
- Laurence Perrine: Highly ingeniuos and highly sophisticated reasoning
- It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,/ And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
- again the semi-colon acts to split statements and compartments of his argument
- mingling of blood is a Renaissance reference to sex
- s and f were written very similarly - lingering of sucked
- three bloods -arguably a holy reference
- Thou know'st this cannot be said,/ A sin, nor shame nor loss of maidenhead
- Donne's argument truly emerges - trying to convince woman that sex with him is ok
- Yet this enjoys before it woo,/ And pampered swells with one blood made of two,/ And this alas is than we would do.
- swelling = clearly phallic
- sex = clearly celebrated and desired. use of pampered
- Donne's comic jealousy of the flea. Caesurae in last line, dramatic emphasis on 'alas'
- ends in a rhyming triplet. other lines = couplets. makes it appear to have a very logical precise movement
- do's long vowel sounds makes Donne appear slightly pathetic, pleading and winey.
- 'O stay, three lives in one flea spare,/ Where we almost, yea more than married are.
- second stanza begins with an exclamation. silent conversation with the woman. she threatens to destroy his argument but he keeps going.
- victory of male intellect?
- changes his mind, quickness, broken up rhythm exaggerates.
- second stanza begins with an exclamation. silent conversation with the woman. she threatens to destroy his argument but he keeps going.
- This flea is you and I, and this/ Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
- marriage - it becomes a sacrament. holy. repetition.
- unexpected transformation
- reference to marriage suggests Donne is trying to convince woman they are basically already married, they have basically already had sex. unification of bloods
- Thou parents grudge, and you, we're met/ And cloistered in these living walls of jet
- suggestion that it is not her that doesn't want to have sex, but her parents who are forbidding it.
- black not enlightened. trapped
- jet is traditionally a mourning stone. But also protection
- cloistered - religious language
- Thou use make you apt to kill me,/ Let not to that self-murder added be,/ And sacrilige, three sins in killing three.
- importance of triplets. importance in rhetoric - also religious implications
- panic. fast paced thinking. imploring her christian nature.
- violation of what is sacred: marriage temple and marriage bed.
- refers back to argument and previous points. she has the power...
- Laurence Perrine: 'significantly Donne accuses the lady of killing him NOT of having killed him
- Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/ Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
- again stanza starts with shock. use of trochee. starts with stress
- line ends with catalectic foot . incomplete line of verse. he is in shock stuck stunned.
- blood of innocence - again could be biblical...
- Laurence Perrine calls this 'stage action'
- Wherein could this flea guilty be,/ Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
- questions turn argument back on to woman.
- exposes ridiculousness of previous argument.
- Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou/ Find'st not thyself, nor me, the weaker now;
- neither of us has died
- resigned simplicity. feeling he is building up to a new argument.. the poem is continuing. use of Yet suggests a turn around?
- 'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;/ Just so much honour, when thou yieldst to me,/ Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
- conversation continues. familiarity in language.
- quite please with himself. changes argument to fit new premise.
- use of definite language ie. 'when thou yield'st'
- sense of argumenative symmetry and progression. i.e. this is what you think, but this is the reality of what it means
- AABBCCDDDrhyme scheme throughout. last stanza is the only one with a clear change.
- Mark but this flea, and mark in this,/ How little that which thou deny't me is;
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