A Poetry Review on "The Flea" by John Donne

Hello! How are you all ? Today I am going to share to you A poetry review which is kinda challenging to do and I will definitely dig deep to the symbolism and deeper meaning of this poem.

The Flea by John Donne

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Hidden Symbolism of Flea

“sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love” ― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Premarital Sex: Man’s desire

Psychology states that 70% of man’s brain talks about his desire for sex. Men are aggressive, they are active and straightforward. They do whatever they want to do just to get what they want. It is a man’s nature who allowed him to talk about desires to his partner or even friends. Thus, this literary write back hypothesizes the premise that men desire for sex even before marriage as reflected in John Donne’s poem “The Flea”.

This poem is a tricky made of a long line of sixteenth-century love poems using the flea as an erotic image and symbol. Donne’s poise of hinting at the erotic without ever explicitly referring to sex, while at the same time leaving no doubt as to exactly what he means, is as much a source of the poem’s humor as the silly image of the flea is; the idea that being bitten by a flea would represent “sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead” leading to what we called Pre-marital sex.

The Flea as an Erotic Image

It's quite clear that Donne showcase the Flea as a representation of of a hot erotic image and this humorous little poem again exhibits Donne’s metaphysical love-poem mode, his aptitude for turning even the least likely images into elaborate symbols of love and romance. This poem uses the image of a flea that has just bitten the speaker and his beloved to sketch an amusing conflict over whether the two will engage in premarital sex. The speaker who is a man wants to engage pre-marital sex but his beloved does not want it. As man’s nature to persuade and gets what he wants.

“Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than the married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is”.

By the second stanza, the speaker is trying to save the flea’s life, holding it up as “our marriage bed and marriage temple.” The speaker is still pursuing his lover to engage sex as this shows the nature of man, as aggressive and dominant. He is then clever convincing the girl to mingle and put an assurance about marriage.

“Though parents grudge, and you, are met, And cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use to make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be”,

these lines in the fourth stanza shows the reality that parents are against with premarital sex. It is typical that parents are over protected to their children especially to their daughter.

Literally devices Figurative Language

The small insect of Flea contrast between the small size and general insignificance of the flea and which greatly affect monumental importance that the speaker ascribes to it and can be viewed through the literary device which all the metaphors and puns that Donne is famous for doing so. Other evident literary devices ar coming from lines 1 and 8 in which Donne uses Apostrophe to state something who cannot respond to the persona and line 20 is an example of a rhetoric merely emphasizing "the blood of innocence"as contrasting.

“Cruel and sudden,” for this time, the persona called out his lover, who has now killed the flea, “purpling” her fingernail with the “blood of innocence.” For the intention, the speaker then asks his lover what the flea’s sin was, other than committing a mistake that it sucked from each of them a drop of blood. To the respond that says that his lover replies that neither of them is less noble for having killed the flea. It is true, he says, and it is this very fact that proves that her fears are false: If she were to sleep with him she would lose no more honor as her triumph than she lost when she killed the flee.

Conclusion

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​Furthermore, if I am going to contextualize this poetry in Philippine context, the Pre-marital sex is a taboo. Moreover, it is universal that man is aggressive when it comes to sexual desire. Man is dominant than woman because we are living in a patriarchal society. It is always the father who will make a decision. Going back to the Pre-marital sex thing, I know that it is common here in the Philippines.

Although we are a Catholic country and premarital sex is a taboo, but, there are a lot of teenagers who engaged in premarital sex. As Maslow’s hierarchy theorizes that sex is now one of the basic needs of human. Therefore, sex is part of human basic needs. But the more aggressive when it comes to sex as Psychology justifies are the men.

Thank you for reading !

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• Classicartsuniverse.com