The Flea by John Donne | Summary, Analysis, Explanation

The Flea is a very famous metaphysical love poem by John Donne which was first published posthumously in 1633. All of Donne’s love poems were most probably written during his years at the Cambridge University in the 1590s. In 1615, he was appointed as a deacon, and then he became an Anglican priest.

During the 17th century or before it, sex was considered as the intermingling of blood and the poet exaggerates this idea in the poem.

The Flea is one of the finest examples of Metaphysical Poetry in which the poet compares the simple act of being bitten by a flea, or mosquito with love-making. John Donne has used conceit, allusion, wit, and new thoughts in this poem.

There are three protagonists of this poem, the poet, his beloved, and the flea that bites them both. Thus, The Flea contains three stanzas of nine lines each. The first six lines in each stanza contain three rhyming couplets while the last three lines of each stanza is a triplet.

In each of the three stanzas, the poet makes his point in the first six lines, the three couplets, and then he asserts and reasons his point made in the previous six lines in the triplet, the last three lines of the stanza.
In the last triplet of the poem, the poet makes his final argument. He says that since it is a fact that despite killing him and herself in a way (by killing the flea), none of them are suffering any negative consequences. This proves that all her fears are equally false. The flea was the symbol of their marriage, it was their marriage bed where they consummated their marriage (blood intermingled). The killing of flea brings no loss, so the poet says that if his beloved yields to him and submits herself, if they make love and she loses her virginity to him, it will cause no harm to her, or as little harm as the flea’s murder caused.

So this is all about Donne’s poem The Flea. It begins as an erotic poem in the first stanza and then Donne uses religious imagery to offer higher importance to the flea and in the last stanza, the poet makes the logical argument to persuade his beloved to make love with him. John Donne has used Alliteration, Allusion, Hyperbole, and Conceit in this poem.

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