WorldToChina

  The Flea is written by the famous English poet—John Donne. The metaphysical poet was born in a Roman Catholic family. His poems are amazingly dramatic and romantic.

  The Flea is a typical metaphysical poem in John Donne’s works. Through out the poem a metaphor is magically applied by using the flea as a symbol of the love between the poet and his lover. 

  Actually, the poet is planning a proposal to the girl. Fearing to be refused, he smartly uses a tactic. Before he talks his heart out, it seems he is focusing on a flea that bites both he and the girl. He persuades the girl not to kill the flea, for there mixes they two’s blood inside the flea. If she kills the flea, she is kind of committing suicide. Of course, the girl doesn’t listen to him and kills the flea cruelly and suddenly. Then the poet takes the opportunity and says: wherein could this flea guilty be, except in that drop which it sucked from thee? In this sentence, the writer expresses not only his disappointment that the flea was killed, but also that he values the girl more than himself. It doesn’t matter for the flea to bite him, but it is guilty for sucking his lover. But the poet says the flea is not so guilty as to be killed, because yet thou triumph’st and sy’st that thou find’st not thy self not me the weaker now.

  Further more, the poet points out that just as the girl’s killing the flea has done no harm to her health, her yielding to him will not do any harm to her fame neither. “Tis true; then learn how false fears bel; Just so much honor, when you yield’st to me. Will waste as this flea’s death took life from thee.” My personal understanding of these lines is that the poet is persuading the girl to put away all the hindrance and accept his love. Where does the hindrance come? Look back to the former lines: This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we are met and cloistered in… It’s clear that the girl’s parents object their love strongly and the girl is not likely to accept the poet’s love. She thinks to yield to the poor and pedantic man is to bring shame on her fame. We can also find a counterpart metaphor to her point of view. That should be the worry that killing the flea can mean killing three lives. But actually the poet smartly proves that the flea’s death cannot take the girl’s life at all. Then the sequitur comes to the worry is totally meaningless. That is to say the it won’t do any harm to the girl’s fame neither if she accept his love.

  John Donne is a really a great poet. Moreover, I respect him as a intelligent logic expert, because I see the unusual and smart way he uses to persuade. Only great minds have that kind of innovation.