Joshua Moreno

09/17/17

Eng.102

Blood to blood: The Flea sucks us

What is poetry? Words, emotion, passion? Poetry to most is literature with a deeper

meaning to understand. Is this meaning relevant? How so? Is it applicable to ones life? Possible,

and yet not. Such questions are presented to readers of poetry. What is the deeper message poets

are hoping to translate to readers? Take for instance, The Flea penned by John Donne.

Although, some might say this piece has a heavy overtone of sexual content. I would argue that

The Flea tells the story of a broken, cheated man. Through use of figurative language,

underlying unexpressed emotions and meaningful symbolic language.

Firstly, the poem is presented to us in an Iambic beat pattern. This case makes the

preceding beat weaker leading to a strong syllable. With regard to the beat, there is also rhymical

aspects in which lines in each stanza switch between Octo/Decameter. As such the rhythm can be

split into divisions of twos, and can be read differently which reflects the emotionality as well as

placing stress on certain words that outline my basis for considering my interpretation of The

Flea. For example, A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, (line 6). By placing the stress

on every other word such as sin, shame, loss, etc. What the speaker is emphasizing is pain,

deceit, and longing for what has since been taken from him after the collapse of his marriage.

Second, with every rhythm there is a sound. To me The Flea has two sounds, Assonance and

Rhyme. First stanza, lines three-four end in the vowel sounds of E this same occurrence also

happens in lines sixteen-eighteen in the next stanza, leading to lines nineteen-twenty-two, of the
 final stanza all while ending in the sound of E. Coincidentally, each of the aforementioned

lines create the second sound of this piece, Rhyme. Respectively, It sucked me first, and now

sucks thee, / And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; (3-4), thee and be have the ending

singular vowel sound E while also being part of a rhyming verse. As does, Though use make

you apt to kill me / Let not to that, self-murder added be, / And sacrilege, three sins in killing

three. (16-18) and

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? (19-22)

To my ear when reading these lines, there is a sound of loss. As the E sound phonetically does

not have an end per se. Which leads to the type of piece this poem is. With respect to my

interpretation this feels lyrical in a sense that there is emotion behind each ending E sound.

Anger and sadness come to mind, take for instance line three It sucked me first, and now sucks

thee. The Flea in this case has drained the speaker once before but has since moved on

signaling some form of break-up or falling out. Same can be said for its following line, And in

this flea our two bloods mingled be, again signaling there is and was a connection on an

intimate level.

Therefore, I believe the flea in this poem to be a symbol of the speakers marriage. As is

personified with line twelve, This flea is you and I. If the flea is symbolic of both the speaker

and his mate, then it can be assumed that the flea has also done as fleas would naturally. To suck

the blood of the speakers marriage, not in the literal sense however but with regard to marriages.

They are usually met with trouble, hardships, anger, happiness and are ultimately stable, until
they fall as it has for the speaker in The Flea. So, if the flea/marriage is sucking the blood of

two it then confirms that the marriage is unstable and has/will fall.

With regards to the social/historical understanding of this poem, Donne was born and

lived through the Elizabethan era. Widely known for being very conservative when it came to

sex. During his time Donne secretly married Anne More, the seventeen-year-old niece of Lady

Egerton. Annes father, Sir George More, had Donne imprisoned (McManus). This experience I

believe provided Donne with a motif, being that he was imprisoned by his father-in-law he may

have re-evaluated his marriage to Anne More. This correlates well to my interpretation of the

speaker being broken in The Flea, due to raw emotion such as hate and depression. According

to McManus, The early years of Donnes marriage were characterized by frequent moves and

unsuccessful requests for employment. This is relevant today as most whom have been

imprisoned usually suffer from this side-effect. However, in regards to The Flea, Donne could

have also taken this experience and subtly put the blame on his wife as she could be the

reasoning for why the speaker expresses a sense of being cheated. For instance, It sucked me

first, and now sucks thee, (Line 3) brings both experiences together as to say it wasnt the

speakers fault that the marriage failed and it was the due to imprisonment and unemployment

that came from marriage. Lastly, as A.J. Smith points out, Donne's reluctance to become a

priest, as he was several times urged to do, does not argue a lack of faith. (Smith) This being the

later part of his life, and was possibly the only recourse he had for employment, for a man of

faith to be writing about sex would scrutinize his credibility as such. This also plays into the

symbolism that comes to mind as the poem talks of blood, being that he was a man of God this

references the blood of Christ as well as the bringing of life to the speakers marriage.
 With this such evidence, as how Donne was in the middle part to later part of his

marriage I can strongly assert my interpretation as valid. In the case of formalism figure of

speech, unexpressed emotion and symbolism; Donne had set out to lay his own experiences out

for others to read. As such the common interpretation was born due to the time period The Flea

was written, which is reflected in its diction if read word for word. However, as words change

with feeling and rhythm as explained earlier the carry a deeper connotation than that of sexual

overtone. Poetry is feeling, it is expression, its experiences that draw readers to it not how its

written. The Flea is an excellent poem for its accepted interpretation, but also should be

applauded for its true intention to show the speaker through a small lens. A pinnacle point of

their life, the point where life, love and marriage turned a holy man, broken and cheated.
 Works Cited

Smith, A. J. "John Donne." Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets: First Series, edited by

M. Thomas Hester, Gale, 1992. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 121. Literature Resource

Center,

McManus, Caroline. "John Donne." Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia, January.

EBSCOhost,