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Explication of "The Flea"
John Donne's "The Flea" (rpt. in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 8th ed. [Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2002] 890-891) explains that a teenage male will say almost anything in order to seduce a woman. The reader discovers that "The Flea" is about a man who is quick on his feet, clever, and persistent in trying to win the woman. With his poem, Donne also gives the reader an insight to his own life as a Casanova before entering the ministry.
This poem consists of three stanzas, which demonstrate the structure and meaning of the poem. The speaker compares the woman's life with the man to the flea while the woman is itching to kill it. In the first stanza, the man tries to seduce the woman. In the second stanza, the woman disagrees and disapproves of the seduction efforts. Finally, in the third stanza the man accepts the fact that she denies him, but tells her that he will not give up his efforts.
Stanza I is a......

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Approximate Word Count: 686
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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