FratFiles

• Save Paper

"The Flea"
Summary
The speaker tells his beloved to look at the flea before them and to note "how little" is that thing that she denies him. For the flea, he says, has sucked first his blood, then her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled; and that mingling cannot be called "sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead." The flea has joined them together in a way that, "alas, is more than we would do."
As his beloved moves to kill the flea, the speaker stays her hand, asking her to spare the three lives in the flea: his life, her life, and the flea's own life. In the flea, he says, where their blood is mingled, they are almost married--no, more than married--and the flea is their marriage bed and marriage temple mixed into one. Though their parents grudge their romance and though she will not make love to him, they are nevertheless united and cloistered in the living walls of the flea. She is apt to kill him, he says, but he asks that she not kill herself by killing the......

View the rest of this paper...

Approximate Word Count: 690
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

Similar Essays

1. The Flea - John Donne
   

   The Flea - John Donne John Donne and an Analysis of "The Flea" John Donne was born on Bread Street, London, in 1572. His family was very rich but they were Roman Catholic, not the

2. The Flea By John Donne
   

   The Flea by John Donne "The Flea" Summary The speaker tells his beloved to look at the flea before them and to note "how little" is that thing that she denies him. For the flea,

3. The Flea
   

   The Flea The Flea John Donne's poems are similar in their content. They usually point out at same topics like love, lust, sex and religion; only they are dissimilar in the

4. The Flea
   

   The Flea John Donne's, "The Flea," is a persuasive poem in which the speaker is attempting to establish a sexual union with his significant other. However, based on the woman's

5. John Donne Poetry Analysis
   

   John Donne Poetry Analysis John Donne Poetry Essay The metaphysical poets were segregated in the seventeenth century to form a new and distinct style of poetry that employed