It doesn’t actually state what the relationship between them is but the poem portrays that the parents of the lady seem to have little regard for the marriage of the poet and her. It does not mention love between them but it shows the lady is holding back sexual favours from the would be lover ‘how little that which thou deny’st me is’ and ‘ when thou yieldst to me show this. The poem is based on sexual seduction and messing with the mind.
The poem intends to seduce and lure the lady towards his sexual desires. He is basically manipulating her telling her that there isn’t a reason for her to deny him sex.
The poet is totally upfront and open about his feelings he used manipulative words and twisted them by playing with logical arguments. This poem is similar to Andrew marvel’s poem ‘to his coy mistress’ in subject and situation and the poets intention as they are both speaking about persuading the lady.
The lady attempts to kill the flea and by doing so tries to end his clever argument but fails and he her to ‘stay’ or stop and spare, three lives. The fleas, his self, and hers, as represented by the blood sucked out for both of them. The poet enters marriage into the argument and suggests that they are ‘married’. He uses the religion to persuade her and makes her feel she is killing the love if she resists.
In the final verse of the flea, the lady kills ‘the flea’ and he disciplines her for ‘blood of innocence’ she has spilled. The poem shows that she shows no remorse to killing the flea ‘thow finds’t not thyself, nor me the weaker now’ at this point she seems to be dominating the argument and should receive what he is working for.
So both John Donne’s ‘The Flea’ and Andrew Marvell’s poem ‘to his coy mistress’ are both similar in a big way, they are both seduction poems and luring the lady to the bedroom using the same form of expression and twisting manipulative persuasion.
Throughout ‘The Flea’ the poet battles and expresses his logical argument with wit and skill. It is a verbal battle between them to see if the poet can win his way.
This Is unlike ‘William Shakespeare’s’ ‘Shall I compare thee’ which has no ulterior motive other than simply complimenting and immortalizing his love for his lady, and there is probably no sexual favours expected in return as a result from it.
In ‘Shall I compare thee….’ The lady is treated with respect, her beauty is captured in the poem se is constantly complimented and ‘put on a pedestal’ I the tradition of love poetry. She is referred to as being lovelier than a summer’s day ‘more lovely and more temperate’. Due to the poem the lady is bound to be pleased, and her self-esteem would be booming from all the compliments maybe even blushing.
The poem is similar to the intensity of John Clare’s feelings. He is stiffend and unable to move or see because of the effect the lady has on him, but ‘porphiria’s Lover’ is twisted, and murderous when Shakespeare’s sonnet is a very light romantic and calm.
Death is personified, which is the harshest element of the poem, otherwise the poem is a light romantic the usage of words demonstrates this, ‘faire’ (used 3 times) temperate and ‘complexion’.
Gong back to the flea, I’d now like to look at deeper into the image into it. Fleas may have been more evident in the17th century bedroom then unlike today. John Donne take’s it beyond metaphor into a ‘conceit’. It grows throughout the poem sucking the blood from the mistress mingling with the blood in the body. ‘Swells’ in great pleasure being ‘pampered’ with tier blood’ this shows the flea in ecstasy so to speak and also conjures up an image of the flea and the thought makes you quiver.
The metaphor used in this poem ‘though parents grudge, and you, were met, and cloistered in these luring walls of jet’. This shows that the parents, again, are in fact against the idea of the poet with their daughter. He is banking on the idea that no young lady would want to be ordered and ruled by their parents and would rebel as she wouldn’t want to be dominated by them. This is heavy manipulation and he is obviously aiming drive the lady into thoughts of rebellion against the thought of them stopping her which may forward herself into his wishes. He also states the walls as ‘jet’, which portrays the vision of the dark body of the flea.
The tone of the language used in the flea again is extremely manipulative, and intellectual than ‘shall I compare thee’ as Shakespeare’s poem is more focused on complimenting his mistress.
The rhyme scene of the poem is A B A B C D C D E F E G G. Using fourteen lines, ten syllables with rhyming words in sequence of every other line.
