In the poem, the persona (possibly an echo of Donne himself, or a situation Donne had been in) tries to persuade a woman to have sexual intercourse with him by arguing that her virginity isn't as important as she thinks, using a flea as a conceit. Donne makes the poem entertaining by using the simple method of building on the fact that the sheer nature of the poem is humorous, leaving him a large margin in which he could create a believable and interesting persona. This persona makes use of Donne's poetic techniques to get his argument across.
In the first stanza, the persona compares sexual intercourse to the actions of the flea – biting both the persona and his lover. The comparison is made because it is explained that both of these events involve “two bloods mingled”. The flea is also compared to the persona (or to a more broad entity of a man in general) – by suggesting that by biting the persona's lover, the flea “enjoyes before it wooe”, therefore gaining an unfair advantage over the persona himself, who would have been expected to “court” this woman. He also mentions that the actions of the flea are not sins, and are not important. He says that the actions of the flea are not “A sinne, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead”. A lot of sexual imagery is also used, using the phrase “pamper'd swells” ambiguously.
A third conceit is made in the next stanza – the persona compares the contents of the inside of the flea to places where the persona and his lover have metaphorically been married, had intercourse, and now live. This is achieved with the lines “This flea is you and I, and this / Our mariage bed, and mariage temple is”. This conceit is made originally to suggest that they are already married and have had intercourse in a metaphorical sense, creating a pattern of logic that suggests it would be acceptable for her to have intercourse in reality as well. During the last three lines of the stanza, the persona expands on the conceit, finding another use for it – he suggests that if she killed the flea, she would be killing him, killing herself, and destroying a holy place all at the same time. From the beginning of the third stanza, the story has advanced because she has indeed decided to kill the flea. This progressive, time-based writing structure creates a feeling of energy, motion and tension in the poem.
Donne creates a story effect by using the words of the persona as “speech” to his lover. The speech effect is used to describe events that have just happened, effectively emulating regular narration. The persona continues his argument into the third stanza, confessing that she has won the sub-argument relating to the importance of the flea, but by winning that particular argument she defeated her own original argument relating to the importance of her virginity. The poem ends with this final closing argument.
Much like in “The Flea”, “Woman's Constancy” attacks the common view of women as Goddesses and idols and argues against them with witty and casual comments. Once again, Donne writes his poetry from the perspective of a male persona. In this poem, he employs much greater use of sarcasm, satire, and irony, and a much more bitter, angry tone is achieved. The sarcasm in the first line - “Now thou hast lov'd me one whole day” - is comparable to modern humorous sarcasm, and it sets the tone energetically for the rest of the poem.
Unlike “The Flea”, this poem is not structured in a simple, obvious stanza form, but instead takes the shape of several rhetorical questions – each making up a “section” of the poem - in the form of predicted arguments the persona believes his lover will use in the morning. These arguments are suggested and attacked in sections with differing length and rhyming patterns, creating a far more agitated and erratic mood than in “The Flea”. A constant evolving use of satire is used throughout the entire poem, creating sarcastic conceits for each of the potential arguments of the woman in question, using phrases such as “We are not just those persons, which we were?” to patronise his target. Donne also creates an over-dramatic, symbolic but casual feel within the phrasing of the persona's rhetorical questions by using words such as “oathes” and “reverentiall”, as well as phrases like “some new made vow”.
The final two lines of the poem create a climactic ending in which the true intentions of the persona are revealed. The feeling of surprise created at this point is the basis of the “action” of the poem. This is similar to “The Flea”, in which the dramatic, climactic moments take place in the third stanza. Both of these poems end on a sort of revelation – the surprising and triumphant comment in “Womans Constancy” of “For by to morrow, I may thinke so too”, and the argument “'Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee” in “The Flea” that turns the argument of the persona's lover against her - which create a feeling of intellectualism and smoothness that rounds off Donne's poetic style.
Both of these poems would have been considered very controversial during their time, and both represent a great shift in poetic method for Elizabethan society. Most of Donne's inspiration for these two poems – as well as many of his others – seems to be based around the concept of challenging the already established conventions for poetry. Particularly in “Women's constancy”, the “roles” of the characters are reversed, a feeling of cynicism and realism is created, and many ideas and opinions of the society Donne lived in are challenged. This way of casually and wittily attacking views and concepts that are common in society may well have been the basis for what is now accepted in the modern world as stand-up comedy.
