So the openings to each stanza are quite dramatic and shocking, them being 'Mark but this flea' it gets the reader straight to the point of the poem.
In the second stanza the opening is 'Oh stay' so we have to imagine that the mistress is going to leave the room to get away from him.
In the third stanza, the opening is very powerful and effective 'Cruel and sudden' he makes the mistress almost sound evil, yet again during the gap between the stanzas an event has taken place; the mistress has killed the flea.
The use of wit is yet another feature of the metaphysical poets, the use of wit- elaborate figurative treatments of a particular subject- and employing epigram, paradox, contraries, or personified abstractions. Donne's imagery is eclectic, wide-ranging, and apparently obscure. He did not write for publication, but showed poems to friends whom he supposed to be well read enough to understand these references. Donne's imagery draws on the new, in the late 16th century, learning the English renaissance and on topical discoveries and exploration. We find references to alchemy, sea voyages, mythology and religion, 'yet this enjoys before it woo', 'marriage temple is' among other things what is trust of Donne's imagery is true of the other disconcerting element in his poetry, its harsh and rugged verse. It is an outcome of the same double motive, the desire to startle and the desire to approximate poetic to direct, unconventional, colloquial speech.
Donne's verse has a powerful and haunting harmony of its own. For Donne is not simple, no poet could be, willing to force his accent, to strain and crack a set pattern, he is striving to find a rhythm that will express the passion abundantly. In regards to “The Flea”, many metaphysical characteristics can be identified in the 17th century poem;
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The poem itself is opened using direct address: Marke but this flea... It begins with the colloquial tone with the persona’s request for his coy mistress to "mark but this flea," and therein see how little that favour which she is withholding from him is. Having taken blood from both of them, it is now emblematic of their would-be union. “And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee.”
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John Donne shows intellect and imagination in “The Flea” rather than sensuous. The poem was never pictorial but the reader was able to create an image with his/her own mind as the poem is a speech delivered by a would-be lover to a reluctant lady, and the careful reader can discern her actions (and reactions) to his supplications. Donne was flying in the face of post-Renaissance tradition of couching amorous verse in emotionally intense poems, such as Shakespeare's sonnets and the elegant lyrics of the Tribe of Ben, Donne demands that those who read his verse treat the "metaphysical conceits" as riddles. How is a love affair like a flea? In all the ridiculousness, of using a flea to influence his lover to get into bed with him, this is ingeniously justified by the persona’s use of the creature as a conceit where the flea is linked to the belief that “mingling of bloods” during sex was no different from the mingling of bloods via the flea which presently bitten them both are united them in this sense. The persona asks why it would be any different to “mingle bloods” in other ways.
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“The Flea” is used as one of Donne’s primary works to demonstrate his ingenuity and wit. His use of conceit is also a prime significance, in this poem; the person is able to address values regarding theology. The conceit in this poem is the flea which has bitten them both, and based on the belief that “mingling of bloods” during intercourse is the same as the flea which mingles both their bloods in bitting them. Fleas were a popular subject for jocose & amatory poetry in all countries at the Resistance. In a masterpiece of pseudo-theological logic, he argues that in killing the insect, his mistress would be committing three sins: murder (her sexual reluctance, in the courtly-love tradition, is killing him); suicide (shedding the flea's blood is also shedding her blood); and sacrilege (the flea being the temple in which their wedding has taken place). Therefore he is able to, through the conceit; counsel the lady that yielding her virginity to him will cost her no loss of honour than that of killing the flea.
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He uses learned and intellectual imagery by comparing the flea to a “temple” in which the speaker and the beloved are “cloister’d”. The temple can also be regarded as a conceit in uniting and in getting his point across as to why she should disregard her principles since they have been united as one in this, now, holy figure which has readied them as those that are married & ready to mingle bloods otherwise. Religious imagery can also be identified in “The Flea” in lines such as “Confesse it”, “three lives in one flea” (holy trinity), “cloysterd” and “sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three” where more holy trinity imagery is revealed in “blood of innocence.”
