Donne, John: The flea? - Close reading

Transcription

1 Donne, John: The flea? - Close reading Barbara Bleiman shows that paying close attention to language and structure provides some interesting insights into meaning. MARK but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be. Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead; Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two; And this, alas! is more than we would do. O stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, yea, more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is. Though parents grudge, and you, we're met, And cloister'd in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now. 'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be; Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me, Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee. 'The Flea' is a much written about poem. Donne's clever extended metaphor (known as a conceit) using the flea's bite as an analogy through which wittily to persuade a woman to make love to him, is one of the most famous 'arguments' in poetry. Going straight to the argument and following through its logic gets you a long way:

2 The flea sucks blood from the two lovers, their blood is mingled (as it would be were they to make love, in seventeenth century thinking). Yet no harm comes to either of them (just as no damage would be done to the lady's honour or reputation by making love to him). She is about to kill the flea but the narrator tries to stop her, saying that killing the flea is like killing all three of them, since the flea is like the bed and temple in which they have been joined together in holy matrimony. Killing the flea would be three crimes: murder, an attack on religion and suicide. But then the argument takes an entirely different and contradictory turn - the death of the flea, which contains both their blood, hasn't made either of them any the weaker; by extension having sex would not damage her honour any more than the death of the flea damages their well being. And so Donne tries to break down the woman's resistance with a clever and highly entertaining bit of poetic logic. That's the essence of the poem, what the poem 'means'. But this is only the beginning. An alertness to the language through which the argument (and poem) are developed, can take your interpretation a lot further. Here is a list of some aspects of language one might look for: kinds of sentences (statements, commands, questions, exclamations) sentence structure (for instance, short simple sentences, compound or complex sentences) lexical fields (i.e. groups of words connected by subject matter) register, including how formal or informal the language is structural devices (for instance, to signpost a shift in the argument, a next step, a beginning, an ending) voice/address (what kind of voice, addressed to what kind of reader?) shifting use of pronouns and what that might reveal oppositions (contrasting words or ideas) figurative language (use of metaphor, simile, metonymy) Where these features might take you in terms of a deeper interpretation of the poem is explored in the rest of this article. Lexis At first glance, it is the image of the flea that leaps out at you but closer scrutiny of the lexical fields throws up other interesting groups of words. Words that might, at first sight, seem to be about the physical processes involved in a fleabite ('sucks', 'swells'), when linked to other words ('pamper'd', 'blood', 'maidenhead') also have strongly sexual

3 connotations. This poem is apparently an innocent, even trivial, discussion of a fleabite; the language in which the discussion takes place alerts the reader to what is really going on here: an argument in favour of sex. The seriousness and outrageousness of the argument is further emphasised by the cluster of words to do with religion: 'sin', 'sacrilege', 'guilt', 'cloister'd', 'innocence', 'temple' and the echoes of the Holy Trinity in the description of the 'three' - the narrator, the woman and the flea. A lexical group such as this grabs the reader's attention because it seems so out of place in a poem as earthbound and irreligious as this. It is a particularly clever form of persuasion, humorously couching sexual desire in religious terms to break down the woman's defences; but it is also rather shocking to see religious imagery put to the service of an immoral argument. When you add to this the legal lexis of 'confession', 'injury', 'death' and 'self-murder', the emotional pressure on the woman is even greater. It also impresses the reader with the sheer cheek of the persuasive techniques. Sentence types The narrator's exaggerated persuasiveness is signalled by the use of imperatives, from the very first word of the poem. 'Mark', 'Confess', 'stay', 'let not', 'learn' are all forceful demands from a speaker who wants the woman to do as he says. Interestingly, the final imperative 'learn' takes us to the heart of the narrator's supposed purpose, which is to use argument to change the woman's thinking, to teach her a different way of thinking about sex. The imperative at the beginning of the second stanza is used with the exclamation 'Oh'. This both suggests the spoken voice, drawing the reader into the very private space in which the poem takes place and emphasises the mock-heroic drama of the moment, with the poet trying to prevent the woman from killing the flea, as if a murder is about to take place. In terms of sentence structure, one might expect an intricate argument like this to be full of complex sentences, but, interestingly, compound sentences are also used to powerful effect, perhaps pulling together the threads of the argument to make them clear. Lines like 'This flea is you and I, and this/our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.' uses a compound sentence to draw out very simply the analogy between the flea and their relationship. In the first and second stanzas it is only in the final triplet that the words 'Yet' and 'Though' introduce a qualification that signals a shift in thought. Gaps, silences Interestingly, the poem follows a sequence of events (the narrator points out the flea biting him, then the woman; the woman threatens to kill the flea; the woman does kill the flea), yet much of this information is implied rather than stated, with the reader filling in the gaps. 'Oh stay' tells us that the woman is about to kill the flea and 'Cruel and sudden, hast thou since/purpled thy nail' tells us that the flea has been killed, but at no point

4 does Donne actually tell us this sequence of events. It's like a one-sided conversation, where we imagine the other side of what is happening. Voice The tone of voice in the poem shifts between two very different registers - the formal register of legalistic argument, (for instance, using the two meanings of the word 'mark' to signal the two sides of the argument around which the poem is structured) and the conversational register of an intimate tête a tête with a woman. The conversational tone is emphasised in a line like 'Where we almost, yea more than married are', where the interrupted construction has the quality of unscripted speech. Putting the formal and informal together in this way contributes to the humour, with basic desires being elevated using formal, high-flown and exaggerated language. This style is sometimes called the 'mock-heroic', with grand language being used to comic effect. Shifting between legalistic formality and an intimate conversational voice draws attention to the hilarious absurdity of comparing sexual love to a fleabite and the humour of this amorous speech to a woman. Attention to this aspect of language takes you to the heart of what makes this poem so enjoyable. Oppositions and other patterns of contrast In a poem arguing a case, it isn't too surprising that patterns of contrast, or oppositions are at its heart. Life/death, innocence/guilt, chastity/sexuality, true/false, me/thee, sex/religion, age/youth, strength/weakness, fear/lack of fear, waste/making the most of things, acceptance/denial all bubble away making a potent concoction. Many of the oppositions are broken down and by the end of the poem are shown not to be true oppositions - the idea of virginity equating with honour and good reputation and not being a virgin equating with loss of honour is rejected. The climax of the argument is in the last two lines of the poem, where the rhyme on 'me' and 'thee' emphasises the way in which the poem has been structured around this particular opposition, between the man and woman. In the end, it has all been about persuading 'thee' to yield to 'me'. Other interesting verbal patterns emerge from a close reading - the use of the numbers 'one', 'two' and 'three', for instance, signal the idea of sexual love as a joining together of separate entities, to make a third new entity, a 'marriage', and one can trace the shift from one to two to three in the argument in the first two stanzas. Formality and informality Aspects of the formality of language have been addressed in other sections (for instance, the use of legal or religious lexis). These are coupled with a tone that seems to take itself extremely seriously for such a topic as persuading someone to have sex with you (for instance, in the use of a word like 'alas' at the end of stanza one). The effect is

5 allied to the hyperbole/bathos described by Michael Rosen on page 33, where exaggeratedly serious claims can create comic effects. Here Donne knows that his rather desperate and exaggerated analogy may win over the lady by its witty cleverness, but will also entertain the reader with its comedy.