The Flea

Question 1

Who wrote the poem?

Answer 1

John Donne

Question 2

What type of poem is this?

Answer 2

Metaphysical poem

Question 3

What is metaphysical poetry

Answer 3

Aims to express emotion through complex argument and elaborate conceit (extended metaphor)

Question 4

What is the rhyme scheme of the poem

Answer 4

AABBCCDDD

Question 5

What themes are explored in this poem?

Answer 5

• Lust, sex, seduction
• Sex and marriage
• Sex and the church

Question 6

What quotations in this poem mirror quotations in the great Gatsby

Answer 6

• ‘swells with one blood made of two’
• ‘Swollen…..along its monstrous length’ chapter 4
• ‘We almost, yea more than married are’
  -‘forever wed his unattainable visions to her perishable breath’ chapter 6

Question 7

How many stanzas are in the poem and what does this echo?

Answer 7

3, this echoes trinity

Question 8

What does metaphysical poetry do?

Answer 8

• Asks serious questions about the nature of existence and the universe
• Uses paradoxes and puns
• Use religious imagery
• Carpe diem themes
• Scientific, medical and legal imagery
• colloquial language (informal communication)
• Original and witty

Question 9

The comparison of a flea to a marriage temple would have been considered to be what?

Answer 9

Sacrilegious but reveals his playful tone

Question 10

What do fleas symbolize? And how is it elevated in the poem?

Answer 10

• Considered dirty insects due to their association with diseases
• Used as symbols of erotica due to their free access to the female body

• Elevated to the status of a minister who joins them in the marriage
• His body is the temple/cloister

Question 11

What is the form/structure of the poem and what is the significance of this

Answer 11

• 3 stanzas each nine lines long
• rhyming couplets (AABBCC) and a tercet (DDD)
• Repetition of three could signify Donne focuses on the union of three as well as the holy trinity

Question 12

What is the purpose of the regularity of the rhyme scheme

Answer 12

Conveys reasonability of the speakers argument

Question 13

What is the meter used in the poem and how is it used?

Answer 13

• Iambic pentameter and iambic tetrameter
• First line of the stanza is a tetrameter followed by pentameter
• Tercet consists of one line of tetrameter and two lines of pentameter

Question 14

What is the purpose of the alteration between the meters

Answer 14

• Shows the familiarity and discontent between the speaker and his lover

• Mirrors the gulf between the poems heavy themes and the speakers playful argument

Question 15

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences
• “Mark but”
• “Bloods mingled”

Answer 15

• Spondee (two stressed syllables)
• The roughness of the metre suggests the spontaneity of the speech, he seems to be improvising

Question 16

What is the function of caesura in the poem

Answer 16

• It gives a meditative feel as though the speaker is pausing to consider his argument
• Gives a controversial feel, it breaks as if a reply is due

Question 17

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences and give their purpose.
• “And pampered swells with one blood/made of two”

• “hast thou since/Purpled thy nail”

Answer 17

• Enjambement
• In the first sentence, the engorgement of the flea is mirrored by the elongated phrase

• In the second sentence, it creates the impression of the speaker sudden rush to convince which marks a contrast to the poems slow, plodding beginning

Question 18

What is the function of repetition in the poem

Answer 18

• Rhetorical device used throughout the poem
• Repeats the allusion to the holy trinity in lines 10,12 and 18 to communicate the idea that the flea is a holy creature
• Significant in naturalising or normalising the idea so that it seems plausible
• Repeats ‘sucks’ in line 3 so it can interpreted as a double entendre creating a comedic tone

Question 19

How is conceit used in the poem

Answer 19

• Flea is a taboo because it’s a bodily parasite just as sex was relatively a taboo in Elizabethan times

• Unlikely object to be used for the basis of conceit as the poem exists within a long European tradition of insects swarming the necks and underskirts of ladies, exciting the male observer who does not have access to those locations.

• A popular flea poem that preceded Donne’s was ‘Carmen de pulcis’

Question 20

What figure of speech is used in the following sentence and what is its function.

“ This flea is you and I”

Answer 20

• Synecdoche
• To kill the flea would be to kill all of them since the flea has sucked this blood

Question 21

What figure of speech is attributed to the term holy trinity in this poem

Answer 21

Allusion

Question 22

What figure of speech is used in the following sentences ad give their purposes

• “Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is”

• “how false, fears be”

Answer 22

• Alliteration

• The speaker uses the determiner “our” to stress that this is their own version of marriage which would in reality face many obstacles

• The alliteration in the second sentence shows the deceptive nature of fear in his main argument in the last stanza

• The sibilance in the second stanza also creates a slithery, snakelike sound alluding to the figure of the devil as snake in the story of Adam and Eve, linking the speakers attempt to the persuasion of the devil

Question 23

What themes are explored in this poem

Answer 23

• Sex and lust
• Marriage and religion

Question 24

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and the scrutiny

Answer 24

Similarities
• Selfish attitudes towards women
• Both poems use twisted logic
• Both try and make a case for something
• Both prom deal with lust
• Both are witty

Differences
• The speaker in this poem is trying to sleep with a woman, in the scrutiny, the speaker has already slept with the woman
• In this poem, the speaker seems to be in a relationship with the woman he addresses, In the scrutiny, the speaker seems to barely know the mistress
• The scrutiny deals with heavy subjects such as sun and religion whereas the scrutiny is more lighter

Question 25

What are the similarities and differences between this poem and To his coy mistress

Answer 25

Similarities
• Both are metaphysical poems
• Deal with heavy profound subjects
• Use double entendres- “sucked” and “swell”, “vegetable love should grow”

Differences
• To his coy mistress, the speaker flatters the woman, while in this poem, the speaker sticks to his argument
• To his coy mistress used to much symbolism
• Faster pace of ‘To his coy mistress’ mirrors supposed lack of time