A review of John Doones' The Flea.

Essay by quentin02 April 2005

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John Donnes' The Flea

I found John Donnes,' The Flea, to be one of the most hilarious poems I have ever read. To utilize a flea to try and have a woman sleep with you is one of the most creative and original ideas I've heard in a long time. And to imagine that fleas were so plentiful and all over gives the poem a sense of being serious. But now I know what pick up line to use the next time I decide to hit on a zookeeper.

John Donnes,' The Flea, is a love poem which centers on a man trying to persuade a women to sleep with him. The narrator uses the fact that a flea that has bitten him and is now biting the lady he wants, to gain her consent "It sucked me first and now sucks thee..." He tells her that the flea has united them by drinking both their bloods "And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be..."

He even tries to convince her that they are practically married do to the mixture of bloods within the flea "Where we almost, yea more than married are."

Even when his pickup line fails and the lady is about to smash the flea, John justifies the fleas' life "And cloistered 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." I can see Donne begging for that fleas' life as the lady is about to smash it and then when she does Donne stated "Cruel and sudden, hast thou since purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?" He then changed his tune and figures that they can't loose anymore than...