The Flea

The form is both fluid and ironic, reflecting Donne’s command of flexible forms that can, in turn, undercut and even expose a poem’s argument. The form is in tension with the poem’s own argument, exposing the speaker’s contemptible coopting of Christian theology in his efforts to claim the woman’s virtue.

Much as the speaker unabashedly appropriates (actually exploits) Christian vocabulary and rhetoric to coax the woman into having premarital (that is sinful) sex, the form reflects a grounding in Christian theology, most notably the Trinity. The Trinity, that is, the perception of the perfect unity of three separate persons in a single godhead, gifts the number three with a spiritual sense of completion and ultimate fulfillment. When the speaker points out that in the flea their two bloodlines mingle, he suggests that the flea is a kind of three-in-one entity. He uses the concept of three to suggest sublimity, perfection, and spiritual elevation. His comparison is ironic, of course, given that he is referring to the blood drops the parasitic flea just sucked out of each of them. The comparison is also sacrilegious given that he is invoking the spiritual godhead and significance of the number three as a crude strategy to get the woman to