During class today we had a quiz on John Donne's "The Flea". (we will most likely have a quiz next time on "The Canonization". Then we discussed the Flea itself. The poem itself is a metaphor for sex. When the flea bites the two people their blood is combined (marriage). When the women kills the flea, she is committing suicide, murder, and destroying the marriage. ***A concept that is well understood in this time is that sex steals a bit of your life each time and therefore one that has sex a lot will die earlier. At the end of the poem, Donne makes the point that if the flea is like sex and the flea is dead and you don't feel any worse, then let's have sex. Another thing he makes mention at the end is you may lose honor, but it is only a flea's amount of honor (very little).
Ryan
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