What do you think of my reading of Donne's 'The Flea'? Do you agree?

Question

I wrote a brief reading of Donne's 'The Flea', and wanted to know what people thought- what they thought of my arguments and how they think I can improve my writing style.

I think the structure of my argument can go a little chaotic, and I wanted to know how I could improve this.

The reading is at:
www.angelfire.com/space2/jimmy_breck-mc_kye/literary_resources/FleaSite.htm

I'm not posting this for ego-boosts, I'd just really like to hear some feedback from readers, even (especially, in fact) negative.

The link didn't work. The main site is:

"www.angelfire.com/space2/jimmy_breck-mc_kye/"

followed by
"literary_resources/FleaSite.htm",

and those combined make the full address.

Again! www.angelfire.com/

space2/

jimmy_breck-mc_kye/

literary_resources

/FleaSite.htm

Sorry the url isn't working. Yahoo seems rather messed up today.

Answer 1

Your question and your essay—and this delightful poem of Donne's—deserve a response. So here goes.

Your essay is impressive in its subtlety; it reads Donne's poem as his work has been read for over a century now. When T.S. Eliot rediscovered Donne and made a place for him within the canon of major British writers, he also redirected critical and interpretive efforts. What has followed has been a century of oblique poetry (fashioned in imitation of Eliot, if not Donne himself) and of a "New Criticism" that has addressed literary works only when their obliqueness requires and rewards such critical efforts.

Personally, I think a better, more serious and more rewarding example of Donne's obliqueness is that "well wrought urn," "The Canonization."

As thoughtful as your essay is, I think it simply overcomplicates a fun poem. A sexy poem.

"Ah, c'mon," Donne says to his coy mistress, "let's have sex. No matter what your grudging parents might think of us. Or your prim, prudish self. Look, I'll prove to you it's gonna be OK."

So Donne has fun, playing around with two basic conceits: (1) the quaint Renaissance image of sexual intercourse as "the mingling of blood," and (2) the obvious and inviting temptation to misread the long S for a small f in the word "suck'd."

So a flea sucks blood from both him and his coy mistress; hence, in his delightful image their sexual union is consummated. The two have become one!

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.

“Yep, we already married,” Donne says to her, “and yet you and your parents can’t claim there has been any sin or shame or loss of maidenhead, now can you?” Of course, he says all this with the language of religion as you’ve argued, climaxing (pun only slightly intended) by their marriage “bed” being a “temple,” and their being “cloistered in living walls” of—what else?—the flea’s shell. Now, we expect Donne’s lover to take the next step: “So since we’re already one, let’s make the most of it.”

But Donne isn’t ready to be quite so crude — or to let his joke be so simple. He must let the mistress have the final word, a word that simply confirms her lover’s claim. She kills the flea, and says to him, “Aha, you see we’re no weaker because our mingled blood has been spilled! So much for your high-flown imagery.” And all the lover does is agree:

'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.

So, I see the poem as Donne’s rather simple, hilarious dirty joke. To his coy mistress, he says, our sexual union would be no more dishonourable than your taking three lives when you killed the flea! Let’s on with it!

But the language he uses in this final seduction is the spot where the conceit reaches its greatest depth of subtlety and height of complexity: “Just so much honour . . . will waste.” [And, notice, “will” sounds a lot like “we’ll.”] It’s the levels of ambiguity in that one word, “waste,” that is the literal climax of the poem, one that I think you might want to explore in your essay.

To waste: (1) to pass without being put to use, as in Time is a-wasting; (2) to grow weak, to lose strength and energy, as in I’m wasting away from an illness; (3) to fail to take advantage of, as in You just wasted an opportunity; (4) to exhaust or tire out or use up, as in The miners were wasted by their labor; (5) to use or spend or consume thoughtlessly, as in They wasted all their money; (6) to eliminate from the body or excrete, as in Refugees must watch where they waste; (7) to pillage, destroy completely, devastate, as in Armies wasted all the villages.

Which meaning of waste applies to the mistress’s honor? Several of them to be sure, from the innocent “pass without being put to use,” to the dubious, “use or spend thoughtlessly,” to the dangerous, “pillage or devastate.” In the last sense, “yield’st” suddenly takes on much more militaristic dimensions.

And this, alas! is more than we would do.

Now, suddenly the playful wit of the whole poem is undermined, and “the marriage of true minds” revived. But that will require “The Canonization,” won’t it?