Analyse the themes of sex and marriage in John Donne's 'The Flea'

‘The Flea’ is an erotic poem composed in the Elizabethan period, in the metaphysical style of writing. The sexual, unconventional content in contrast with the traditional iambic meter sets up the poem’s paradox and source of wit and intellect as the form and content don’t appear to mix. The poem focuses on the speaker’s unfulfilled sexual desires. The flea is the poem’s central conceit, a seemingly innocent flea serves as a tool of seduction in an attempt to coax the speaker’s lover into bed. “Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee” demonstrates the speaker’s arousal which stimulates from the image of the flea biting both his lover and himself. The images associated with the flea create sexual overtones in the poem, the way the flea ‘sucks’ and ‘swells’ sexualises an unlikely being.

Despite how in this context, the act of pre-marital sex would be condemned, the speaker pleads his lover to engage in sexual intercourse with him although they aren’t married. This in itself is a mark of the poem’s unconventionality. The Flea was published after Donne’s death, in 1633, potentially due to its shocking and unusual content. Within the text, marriage serves as a euphemism for sex. The speaker wants to consecrate a marriage so he can at least pursue his sexual desires through the act of marriage. “In this flea our two bloods mingled be” conveys how blood acts as a metonym for life as the flea contains the blood of the two lovers. It could also refer to the mixing of blood lines resulting from procreation, the mingling of bloods possibly makes direct reference to marriage and procreation as the flea is mixing bloodlines.