Selected Poems by John Donne

In the course of the poem, it becomes the size of a bed, then grows to be a church, then it is jewel-like in its dimensions and quality (with ‘living walls of jet’). In terms of sound, the poem evidences Donne’s powerful use of the caesura (mid-line break). In the first line, this is mimetic of a conversational opening, which is then drawn neatly into the patterning of the verse. In the first line of the third stanza, the inversion ‘Cruel and sudden,…’, along with the caesura gives an ironically overwritten sense to the ideas of ‘purpled’ and ‘blood of innocence’ which are ridiculous when applied to a flea. The caesura is also used to give a rather bantering tone to, ‘It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,’ as the flea forces a potentially embarrassing intimacy on the couple.

Structure

The tone of the poem – a witty, persuasive argument – demands that the poem moves forward by short, apparently straightforward, steps. The structure mirrors this, with its dominant use of caesura, often augmented by repetition (‘Mark but this flea,// and mark in this’; ‘Our marriage bed, // and marriage temple is’) or even internal rhyme (‘And in this flea, // our two bloods mingled be’). In this last example, the rhyme mirrors the union of two in one. The poem is similarly based around couplet rhymes (three couplets, then a triplet AABBCCDDD), and this is a perfect technique for a witty argument, since the structure is neat, pithy and works through separate steps. The final triplet ‘stretches’ the argument even further, and is used for Donne’s more absurd conclusions.

Notice how important the number three is in this poem. The rhyme scheme has three couplets then a triplet; the rule of three is frequently used – ‘A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead’; the poem has three stanzas. All of these structural techniques combine to give the attractive and convincing sense that seems to attach to things which falls in threes.