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Allusion

An allusion (uh-LOO-zhun) is a passing reference to a literary or historical person, place, or event, usually made without explicit identification. “The Flea” contains several allusions to the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which defines God as existing in three divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Despite being distinct, these persons are united through the notion of consubstantiality, meaning they share the same eternal essence. In “The Flea,” Donne alludes to the Holy Trinity in a couple ways. One way relates simply to the formal significance of numbers, as in the use of three stanzas. Furthermore, each stanza consists of nine lines—nine being numerologically significant for containing three sets of three (i.e., 3 x 3 = 9). But Donne also alludes to the Trinity in the language the speaker addresses to his mistress. In the first stanza, for instance, he alludes to the concept of consubstantiality when he refers to “one blood made of two” (line 8). Then, in the second stanza, the speaker alludes more directly to the Trinity when he claims that killing the flea would entail three murders (lines 16–18):

    Though use make you apt to kill me,
    Let not to that, self-murder added be,
    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

The logic of three-in-one is distinctly Trinitarian, which provides a vaguely theological justification for his desire to have premarital sex.

Conceit

Conceit is a figure of speech that uses elaborate means to establish a parallel between two dissimilar things. This description of conceit sounds very similar to the definition of another common literary figure: extended metaphor. Like a conceit, an extended metaphor works by establishing an association between two unlike things and then developing that association over the course of many lines. However, there is a subtle difference between these two figures. An extended metaphor typically works by comparing things with somewhat reasonable similarities. For example, Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging” features an extended metaphor that implicitly likens the physical act of digging to the intellectual act of writing. These two activities are obviously different, but they are both examples of a vocation. Conceit, by contrast, tends to compare things that are strikingly—indeed surprisingly—different. This is precisely what occurs in Donne’s poem, the speaker of which uses the example of two people’s blood mingling inside a single flea as a conceit for sex. If the fluids of both the speaker and his mistress have already mingled within the flea, then there’s no reason to avoid having sex. Indeed, they’re essentially already making love—inside the flea!

Puns

Throughout “The Flea,” Donne uses sexually charged puns to humorous effect. As an example, consider the word swells in line 8: “And pampered swells with one blood made of two.” Concretely, the flea expands as its belly fills with two people’s blood. Yet “swell” also suggests the swelling that occurs during pregnancy. The speaker makes another pun in lines 16–18:

    Though use make you apt to kill me,
    Let not to that, self-murder added be,
    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Here, the speaker urges his mistress not to kill the flea. Since the insect contains both their blood, killing it would involve killing the speaker as well as committing “self-murder.” Yet in the seventeenth century, killing was a common pun for intercourse. To “kill” meant to have sex, and to “die” meant to orgasm. This sexually charged language of death reappears in lines 27–27:

    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,
    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

The speaker argues that the flea’s death did minimal harm to her person, and that losing her virginity will do similarly minimal harm to her honor. Here again, the idea of “death” cheekily references sex. But the word “waste” also adds a triple pun. Most directly, the speaker describes the sense of loss that might come with his mistress squandering her honor. But he’s also punning on the word waist while simultaneously referencing the fluid “waste” of his own semen.

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