Previous

Donne’s Poetry

To understand where “The Flea” sits within Donne’s broader poetic output, please consult this guide, which provides an analytical overview.

Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”

Like Donne, Marvell is often considered a metaphysical poet, and the brilliant conceits that appear throughout “To His Coy Mistress” help explain why. The shared interest in surprising metaphorical constructs is enough to make these two poems worthy companion pieces. But these works also belong to the tradition of carpe diem poetry. The speakers of each poem center the notion of “seizing the day” to convince their mistress to have sex with them.

Emily Dickinson, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”

The conceit at the heart of “The Flea” is quite strange. For an example of another rather strange conceit, consider Dickinson’s poem, which concerns an abstract and eventually cosmic “funeral” that takes place within the speaker’s mind. Though critics don’t tend to think of Dickinson as a metaphysical poet, this poem shows her ability to conceive of similarly striking and ingenious conceits.

Previous section Historical and Literary Context

Take a Study Break