约翰邓恩《跳蚤》

The Conceit of The Flea This poem is recorded many times by others in Donne’s poetry. The poem is written in a way that is not so formal, but with a lot of conceit. This is, however, the biggest characteristic in this poem. Conceit is an elaborately developed metaphor. The first impression about the poem may be amazing or unreadable. While, if you taste it carefully, it seems to be quite reasonable and contain the philosophy of life. Donne uses the flea as an erotic image which seemingly has nothing to do with people. This kind of novelty, to some extent, is from his metaphysical style. The Flea briefly tells us about a man who persuaded and tempted a woman to give up the useless chastity, on the contrary, to pursue the constant happiness. During the persuasion, the author uses a media—a flea—to express his thoughts. In the first stanza, “Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee/ and in this flea our two bloods mingled be”, this sentence implies man shall be joined into his wife and they two shall be one flesh. And the way of mingling of the blood is through sex. “And pampered swells with one blood made of two”, actually, this sentence is the use of conceit, implying sex and pregnancy. In the second stanza, the man persuaded the woman not to kill the flea for the reason that there were three lives in the body of the flea. If you kill it, you would commit a crime of three lives. Then the author’s conceit exposes entirely. He regards the flea as a whole, just like a family—father, mother, and child. This is called holy trinity which is the further extension of the conceit. For the third stanza, the man came to the subject directly, and he hoped that his beloved could accept his love. The author uses a literary quotation. That is “purpled thy nail in blood of innocence”. “Blood of innocence” means the innocent blood of the child which is originated from the Bible. In my view, it indicates the simple and fair society that has been polluted by the cruel and darkness. Here, the use of conceit seems to be a satire to the society or to the people who are fettered by the principles. This poem is just like a comedy. From the argumentation, as if we were standing there to witness the dialogues between them, especially the three words: mark, stay and cruel and sudden. Although the use of conceit makes the poem absurd and witty, the main idea was expressed in a way that will not have us feel filthy, and was clearly conveyed the bare desire of the man. With the use of conceit, the content is fantastic. And the readers will have an impression about the author’s showing off his wit. However, the argumentation is reasonable. There is no doubt that the application of the figure of speech is a successful example. The Flea is a meaningful poem to ponder deeply over its conceit and figure of speech and to explore the deep meaning hidden by the author.