The Flea Trivia Quiz

Answer: Persuade a woman to go to bed with him

"The Flea" might be regarded as one long, terrible pick-up line. The narrator of "The Flea" is trying to convince a woman to go to bed with him. He argues that because they, in a sense, come together in the flea that bites each of them, there's nothing untoward about them coming together sexually.

The poem is reflective of the "carpe diem" (seize the day) genre of poetry in Europe, in which a narrator encourages his subject (often a woman) to make the most of youth.

Answer: Mark but this flea

The poem begins with these two lines:

"Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is."

It is clear from the start of the poem that the speaker's initial sexual advance has been rejected, but he continues his attempt to persuade.

John Donne was no stranger to seduction himself. While pursuing his legal training, he was appointed Secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton. In 1601, he secretly married Egerton's pretty young niece, Anne Moor. This resulted in a job loss for Donne and temporary imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Answer: It is one of John Donne's "Holy Sonnets".

Although John Donne wrote numerous religious poems, including his well-known "Holy Sonnets", "The Flea" is an erotic metaphysical poem that is satirical in its use of absurd arguments, and, as such, it is thought by literary scholars to poke fun at the kinds of arguments lawyers use.

It was most likely written in the 1590s, when John Donne was a law student, before he became an Anglican priest. Metaphysical poetry is a highly intellectualized form of poetry employing bold or ingenious imagery or conceits.

In this case, the flea is the conceit Donne uses to make his argument.

Answer: true

It was first published two years after his death, in 1633, in the first edition of his collected poems. Most of John Donne's poems were published posthumously, with some notable exceptions, including his "Anniversaries", published in 1612, and his "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions", published in 1624.

Answer: bloods

When a flea bites each of them, their blood is sucked up and mingles together within the flea. If that mingling of their bodily fluids is innocent, the narrator reasons, why wouldn't their mingling through sex be equally innocent?

John Donne and Ann Moore had 12 children in their 16 years of marriage, two of which were still births. Ann died in 1617, five days after giving birth to their stillborn twelfth child. Donne expressed his mourning for his wife in the 17th of his "Holy Sonnets", writing:

"Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt
To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,
And her soul early into heaven ravishèd,
Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set."

Answer: head

Maidenhead is another term for virginity. Their blood came together in the flea, and yet that, he argues, "cannot be said / a sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead." By insisting on maintaining her virginity and refusing his sexual advances, the woman is, the speaker argues, denying him a very trivial thing: "Mark but this flea, and mark in this, / How little that which thou deniest me is."

Answer: woo

"Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do."

The flea doesn't have to go through a long courtship period before enjoying the woman, so why should the narrator have to? The speaker opines that even the flea is having more enjoyment than they are.

Answer: God's fairest creature yet

"Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet."

In these lines, the woman is preparing to squash the flea. The speaker pleads with her not to, arguing that their three lives - his, hers, and the flea's - are mingled together:

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

Donne is here likely making an ironic reference to the Trinity. The speaker argues that they have already been united in the flea, as if in marriage, so they might as well unite physically.

Answer: purpled

The speaker's pleas fall on deaf ears. The woman does not refrain from squashing the flea, just as she squashes the poet's sexual advances. She kills the flea with her finger, and her nail is purpled with its blood.

Answer: orgasm

In the 17th century, phrases about death were often used as euphemisms for orgasm, which was referred to as "the petit mort" ("the little death"). The woman, after killing the flee, apparently argues that they could not have really been mingled in it, because she feels just fine:

"Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;"

The speaker then turns this argument around on her to reason:

"Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee."

As she is none the weaker after the flee has been killed, so will she be no less honorable after experiencing "the little death."