Flea by John Donne

In the 1500's, Europe was a very dirty place, and fleas were a major problem. It was, in fact, fleas that were responsible for the Black Death, or Plague, that had ravaged Europe since the 1300's. However, in the late 1500's, a flea landed on the breast of a certain lady in French Society by the name of Madame Des Roches, a writer of some fame, and this sparked off an obsession with the flea as the subject of literature. Whole books were devoted to the flea, and the flea became a subject for comedy, romance, poetry, and all sorts of artistic expression. Around this time an English poet, named John Donne, wrote a poem entitled The Flea, in which he metaphorically compares a flea to the act of sex.

Structurally, The Flea is a poem that alternates its meter between lines of iambic tetrameter, and...
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