The reason this poem is self-conscious is because it is playing with the typical love poem. It has the elevated diction that can be viewed as a trope of this type of poem. It has the sentiment of unrequited love. But its central image is a flea. The argument is not the typical argument you would make in favor of yourself. It is, in a sense, grotesque. This poem uses the cannon of love poetry and it succeeds because it knows what love poems typically do, and then does something very, very different.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Week 6 - Self-Consciousness in Donne's "The Flea"
I love this poem. It is both absurd and completely understandable. A hard feat to meet. This is a love poem in the form of an argument. It is an argument for love. The speaker is trying to persuade the object of his affection to be with him and here's why: we've both been bitten by the same flea. Absurd. And great.
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What I was hoping you'd get from reading about "The Flea" is that Donne's self-consciousness enters his technique of extending one metaphor as far as it can go. That's how Donne, called a metaphysical poet, demonstrates his wit. His poems take risks of being ridiculous through such elaborate figurations, but Donne manages to make such risks work. The thing to notice is how he does that.
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