Dear Everyone,
Professor Gabriel Emerson is a professor of literature. He’s a Dante specialist, but like most literature professors he’s widely read in many different languages. (He’s proud of this, of course, but freely admits his deadly sin of pride in addition to the other six.)
[For an excellent article on C.S. Lewis’ use of the Seven Deadly Sins in the seven volumes of The Chronicles of Narnia, click here.]
In the novel “Gabriel’s Inferno,” there is a scene in which Professor Emerson remembers the metaphysical poetry of John Donne, which he studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. (Magdalen was also the college of C.S. Lewis and some say that the stone figures in the cloister quadrangle were the inspiration for the stone figures in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.)
[To see the stone figures, click here. Then click in the centre of the Cloister Quadrangle, , and zoom into the row of windows facing you. The figures are hovering over the arches above the ivy.]
John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet. He secretly married seventeen-year-old Anne More in 1601. Anne’s family was furious and had Donne thrown into prison. Years later, he became a chaplain in the Anglican Church and was widely known as a gifted preacher. In 1621, he was appointed Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, a position that he held until his death. There is a memorial to Donne in St. Paul’s, that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 with only a little scorching. (Rather like Donne, himself, who survived the scorching of prison and public disapproval over his marriage.)
The poem that Gabriel calls to mind is John Donne’s “The Flea” and it’s an example of a metaphysical poem:
“MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck’d me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we’re met,
And cloister’d in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck’d from thee?
Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou
Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
‘Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,
Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.”
You probably have your own ideas about what the poem is about and whether or not you find it creepy. I welcome your comments below.
The poem is widely considered to contain a conversation between a man and his potential female lover, who is a virgin. She is denying him her virginity, and he is arguing that her virginity is inconsequential, using the flea as a conceit. Within the poem, sex (and its attendant discomfort, risks and ramifications), is considered to be as innocuous as a flea bite.
In fact, the man argues, the mingling of the blood of the two potential lovers in the body of the flea is a kind of intercourse that has occurred already. He holds up this example to persuade the virgin and perhaps to berate her, pointing out that the flea does more than she.
In “Gabriel’s Inferno,” The Professor wars with himself as he contemplates the poem and the moral dilemma before him occasioned by the virtuous graduate student, Julianne Mitchell. Like Donne, Gabriel allows himself to use reason to consider the path his bodily desires wish to explore and the exquisite delights that her figure holds for him …
but I won’t spoil the story by telling you what he does next …
Thank you for reading,
SR
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I am honoured to have had all three of my novels appear on the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists. I was a Semifinalist for Best Author in the 2011 and 2012 Goodreads Choice Awards. {
That poem is filled with frustration and lust. Pure determination to persuade his partner to give him what he wants. It is filled with want. I don’t think it is as creepy as it is desperate, like being starved too death. The hungry will do whatever they can to fulfill the need they have.
Gabriel was no different in his hunger until he found a jewel worthy of his time and tenderness.
Deep In The Darkness Of
Passion’s Insanity
I Felt Taken By Lust’s
Strange Inhumanity
Thank you SR for this. I think that one of the things that captures the reader’s attention in this poem is the visual imagery and rich double entendres John Donne uses to convey to the reader the feeling of desperate want and lust that is overtaking him, while the woman tries to deny him. He says “ purpled thy nail in blood of innocence” that can refer to the death of the flea but also to the woman’s deflowering. He talks about “pampered swells” and the reader can question whether the poet is talking about the woman ending up pregnant or whether he is referring merely to his sexual impulses.
He also seems to accuse the woman when he calls her “cruel and sudden” for killing the flea, thus showing her determination not to have her blood mingled with his. Is she really cruel for wanting to wait? Apparently Donne thinks she is, while in GI, Gabriel understands Julia and respects her. Even though it’s very difficult for him to resist her allurement, and thus temptation, he becomes the one that wants to wait, so as to be able to know her feelings and her soul first, and then her body. And that’s when his change takes place. He’s not the man driven by his own impulses anymore, now he’s a man who truly loves, thanks to Julia.
Going back to Donne, I think that “ the flea” is one of the poems where the poet masterfully shows his persuasive skills at their best. At first the reader could think that the poet is just talking about an innocent flea but then the tone changes and we become witnesses to the two lovers’ love life.
This poem reminds me of “To His coy mistress” by Andrew Marvel :
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Another poem where the poet wants to persuade his lover to have sex with him, saying that since they are in a relationship, the morals shouldn’t be an obstacle for them.
Thank you again SR for your post! Waiting for the next one( are we going to talk about music next Tuesday?) !
Elena_twiarcady
Thank you Ellecee and Elena for these very insightful posts. I like both of the poems you’ve posted here.
I like this line of Marvel’s “Rather at once our time devour, than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.”
I think that we might have one more post on literature before turning to music…
All best and thanks for reading,
SR
The flea was merely obeying its instincts by drawing blood from both of them. The insect does what it needs to survive, without thinking. Perhaps that’s what the poem’s speaker is trying to do: persuade the woman to act upon her physical instincts without second-guessing them. It’s insulting, though, to compare a flea’s bite to a woman’s contemplation of losing her virginity, where the ramifications are much greater.
I understand the speaker is using the example of the tiniest of beings, a flea, because he believes their own actions would be similarly insignificant. But bug bites can have consequences. They carry diseases which could prove serious or even fatal, like bubonic plague in Donne’s era. And it’s an enormous leap of logic for the male to extend the analogy and assert that sex wouldn’t result in pregnancy because the flea reproduces differently. That makes it a 17th-century version of “Don’t worry, baby; I’ll pull out in time.” My opinion is admittedly influenced from living in a contemporary era (and owning cats), but fleas multiply rapidly, and that’s incontrovertible.
I like the view in one of the critiques you linked to which said the poem was actually wordplay (foreplay?) between the man and the woman; a teasing game that was part of their courtship, and not meant seriously. I find that more palatable.
Gabriel may have a tenuous relationship with his conscience, but he did understand the significance of this poem and the timing of his recollection. In another situation, he might have used it to justify a completely different action. I think his decision in the library that night is another great example of how he was already changing because of Julianne.
Thanks Miss MC.
THe question of how seriously to take the conversation between the lovers is a good one. Are they teasing each other or not?
I also liked your point about fleas (and cats).
All best and thanks,
SR