I was about to write that “The Flea,” one of Donne’s most famous, even notorious libertine seduction poems, changes its character radically when a woman reads it, but I don’t think that’s true. I think the poem stays the same. What changes, at least to some extent, is one’s horizon of expectations with regard to gender and/or sex. There are several ways to think about this:

1. the woman reads the poem against the grain, with an implied critique of the poem’s argument
2. the woman reads the poem with the grain (1), and the reading demonstrates Donne’s own witty or earnest or seriocomic critique of his own argument (i.e., self-consciously or not, Donne the poet writes in a way that subverts the poem’s argument)
3. the woman reads the poem with the grain (2), as a straightforward seduction poem, claiming the energy and wit and aggressiveness as her own

I don’t think I’ve exhausted the possibilities here by any means, and now that I mull this over, I see that these readings are available to men as well, depending on their own sexual ethics … but given that the poem’s original voicing is of a man seducing a woman, it’s easy to recognize why the reversal would stimulate thought.

Here’s Jess Rigel reading “The Flea.”

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