It’s interesting to think about John Donne’s two lives – as a poet and as a preacher – and how they are both interconnected and separate. I have always known Donne as a poet, while his life in the Church took a backseat in my understanding of his work. But this weekend’s readings made it clear to me how important it is to understand his religious life, and how vital knowledge of his life as a preacher is in understanding his life as a poet (and vice versa).

I have a predisposition when reading Renaissance poets to assume that they are religious “on the side,” so to speak, and my reading of Donne’s poems proved on the whole no different. Sonnet 14 was an indicator of his deeply religious side, but the counterpoint to that are poems such as “The Flea,” in which he clearly tries to convince a woman to have sex with him outside of marriage (that’s a sin, right?). To feel as though Donne does not completely “buy in” to his supposed religion completely changes the nature of his poetry, and to read his sermons is to see a quite different side of the man.

I am now in fact convinced that students should be required to read some of his religious writings before setting upon his poetry, so as to look at his work with a greater understanding of Donne as a man for whom religion was a profession. Of course, whether or not Donne’s life as a preacher speaks to his belief in the Church is a different matter altogether – but it must be an indicator that he was a man of true faith. Assuming this to be so, how do we now read “The Flea”? Or does Sonnet 14 provide just such an answer?