Emily raised a question in class yesterday about whether the variety in Donne’s poems could be looked at from an autobiographical point of view, with the content reflecting his own experiences, feelings, and opinions over time. Donne’s marriage to Anne More was forbidden by her father, and resulted in both being disowned. “The Flea” describes a an affair in which a pregnancy comes before marriage, “A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead…And pampered swells with one blood made of two” in the first stanza and “This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed” in the second. Because Donne mentions a lack of parental approval of their marriage, reflecting his own life experience, it brings into question the additional use of autobiographical experience in the first semester. Like Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, who got married while she was already pregnant, it would be interesting to see if any evidence of this exists with Donne’s marriage, since their recluse during their marriage may have allowed for this type of secret.