To "yield'st" or not to "yield'st", appears to be the question.

It is difficult to imagine that the actions contained within the poem - spoken by the male speaker - could exist as anything other than an immediate act; a literal recounting of present events and a failed persuasion. There is no allusion to it being written to an absent female – as with Petrarch’s Laura. Instead, the poem is rife with immediacy, and when conjuring an image of those involved, draws the image of the male speaker down on his knee in front of his unfortunately un-betrothed, with open palms, pleading for an immediate occurrence. He is, in short clutching to this prospect (and arguably also clutching at straws) of bodily unity with the female.

With such a forceful and simple structured dynamic - the attempted wooing of a female love interest - the reader becomes profoundly aware of a power dynamic that rests in the the gender of the protagonists, and the politics of power and gender that is brought into question. The poem does not establish an egalitarian coupling - quite the polar opposite, it presents a male in attempted persuasion, being met by constant rebuttal. One of the most clear indications of the evident power structure is when Donne concludes the poem with the male protagonist asserting the female shall lose no honour if she "yield'st" to him. Instead of an act of coalescence, the two parties are portrayed as opposing forces, one of whom must be usurped, or made to yield. As Guibbory argues - “Donne’s depictions of amatory relationships – his representation of the female body, sexual relations, and sexual difference – show how he represents power relationships in love and how love repeatedly intersects public politics.”

It is these "sexual relations" which bring forth the question as to the implications of the politics of Donne's "couple", and how their actions manifest from a clear definition of gender roles. Further, how the constructs of their gender manifest into roles of power, and those of submission. Love and copulation here do not appear to be the issue in Donne's poetry, instead Guibbory further argues that “love becomes merely the vehicle for the metaphor; the tenor is invariably political” and further that for Donne “love [itself] is political – involv[ing] power transactions between men and women”.

So in this social-political realm of love, how are the two politically represented? Primarily, it seems, as performing through a specific gender role - the maintaining of female chastity, or the seeking to take it. For their relationship specifically, there is no setting contained within the poem, and so the reader is left to contextualise the relationship at their own whim. The poem merely gives suggestions as to their relationship status - as the male laments that the flea need not even "woo" her before it "enjoys" her, it suggests that he has always been estranged from her affections. Yet the dynamic may also be relevant to Donne's own life at the time - its being published in the same time frame as his secret marriage to Anne More, suggesting that the shrouded and illicit nature of his coupling may be mirrored in his candid treatment of sexual activity out of wedlock (or courtship, for that matter). However there is the possibility that the two are already a couple, of long standing, and the poem represents the power struggle in an already present political structure – that of marriage.

With the entire poem controlled by the male speaker, however, the question arises of how the female’s role is portrayed. Illona Bell notes that when the New Critics delved into Donne’s Songs and Sonnets, the egocentricity of the male resounded. Indeed, the female simply becomes “[a]n inanimate prop in the speakers dramatic scene”. Yet she further ventures to explore the dynamics of the speaker and the spoken to, and continues to argue that “once we begin to recognize the speakers consideration and the lady’s influence, Donne’s poems seem less like egocentric displays and more like attentive conversations, more like complexly shifting dialogues between man and woman”.

The “complexly shifting dialogue” however, appears to be entirely controlled by the speaker – a male – so the ability to be in “consideration of the lady’s influence” is severely restricted. The reader is only made aware of the acts and decisions of the female through the speaker himself, and his reference to her. Her influence then is noted most prominently in her decisive and empowering actions – culminating with her killing the flea in an act of rejection. Mintz continues to argue interestingly that the lady’s presence is also notable in the representation of the male, and the profoundly different conception of the assertive male sexuality. She argues that the first “stanza radically revalues the domineering “male” sexuality that the poem seems to be urging the woman toward. The speakers takes on the position not of the invasive flea, whose behaviour serves as vehicle for his argument, but rather that of the woman herself. He announces that he was “suck’d… first””.

Ultimately, Donne creates the female as a sexualised object. Yet he asserts that the sexualising is the product of the male protagonist, and the poem deals with his striving to realise his desires from viewing her sexually – whether these be one-sided, or egocentric. Guibbory argues ultimately that Donne “cannot see [the woman], does not apparently want to see her; for it is not of her that he writes, but of his relation to her”. Yet Donne has created such an overtly desperate, and sexually hyperbolised, male character, that even if the woman is considered a silent other that Donne "cannot see", she is projected against an almost parody of male sexuality. Thus she becomes respectable in maintaining her chastity, and empowered by her assertive action. And this concludes, as Illona Bell argues, in the reality that “[t]ry as he may to sound scornful and cavalier, regardless of what he may say at any given moment, whether he professeses indifference or canonizes love, Donne is never able to disregard the woman’s point of view”. In this way, the desperate seeking of her approval, and her denial, empowers her politically, whilst demeaning the aspirations, and drive, of the male. Donne may choose to have her silent, talking only in actions we hear referred to, but in her silence she remains the controlling force of the entire poem. Donne "was able to construe subjectivity and intimacy alike outside of a patriarchal ideology in which “woman” is first constructed and then regulated as a threatening ‘other’” (Mintz). The female is empowered, and unwavering in her assertions. The same which cannot be said for another, and no, I don't mean the flea.

Scholarly articles referenced and discussed:

"Oh, Let Mee Not Serve So": The Politics of Love in Donne's Elegies
Achsah Guibbory
ELH, Vol. 57, No. 4. (Winter, 1990), pp. 811-833.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-8304%28199024%2957%3A4%3C811%3A%22LMNSS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4

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The Role of the Lady in Donne's Songs and Sonets
Ilona Bell
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 23, No. 1, The English Renaissance. (Winter, 1983), pp. 113-129.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-3657%28198324%2923%3A1%3C113%3ATROTLI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y
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"Forget the Hee and Shee": Gender and Play in John Donne
Susannah B. Mintz
Modern Philology, Vol. 98, No. 4. (May, 2001), pp. 577-603.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-8232%28200105%2998%3A4%3C577%3A%22THASG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4