Flea Lit and a flea-sized M&D spoiler

[j minnich]

Per Paul:
>
>
>Many thanks to those who supplemented my failing neurons with
>the skinny on Donne's "The Flea", esp. davemarc with complete
>text!  Seems like a poem whose bold conceit could not fail
>to appeal to someone of TRP's wit.  And it's also disproof
>of Melville's (apocryphal?) assertion that "No great work may 
>be composed upon the life of a flea."


It's not apocryphal.  It's right there in Moby-Dick, someplace or other.
BTW there must be plenty of M-D allusions in M&D.  I found one on M&D page 235:
"I don't suppose anyone has a Tomato?"
"A what?"
"Saw one at Darlington Fair once," nods Mr. Brain.

Compare wiv M-D chapter 64:
"Cook,...do you belong to the church?"
"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly.

-j minnich
---------------------------------------------------------------
...The poet is dead.
Nor will ever again hear the sea lions 
Grunt in the kelp at Point Lobos.
Nor look to the south when the grunion 
Run the Pacific, and the plunging
Shearwaters, insatiable, 
Stun themselves in the sea.  
   -Wm. Everson