That Donne is concerned with wit is scarcely deniable. Through his use of conceit, a style in which John Donne reveled in, trying to prove his superior intellect to his literary piers of the time. But has his use of conceit become so intense that it has indeed detracted from the legitimate sincerity of his poems?
In The Flea, Donne manages to make an intricate and complex argument from an ordinary occurrence. He succeeds in glorifying the importance of a flea, saying "This flea is you and I, and this/ Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is". He continues, comparing it to God ("three lives in one", referring to the trinity,) and calling it "these living walls of Jet." Here he is certainly demonstrating his wit by making his argument seem valid, although it clearly is not. The significance that attributes to the flea is undeserved. The reasons given why his mistress should not kill the flea are based on its religious importance: "three lives in one flea spare," and "w'are…cloysterd in these living walls". However, the flea only has this significance because of his argument, so it is invalid. Although he says that the flea represents God, it is not necessarily the case.
Clever argument seems to recur in this poem. At the end of the poem, the persona manages to turn his mistress's reasoning on its head. He appears to have conceded that he has lost the debate ("Yet thou triumph'st, and saist that thou/ Finds not thy selfe, nor me the weaker now;") but uses her own proposition to make his point. He says that "Just so much honor, when thou yeeld'st to me,/ Will west, as this flea's death took life from thee." However, although he seems to be cleverly refuting her argument, he ignores the fact that his logic is again invalid. He says that she would not be any weaker if she were to submit to him, simply because she did not feel any pain when she killed the flea. Although this is clearly invalid, Donne's triumph is that he manages to make it...