THE SUN RISING JOHN DONNE

CONTEXT
John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet, lawyer and cleric. He belongs to a
group called the metaphysical poets, and is considered one of the greatest.
Others include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham
Cowley as well as, to a lesser extent, George Herbert and Richard Crashaw.
Their work is a blend of emotion and intellectual ingenuity, characterized by
conceit. Conceit is a figure of speech, usually a simile or metaphor, that forms
an extremely ingenious or unreal parallel between apparently different or
inappropriate objects or situations. The metaphysical conceit, associated with the
Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, is a more intricate and intellectual
device. It usually sets up an analogy between one entitys spiritual qualities and
an object in the physical world and sometimes controls the whole structure of the
poem.
Donne was born into a Catholic family (an illegal religion at that time). He studied
at both Oxford and Cambridge universities, but because he was a Catholic he was
not allowed to gain a degree. When his brother died, Donne began to question his
religion. Some years later, at the insistence of King James I, Donne was ordained
a priest in the Church of England. He was also elected to be a Member of
Parliament. This Catholic background shaped his writing and made it more
diverse, unique. He uses vivid descriptions, flesh and blood imagery, saints and
angels in his work.
He used to be a womanizer. Later he married Anne Egerton, the daughter of an
important member of the government, and he was a loyal husband to her. They
married without permission and, as a result, Donne spent a short time in prison.
The couple had 12 children. Anne died fourteen years before her husband. When
she died he couldnt replace her, so he found new opsession religion, and later
death.
Donne was a celebrated poet during his own lifetime. His poems fall into different
categories. There are the religious poems, most of which date from after the
death of his wife. The majority of his most famous poems, though, are addressed
to women: whether angry, erotic, or romantic!

FORM, RHYMING SCHEME, STRUCTURE, METER

The form of The Sun Rising is an interesting one. This is a unique pattern that
Donne has invented for his poem. The three regular stanzas of The Sun Rising
are each ten lines long and follow a line-stress pattern of 4255445555lines
one, five, and six are metered in iambic tetrameter, line two is in dimeter, and
lines three, four, and seven through ten are in pentameter. The rhyme scheme in
each stanza is ABBACDCDEE.
Imagery
This poem gives voice to the feeling of lovers that they are outside of time and
that their emotions are the most important things in the world.

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The main conceit or metaphor of the poem is the personification of the sun into
an old man a "busy old fool" whose business it is to get everyone out of bed
and on the way to work (unlike in usual metaphors where sun represents life,
light). The persona adopted by the poet sees fit to argue with the sun, tells the
sun to go off and call on all sorts of other people, from "late school-boys" and
"sour prentices" to the "court-huntsmen", and this creates a comic opening to the
poem. The poet imagines a world, or desires one, where the embraces of lovers
are not relegated only to the night, but that lovers can make their own time as
they see fit.
This is extended when, in the second stanza, he claims that he is stronger than
the sun, because he can "eclipse and cloud" his beams just by blinking. The poet
is emphasizing that the sun has no real power over what he and his lover do,
while he is the one who chooses to allow the sun in because by it he can see his
lovers beauty.
The secondary conceit is the metaphor that the speakers lover is "all states"
she is all the treasures of the world. As a result, therefore, he is "all princes".
Donne elevates the importance of the relationship using this hyperbole.
He combines this hyperbole (the speaker has all the power in the world) with
litotes, in his deliberate reduction of the importance of everything else.
Measurements of time are likened to "rags", all honour is "mimic", and wealth is
"alchemy". This combination of the two techniques demonstrates how great their
love is.
The final line contains a play on the astronomical idea that the Earth was the
center of the universe, with the Sun rotating around the Earth: This bed thy
center is, these walls, thy spheare. Here Donne again gives ultimate universal
importance to the lovers, making all the physical world around them subject to
them. He goes on to say that they are doing the sun a favour in his old age,
because he only has to shine on them to shine on the whole world.
Metaphorically, it is the only thing in the world and so their room becomes the
whole "sphere" for the sun.
Attitudes, themes and ideas:
The poem begins with a comic, argumentative tone, but quickly switches into
pride in his lover, and finally into a very romantic tone. Love is elevated and
celebrated in this poem. It is shown as conquering all and as being the most
important thing in the world, or even the only thing in the world. It empowers the
speaker to fight with the sun.
Everything in the poem suggests that what is taking place inside the speakers
head is more important (and more real) than what is going on outside it. The
poem takes feelings (such as the idea that the sun is disturbing you in the
morning) and makes them into concrete realities. The poem is highlighting a
universal truth that everyone feels that the world revolves around them when
they fall in love!

THE FLEA John Donne

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METAPHYSICAL POEM
Donne belongs to a group called the metaphysical poets, and is considered one
of the greatest. Others include Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland,
and Abraham Cowley as well as, to a lesser extent, George Herbert and Richard
Crashaw. The majority of Donnes most famous poems, though, are addressed to
women: whether angry, erotic, or romantic!
The Flea by John Donne is a metaphysical love poem which takes the form of an
erotic humorous narrative. Donnes ability to embody sexual desire, sin, sacred
love and holy marriage in a simple flea before ultimately turning the argument on
it's head and declaring the flea means naught after all, is as concise as it is
humorous. The exuberant absurdity of the conceit compliments the energetic
theme of ardent and persistent seduction making this a sublimely enjoyable and
unusual poem. Like other metaphysical poets, Donne used conceits to extend
analogies and to make thematic connections between dissimilar objects. He
mixes the discourses of the physical and the spiritual. Metaphysical poetry
typically employs unusual verse forms, complex figures of speech applied to
elaborate and surprising metaphorical conceits. For example conceit: he uses
flea, blood and the murder of the flea as an analogy for having sex and
exchanging bodily fluids. Through metaphisics they could show that they are
educated and they used motives from other fields of knowledge in their poems.

THE TONE; FORM, STRUCTURE, RHYMING PATTERN

The tone of the poem is highly ironic, dramatic and absurdly amusing.
Extravagant declarations of devotion and eternal fidelity which are typical found
in love poetry are absent. Instead, the unorthodox and creative speaker offers
philosophical and theological arguments that rest in the absurd authority that
their union has already been consummated within the flea's little body.
The Flea consists of three nine-line stanzas. All twenty-seven lines of the
poem follow the AABBCCDDD rhyme scheme.
The poem has alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and pentameter.
However, Donne varies this rhythm to create emphasis on particular words or
phrases.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

FIRST STANZA: One of his earlier poems, The Flea, demonstrates his ability to
take a controlling metaphor and adapt it to unusual circumstances. The speaker
tells his beloved to look at the flea and to note how little is that thing that she
denies him. The lover uses no force beyond the force of argument to pursuade a
woman to sleep with him. For the flea, he says, has sucked first his blood, then
her blood, so that now, inside the flea, they are mingled; and that mingling
cannot be called sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead. The flea has joined them
together in a way that, alas, is more than we would do. He points put tha the
flea is not monogamous creature, it just moves from host to host suckng blood
and no one calls it wrong or sinful. Its just doing what is in its nature. Therefore,

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if the fleas action is innocent, thn theres nothing wrong with them having a
sexual relationship.
SECOND STANZA:The poet continues to convince the woman to sleep with him
saying that the flea is like a marriage bed where theyre joined as one. The
woman never speaks in the poem, but theres a suggestion that she wants to
squash the flea, because the speaker begs her to spare it and compares killing
the flea to killing him and herself as well, because their lives are joined in the
flea. He paints the flea as a holy thing. Christian concept of "three lives in one"
(line 10), suggests that a spiritual union already exists, although unlike a spiritual
marriage in a "marriage temple," the third being in the trio is not God but a flea.
He asks that she not kill herself by killing the flea that contains her blood; he says
that killing the flea would be sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
THIRD STANZA: Cruel and sudden, the speaker calls his lover, who killed the
flea, purpling her fingernail with the blood of innocence. The speaker argues
that the flea hasnt done anything wrong, other than having sucked from each of
them a drop of blood.His words indicate that shes told him that killing the flea
has harmed neither of them. In this way she attempts to unravel the speakers
argument that the flea represents a sacred bond between them; the flea is simple
to kill and nothing has been lost, and the single drop of blood will not be missed.
Thus there is no reason to have sex. He twists his argument to make the point
that the woman will lose as much giving herself to him as she lost killing the flea
- NOTHING! The act of physical union would cause virtually no serious harm to
her reputation. He thus returns to his original argument from the first stanza: the
fleas intimate contact with the woman has caused her no harm, so a physical
encounter with the poet will cause no harm either.

THE CANONIZATION - JOHN DONNE

CANONIZATION:
The Canonization, poem by John Donne, is written in the 1590s and originally
published in 1633 in the first edition of Songs and Sonnets. The poems speaker
uses religious terms to attempt to prove that his love affair is an elevated bond
that approaches saintliness. In the poem, Donne makes able use of paradox,
ambiguity, and wordplay.
"Canonization" is an example of metaphysical poetry. It uses conceits, allusions
from the medieval philosophy of metaphysics, a dramatic situation and an
impassioned monologue, a speech-like rhythm, and colloquial language, all of
which make it a typical "metaphysical" poem. The personal in the poem speaks
about the transformation of worldly lovers into holy saints as in the Catholic
Christian custom of 'canonization'.
This title suggests that the poet and his beloved will become 'saints of love' in
the future: and they will be regarded as saints of true love in the whole world in
the future.
The speaker of the poem is an old man who has just got the good luck of having a
young beloved! But, unluckily, he is being disturbed by a man who comes to a

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place where he is making love. This intruder seems to have told him not to do like
this. The old lover gives energy to reply to him.
The speaker begins his defense with the words For Gods sake hold your tongue,
and let me love. He then proceeds to justify the holiness of his love affair,
concluding with the hope that his saintly relationship will become a model for
others.
The speaker in the poem claims that he and his beloved will be canonized when
the poet immortalizes their love, and that lovers of the future will invoke to them
to give them the strength of spiritual love. The physical passion is to unite them
into one soul and transform them into saints of love.
The poem takes the form of a drama where the speaker is speaking back with
angry arguments against a third person who seems to have told him not to
indulge in such love affair in old age. The speaker argues with the intruding
stranger so as to justify his metaphysical logic of love. As the argument develops,
the comparison of the relation between lovers develops with other metaphors of
myth, religion and so on. The speaker equates worldly human love with the
ascetic life of unworldly saints. The whole poem can be seen as an extension of
the central unusual comparison of the canonization of a lover! The poem makes
an impressive beginning with an abrupt jump into the situation: 'Hold your
tongue and let me love.' The lines are highly dramatic. They illustrate the shock
tactic used in most of Donne's metaphysical poems.
The argument in the poem is forceful, suggestive and witty. The speaker uses
colloquial words, rough idioms and broken rhythm, all of which characterize
metaphysical poems. The very beginning "For God's sake....." is a good example.
The whole poem is in such shockingly new language and rhythm. Though the
rhythm is rough and conversational, the poem is written mainly in iambic
pentameter. (The stress pattern in each stanza is 545544543.) Each of five
stanzas is of nine lines, and a rhyming scheme such as: abbacccaa. But the word
loves is, for some reason, always used in slant rhyming as in love/ approve, love/
improve, etc.
The speaker also uses surprising words from the register of trade, commerce,
medicine and myth so as to elaborate his concept of metaphysical love.
'Canonization' links together disharmonious images. As the speaker faces an
intruder and argues with him, he links 'lover's sigh' with 'merchant's ships',
'colds' with 'spring', 'heat' with 'plague' and 'love songs' with divine hymns. As
the argument proceeds, the comparison of the relation between lovers moves
from the register of trade and myth to a climax where true lovers are equated
with canonized saints.
Fusion of emotion and intellect is another important feature of the poem. The
fusion is observed in the comparison of the lovers to the mysterious phoenix and
the divine saints. The speaker assumes that like the phoenix, the lovers would
'die and rise at the same time' and prove 'mysterious by their love'. Reference to
this mythical being well sums up Donne's theory of sexual metaphysics; a real
and complete relation between a man and a woman fuses their soul into one
whole. The poet is both sensuous and realistic in his treatment of love. The
romantic affair and the moral status of the worldly lovers are compared to the
ascetic life of unworldly saints.

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The poem uses an elaborate conceit. In the beginning the speaker expresses his
commitment to love. He addresses an intruding stranger and warns him to keep
out of the lover's way. Next, he discusses love in terms of 'sighs', 'cold' and 'heat'.
In the lines that follow, the poet uses more and more of disharmonious
associations. He equates lovers to 'flies' and 'tapers', 'Eagle' and 'Dove', 'Phoenix'
and 'saints'.
Thus, 'canonization' is in many ways a typical metaphysical poem where the
complexity of substance is expressed with simplicity of expression. The general
argument and its development are clear like its dramatic situations. The allusions
are sometimes too forced, but that is a part of such poetry.

AIR AND ANGELS, John Donne

INFLUENCE:
This is a poem of love and has little to do with air and angels. The poet is fed up
with the Platonic idea of lovelove as something holy and spiritual. He is also not
happy with the worship of the beloved and the admiration of her beauty which
the Petrarchan poets did. He realizes the hollowness and hypocrisy of the
idealization of love. Love demands something concrete. It must have a physical
base. Love can grow only by mutuality and co-operation. There are several
themes present in the poem Air and Angels by John Donne and each carries a
particular meaning. The influence of Shakespeare, particularly his sonnets, are
clear in Air and Angels as many of the same themes are explained and
explored.

DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT:
The poet discusses the soul-body relationship. Just as the angels manifest
themselves in the air by a voice or light, in the same way love which is something
idealistic, must express itself through some concrete medium. In the beginning
he thought love was like a spirit or an angel, but subsequently he realised that
love must be expressed through a medium, namely the human body. The beloved
is the body of the soul of love. Love has now been concretized in the beloved and
as such she has become the cynosure of his eyes. He appreciates the beauty of
her lips, eyes and brow.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS:

This is one of the highly intellectualised of Donnes love poems. The poet
describes divine love in terms of the flesh. He borrows images and concepts from
metaphysics, navigation and scholasticism in order to prove the point that both
physical base and mutuality ate essential for the experience of love. The idea of
using ballast to the ship of love for its smooth sailing is original and so is the
concept of the disparity between mans passion and womans response. Mans
love may be compared to an angel and womans love to air. This implies that man
is generally more active than woman in the game of love-making. The traditional

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concept of womans coyness and modesty does make one feel that she plays the
second fiddle in the orchestra of love. The harmony of the two is necessary for
the concretization and consummation of love provides a sane and fitting
conclusion to the poem.
In Air and Angels love is something that transcends the flesh and the human
body is merely a vessel for this potent emotion. Love in this poem is not
represented as a feeling that is strictly based on outside or shallow perceptions of
beauty but rather, it is projected onto the object of the affection in a pure and
spiritual sense. Through using specific images and compounding themes and
meaning throughout the poem Air and Angels by John Donne, the reader gets
the sense that even though the speaker seems to have a notion of the power of
love, he is not quite able to grasp it or give it the form and shape he seems to
desire.
These ideas of form and shapelessness as a theme in Air and Angels by John
Donne are interwoven by language that is at once earthly and heavenly. This
poem accomplishes its task of questioning the relationship between the ethereal
and intangible nature of a pure emotion by placing the idea of love in a number
of different contexts. It is at once compared and contrasted and interposed onto
the human form, then is placed in connection with the heavy connotations
associated with ballasts and boats, and then, by the end, it is freed because it
is associated with angels who are thought to be in their most pure form when
appearing as air.
The mix between this world of the flesh and the world of the pure spirit of love
are constantly playing off and one another as earthly and heavenly or
supernatural images are juxtaposed. The form that a pure emotion like love takes
is the central question and is explored in different ways throughout the poem.
The best way to examine this meaning would be to look at the very structure
which is at once a unified thought process yet is broken into two distinct ideas.
There are two sections to the poem, each with its own separate theme and use of
language. The first fourteen lines encapsulate the need for emotion to be placed
in flesh and relies heavily on the use of earthly terms such as limbs of flesh
and parent as well as the fuller sense that the poet is attempting to ground
his thoughts to the mere earth-bound before launching into a discussion of higher
things as the poem moves forward and branches out to include the metaphysical.
At the beginning of the second set of fourteen lines, the poem still retains a
beginning that is firmly rooted in the real by invoking nautical terminology such
as ballasts and pinnace which at once puts the poem in a sort of grounded
and earth-bound context yet all the while is developing the idea that love cannot
be attained through such average modes. The images of heavy human items
such as the ballasts and boats are set against the following lines, which are
important quotes from Air and Angels the poem by John Donne, Extreme, and
scattering bright, can love inhere; /Then as an angel face and wings. The
narrator goes on to speak of love and angels as something that are of the air and
not bound to the weighty matters of the flesh and society.
The beginning of the poem is rather difficult to decipher, which is in many senses,
the meaning of the poem; that beauty is difficult to grasp and put into form. By
the end of Air and Angels however, there seems to be a resolution to the
question of such formlessness when the narrator concludes that love is just what

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he thought it was from the beginningan idea without boundaries, much like air
formless and supernatural even though we may try to put it into the terms of
flesh and reality.

HOLY SONNET 10, John Donne

THEME:
The sonnet takes the oblique reasoning and topsy-turvy symbolism of Donnes
metaphysical love poems and applies them to a religious theme, treating the
personified figure of Death as someone not worthy of awe or terror but of
contempt. Donne charts a line of reasoning that explores a different idea in each
quatrain.
Holy Sonnet 10, sonnet by John Donne, one of the 19 Holy Sonnets, published in
1633 in the first edition of Songs and Sonnets. This devotional lyric directly
addresses death, raging defiantly against its perceived haughtiness. The theme,
seen throughout Donnes poetry, is that death is unable to corrupt the eternal
soul.
Death, commonly viewed as an all-powerful force against life, is otherwise
described in John Donne's Holy Sonnet 10. As found in any English Sonnet, there
is a rhyme scheme and a standard meter. Although the standard meter is iambic
pentameter, as in most English Sonnets, the rhyme scheme differs a little from
the usual, consisting of ABBA ABBA CDDC AE.
Sonnets convey various thoughts and feelings to the reader through the different
moods set by the author. In this case the speaker having to confront Death and
defeat it, sets the mood. Throughout existence, there have been many theories
regarding exactly what role Death plays in the lives of those who experience it.
Some think Death is the ultimate controller of all living things, while others
believe it is nothing more than the act of dying once your time has come. Donne,
on the other hand, has his own philosophy.
The entire Sonnet, Donne speaks directly to Death. He personifies what to man
has always been a spirit and has never been touched, seen or furthermore killed.
He gives Death life, and therefore makes it mortal, exposing it to pain, torment
and eventually defeat.
Humans have always been slaves to Death, fearing it, running from it, and trying
to prevent it. In line nine, the speaker goes against that to say that Death is a
slave to fate, chance and us. When Death becomes a slave it is because it will
benefit from who will die, but doesn't have the power to kill. Without fate nothing
could be determined, therefore, our fate is truthfully what controls our lives and
deaths.
Dr. Fox argues that Donne wanted to join his wife as soon as possible.

Form
This simple sonnet follows an ABBAABBACDCDEE rhyme scheme and is written in
a loose iambic pentameter. Structurally, Donne combines English influences with

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Italian ones. In its structural division of its subject, it is a Petrarchan sonnet rather
than a Shakespearean one, with an octet establishing the poems tension, and
the subsequent sestet resolving it.
Images used in the sonnet are transitoriness of life, eternal life, image of
resurection.

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS:

The first quatrain focuses on the subject and audience of this poem: death. By
addressing Death, Donne makes it/him into a character through personification.
The poet warns death to avoid pride (line 1) and reconsider its/his position as a
Mighty and dreadful force (line 2). He concludes the introductory argument of
the first quatrain by declaring to death that those it claims to kill Die not (line
4), and neither can the poet himself be stricken in this way.
The second quatrain, which is closely linked to the first through the abba rhyme
scheme, turns the criticism of Death as less than fearful into praise for Deaths
good qualities. From Death comes Much pleasure (line 5) since those good
souls whom Death releases from earthly suffering experience Rest of their
bones (line 6). Donne then returns to criticizing Death for thinking too highly of
itself: Death is no sovereign, but a slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate
men (line 9); this last demonstrates that there is no hierarchy in which Death is
near the top. Although a desperate man can choose Death as an escape from
earthly suffering, even the rest which Death offers can be achieved better by
poppy, or charms (line 11), so even there Death has no superiority.
The final couplet caps the argument against Death. Not only is Death the servant
of other powers and essentially impotent to truly kill anyone, but also Death is
itself destined to die when, as in the Christian tradition, the dead are resurrected
to their eternal reward. Here Donne echoes the sentiment of the Apostle Paul in I
Corinthians 15:26, where Paul writes that the final enemy to be destroyed is
death. Donne taps into his Christian background to point out that Death has no
power and one day will cease to exist.

HOLY SONNET 17, John Donne

Subject matter
After Donnes wife died, his main focus is on three themes: love, religion, and
death, and this sonnet contains all of the three. The poem is about his love for
God, and how his love for his wife prepared him to love God. However, his love
for God must not be shared with anyone else, let alone something from the
"world" or the "devil". Donne presents God as a jealous lover.
In this sonnet we can feel passion towards his wife and struggle to move on after
her death. We feel grief, acceptance, reconcile with situation in the best possible
way. We can see playfulness of Donne but with more serious idea. This piece of
writing is a part of a process of selfhealing, and comforting himself. Art saves
him.

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Form and structure
The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, which follows the rhyme scheme of
ABBAABBACDCDEE. Petrarchan sonnets are usually divided into a set of 8 and a
set of 6 lines. Although written as one block, the structure of the ideas in Holy
Sonnet 17 follows this division. The first 8 lines show the idea that having been
prepared by loving his wife, after her death Donne has sought and found God.
The final section contains the volta: God is a jealous lover who fears that Donne
will be tempted away by someone else.

Imagery
Donne uses the metaphor of death as paying a "debt"; that is, you owe your life
to something or someone else and it must eventually be paid back. Although he
starts with this image, the poem rapidly moves on.
For the majority of the poem, there is mixing of romantic and religious imagery.
His wifes soul was "ravishd" into heaven, while God "woo[s]" the speakers soul.
This use of romantic language to describe religious feeling supports Donnes
claim that loving his wife was preparation for loving God. He expresses this with
the metaphor "admiring her my mind did whet/to seek thee, God". To "whet"
something is to stimulate or sharpen it, and the connotations of the word are of
keenness.
Towards the end of the poem God is imagined as a jealous lover. His jealousy is
"tender" though, because it is out of concern for Donne that he might also give
his love to other things, like the "devil", that is that he might be tempted away
from heavenly things.

Attitudes, themes and ideas

The central concept of the poem is that loving a fellow human being is a
preparation for loving God, which will gratify the "thirst" of your soul. Extending
this metaphor Donne explores the characteristics of his relationship with God,
and comes to the conclusion that he does not need to "beg more love" because
God has already given him his whole love. His relationship with God is described
using the metaphor of the jealous lover, because God doesnt want him to give
any love to anything else, whether "saints", "angels" or "flesh". This is for
Donnes own sake though; it is "tender" jealousy for worry that Donne may be
tempted away.
The tone of the poem is one of fondness. There is no resentment or grief over the
death of his wife. He has sought and found God, but is still "thirsty". It is
interesting that in this poem, which uses human relationships as a metaphor for a
relationship with God, the poem speaks very directly to him, and in a very
intimate way. You could argue that in the last six lines Donne appears to be
teasing God

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 DEVOTIONS UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS, MEDITATION
17, John Donne

MADITATION 17
This famous meditation of Donne's puts forth two essential ideas which are
representative of the Renaissance era in which it was written: No man is an
island, entire of itself...The idea that people are not isolated from one another,
but that mankind is interconnected;
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. The vivid awareness
of mortality that seems a natural outgrowth of a time when death was the
constant companion of life.
Donne brings these two themes together to affirm that any one man's death
diminishes all of mankind, since all mankind is connected; yet that death itself is
not so much to be feared as it at first seems. Join us in exploring these two main
themes, which we have associated with the two controlling images of the
meditation...the island and the bell.
In this two-paragraph meditation, Donne meditates upon the sounding of a
church bell signifying a funeral and connects it to his own present illness. He
wonders if the person is aware that the bell has sounded for him. Donne then
applies the idea to himself, using the bell to become aware of his own spiritual
sickness, and to everyone else by noting that the church is a universal
establishment. Every human action affects the rest of humanity in some way. The
churchs universality comes from God, who is in charge of all translations from
earthly to spiritual existence which occur at death. Although God uses various
means to achieve this changeover, God is nonetheless the author and cause of
each death. Donne also compares this death-knell to the church bell calling the
congregation to worship, as both bells apply to all and direct their attention to
matters more spiritual than material.
Donne uses an interesting image when he considers how God is the author of
every person and every death. Whether a man dies of old age, in battle, from
disease or accident, or even through the actions of the state dispensing its idea
of justice, God has in a sense decided the terms of each death. As universal
author, God will bind together these various translated pages, each man a
chapter, into a volume which is open to all. In the new universal library of
mankind, every book shall lie open to one another.
Donne also recounts how the various religious orders disagreed about which
group should be given the privilege of ringing the first bell calling everyone to
prayer; the decision was made to allow the order which rose first in the morning
to ring that bell. Again Donne connects this to the death-knell and urges himself
and his readers to take its imminence into account when deciding what to do
each day. After all, the bell really tolls for the person who has the ears to hear it.
At the opening of the second paragraph, Donne returns to his idea that no man
is an island, indicating that everyone is connected to every other human being
in some way. Just as dirt and sand clods are part of the European continent, so

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too is each man part of the entire human race; the removal of a clod diminishes
the continent, and the removal of a human life diminishes mankind. Since every
death diminishes the rest of mankind in some way, when the bell tolls for a
funeral it tolls in a sense for everyone.
Donne concludes by stating that his meditation is not an effort to borrow
misery, since everyone has enough misery for his life. He does, however, argue
that affliction is a treasure in that it causes men to grow and mature; therefore
we inherit wisdom from perceiving anothers suffering. Although a man may not
be able to make use of that wisdom himself as he suffers and dies, those who
observe it can better prepare themselves for their own fate.

GEORGE HERBERT:
EASTER WINGS

This is a poem full of deep imagery not only in its words but also in the visual
structure of the stanzas. He uses shaped verse/poem because he wanted this
poem to have many different levels and meanings. He also used huge amount of
mental imaginery so that the reader can find new truths and meanings each time
he reads it. The poem tells of the poet's desire to fly with Christ as a result of his
sacrifise, death and resurrection. He opens the first line with Lord . The first
stanza shows the fall of man from the wealth that is in God's holiness into the
decaying life of a sinful nature.
Rhyme: ABABA CDCDC
It shows the image of flying ( resurection and wings) it a way to get to the
Heaven , and it is one of the metapgysical features
O let me rise focusinf on himself
And sing this day thy vcitories- personal chance for spiritual awakening
My tender age in sorrow did beginne reflecting the original sin
For, if I imp my wing on thine- flying, helpful wing to help him get to heaven (an
angel)
He structuraly gives his ideas, first and the last line are the longest. He visualy
conveys message about being close to God, and not so always having second
chance.
First and last line iambic pentameter
( pentameter, quatrameter, threemeter, dimeter)

THE FLOWER

Stanza 1

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Rebirth, flowers in spring after the snow, compared to God's returnm spiritual
rebirth, winter images related to sin
Stanza 2
It was only underground but not dead, flowrs will grow again, second chance,
Tone: Loss, the long period of winter, cold weather,
Flower echo his voice and emotions, amazed by the ability to feel again.
Stanza 3
Tone is changed and new idea is introduced,
Power of Lord/ God who will willingly sucrifice anione who disobeys him
Lord of power has the power to bring him to the hell or heaven, he is a bit
scared of this God and his own sins,
The tone continues, loss and fear of God
Stanza 4
flower=soul, it reflects his revious state when he was in sin ( 1st line)
spring idea of hope, change, renewal, redemption
Stanza 5
Takes for granted all the second chances, there will always be spring but the
question is how many?
frost spiritual,
all things burn hell, the final destination
Stanza 6
After so many second chances ( springs) he finaly recognizes it, he can enjoy the
spring again, when he was making sins he was in darkness, and now he has
found some light in his second chance,
Perspective: present time reflecting past
live and write therapy like feature of the poem,
Not to do the same mistake again, to write down his experience
celebrating the power of art and literature
Stanza 7
Praising God, below his power, place in heaven for all that were good and seek
salvation
Lord of love New Testament
It sumarizes God's purpose and ends with a kind of warning.
He aknowledges his own errors but celebrates the idea of new spiritual renewal,
idea of being close to God in a spiritual wa

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Flower- becomes a symbol for relationship between God and man

Rhyme: ABAB CC
This joyful poem is a celebration of Gods returns or rather, the speakers
rediscovery of Gods presence after a period of spiritual barrenness. The tone is
one of amazement at how simple and natural this recovery is: Grief melts away /
Like snow in May, / As if there were no such cold thing. The sorrows of a
shriveld heart seem to fade into the past as greennesse is restored, and it is
hard for the speaker to believe that I am he / On whom thy tempests fell all
night. Can this really be the same person, who is now so transformed? The poem
likens the ups and downs of an individuals spiritual experience to the seasonal
changes in the life of a flower: the speakers heart has been under ground and
indeed apparently dead, like a bulb in winter, but it is now experiencing a
springtime of renewal. Like so many of Herberts lyrics, this is a poem of
resurrected life; it laments the instability of human moods (O that I once past
changing were) yet is fundamentally confident in the stability of God as the Lord
of power and Lord of love who works wonders. The poems other wonder is its
intense awareness of writing itself: when the speaker begins to bud again, this is
synonymous with fresh inspiration, and to smell the dew and rain of spring is to
relish versing. For Herbert, poetry and spirituality are a continuum. At the heart
of the poem is its most tantalising statement: We say amisse, / This or that is: /
Thy word is all, if we could spell. The poets rhetorical skills are God-given, but
human language is never quite sufficient to the task of expressing the mysteries
of life. The process of writing (and reading) devotional poetry is one of trying to
learn how to recognise, decipher and copy the example already set by God in
other words, of practising how to spell!

RICHARD CRASHAW:
A HYMN TO THE NAME AND HONOR OF ADMIRABLE
SAINT TERESA

The full title of the poem is A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable
Saint Teresa. The poem appeared in the posthumous volume Carmen Deo Nostro
(Hymn to our God), but from the following poem in that volume, An Apology for
the Foregoing Hymn, it appears to have been written in England before he went
into exile, since its subtitle is As Having Been Writ When the Author was yet
Among the Protestants. A second poem to St Teresa follows that, called The
Flaming Heart.

Fascination

aking the three poems together, we can see just how fascinated Crashaw was by
the figure of St Teresa. She was a sixteenth century Spanish mystic, who became
a nun and then founded her own order of Discalced (barefoot) Carmelites', a
mixed order of men and women. One of its most famous members was another
Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross.

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An apology
In An Apology, Crashaw has to apologise for Teresa's being Spanish, since that
nation was still regarded with great suspicion by the English in the mid-
seventeenth century because of fears that it would try to regain the English
throne it for Catholicism. To be seen reading a Spanish author at that time would
have seemed quite subversive. Crashaw's defence is that once you are a follower
of Christ, nationality ceases to mean that much.

Two incidents in St Teresa's life

Crashaw focuses on two incidents in St Teresa's life. When she was a child, she
ran away from home with her brother because she wanted to convert the Moors
(North African Muslims who had previously conquered Spain, though by Teresa's
time, they had been driven out). If she was captured and put to death, she
regarded that as all part of the bargain'. Fortunately, her uncle intervened.

Secondly, when she was a nun, she received a series of out-of-body experiences
when she saw herself being shot by a flaming arrow in the heart by an angel. She
felt agonising pain, but believed the wounds were from God and that they infused
in her a passionate religious love that energised her for her later work.

Martyrdom and love

For Crashaw these two extraordinary events are linked by the idea of martyrdom.
As a child, Teresa was willing to become a martyr; her second experience was a
sort of living death', which she willingly underwent because of her faith. Because
the second experience produced the overwhelming sense of love, Crashaw links
martyrdom and love together. It must be remembered that the seventeenth
century produced its own long list of martyrs, both Catholic and Protestant.
Crashaw, himself, whilst not a martyr, did die in exile as a result of his faith, and
presumably at the time of writing the poem, was counting such a cost.

The long poem Hymn to St Teresa, probably Crashaw's best, consists of an

introduction and four sections:

Introduction (ll. 1-14): the traditional idea of a martyr

Section 1 (ll.15-64): Teresa as would-be child martyr

Section 2 (ll.65-104): Teresa's mystical experience of the flaming arrows

Section 3 (ll.105-127): Teresa's death

Section 4 (ll.128-181): Teresa's entry into heaven

Introduction

There are two main points here.

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Firstly, the direct address to Love'. Love is given divine personification here, yet
without being quite identified with either Christ or the Holy Spirit. One of the
marks of mystical theology is a certain loosening of the tight boundaries of
theological definition. For those not used to the traditions of mysticism, for
instance, Crashaw's Protestant contemporaries, this could have caused a
problem.

Secondly, Crashaw uses the rhetorical device of telling us what he says he is not
going to tell us. He says he is not interested in the traditional idea of a martyr,
which he then proceeds to spell out. It is a very male picture old soldiers, great
and tall', and probably the image you have when the word is mentioned. By
contrast, Crashaw is going to tell us of would-be female and child martyrs, where
love and softness predominate, rather than bravery and toughness.

Section one
Crashaw's point is clearly made:

The link of love and martyrdom is central to the poem. The infant Teresa's love is
as intense as a mature person's. The only difference is that it is intuitive and
undifferentiated: though she cannot tell you why'. It is a strange, even disturbing
thought for us perhaps, but echoes the biblical passage of Christ with the children
(Matthew 19:13-15).

The linking of love and death is similarly intuitive. Crashaw puts Teresa's choices
very simply, so that we can see the childlike logic

Section two
It is not Teresa's time. Thy fair Spouse' calls her back. Christ's relationship with
humanity is described in the Bible, using the metaphor of marriage. Both nuns
and mystics have often applied this image to themselves. Christ has a milder
MARTYRDOM' for Teresa, in that it does not involve death directly. Instead she will
become :

Love's victime; and must dy

A death more mysticall and high.

The use of dart' rather than arrow' may contain a reference to Cupid, the god of
love. Crashaw has used this term before, in St Mary Magdalene, l.103, where
again the Cupid image is very strong.

The dart is

thrice dip't in that rich flame

Which writes thy spouse's radiant Name.

It is the fire of passion that is suggested; Christ as the ardent, burning lover,
where the dart symbolises the force of the passion. Agony and ecstasy become
one in a very romantic passage. Crashaw is, though we may not realise it, only
echoing the words of St Teresa herself as she describes these mystical
experiences.

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Section three

The poet is writing this in the present tense as if he were addressing St Teresa
directly. Thus, as he comes to think of her final death, that is put into the future.
The tenses produce a certain sort of engagement and intensity not possible with
past tenses. At last, he says, the mystical deaths' will finally merge into a real
death, where

Thy selfe shall feel thine own full joyes

The language is of ecstatic experience. The passage into death suddenly shifts to
a pagan language of The MOON of maiden starrs' awaiting her and making room
for her to become, it would seem, a celestial body, as in various Greek myths. It
sounds more like the Romantic poet, John Keats's youthful poem Endymion, which
is about the moon goddess's love for a mortal.

Section four

This is really a very remarkable passage. English poetry does not abound with
descriptions of heaven, even among Christian poets. This bravura piece of writing
shows how fully engaged Crashaw's imagination is. He does not falter as he
describes Teresa's reception by the KING thy spouse' who then becomes the
LAMB thy Lord'. The language of the Book of Revelation is echoed here
(Revelation 21:9). She is also welcomed by the angels and by her good deeds
which have gone before her. Her former tears and sufferings all transformed into
jewels, as are the books she has written. All the souls she has helped find
salvation, or who have become members of her order, shall be there as jewels on
thy rich zone' (belt). She will become the bride of Christ, a term usually reserved
for the Church as a whole (Revelation 21:2). She clearly, for Crashaw, is the
number one example for all who in death would live', who must learn in life to
dy like thee'.

The obvious theme is the agony and ecstasy of love. Much more than in any
poem of human love, Crashaw manages to convey here the possibility that agony
and ecstasy are two sides of the same coin, and can be felt simultaneously. This
is the mystical experience of the flaming arrow. So, with this theme, comes that
of mystical perceptions of God, here not directly for the poet, but through his
intense imaginative identification with Teresa.

Although there is a small narrative element in Hymn to St Teresa, Crashaw is

much more interested in finding what images fit the events or person being
described, and how those images may convey the emotional intensity and
richness.

Male and female images

The imagery can be divided up into male and female images. The male ones are
military or of trading; the female largely of riches and jewels. Between them lies
a series of images of wounding, and semi-erotic or sexual images betokening the
love of Christ as spouse for Teresa his bride. For example, the passage ll.69-73

17
goes fairly near to suggesting her martyrdom at the hands of the Moors would be
rape:

some base hand have power to race

Thy Brest's chaste cabinet.

This is counterpoised with the image later of the moon, which traditionally
symbolises romantic chastity, and the maiden starrs'.

The blood and sweat' of the male martyrs echoes through the barbarous knife'
to love's dart,

th'immortal instrument
Upon whose choice point shall be spent
A life so lov'd (ll.89-91).

The military images continue in love's souldiers' with their archerie' and the
Lamb's warres' (l.153).

Wounds and fire

However, it is the imagery of wounds and of fire that in the end becomes central.
There is an oxymoron in delicious wounds' (1.108) leading to the paradox of the
self-healing wounds that weep/ Balsom to heal themselves with'. Crashaw has
used the balsam image before in St Mary Magdalene l.60, where the image was
used of healing tears.

The fire image betokens the heat of passionate love. But it is extended, for
example into her actual death, when

melt the Soul's sweet mansion;

Like a soft lump of incense, hasted
By too hot a fire

The image is one of the few we would naturally associate with Catholic liturgy,
especially as it goes on to talk of perfuming clouds'.

Language
Language and imagery tie up closely in Crashaw's poetry. We find a diction rich in
words of wounding and suffering, which will, of necessity, be physical. There are
words connected with love, including passion and burning, again very physical.
Much of Crashaw's language here is physical and sensuous.

This is seen in the number of times sweet' and soft' are used. Other soft' words
include blush', kisses', milder', tender' and so on. If we have read any poetry
by John Keats, we are perhaps reminded of his very soft, sensuous romantic
diction. Before Crashaw, the English poets who could best achieve this were
Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare himself. Certainly, it is a far from the harsh
and dissonant language of Donne.

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Enthusiastic tone
The tone is celebratory, enthusiastic and totally engaged in a very emotional way.
The voice addresses Teresa directly for much of the time, though the dramatic
and memorable opening is addressed to Love. The last section is triumphal and
climactic. Crashaw manages to sustain this without losing a sense of balance and
proportion, as he did in St Mary Magdalene.

JOHN MILTON :
ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTS NATIVITY

John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" is significant for its merit alone,
though this remarkable poem is also important in the context of the artist's
career. His first major work in English, the nativity ode reflects "his desire to
attempt the highest subjects and to take on the role of bardic Poet-Priest"
(Barbara Lewalski, Life of John Milton 38). Milton himself declares such ambition
in a letter to his friend Charles Diodati: "I sing to the peace-bringing God
descended from heaven, and the blessed generations covenanted in the sacred
books,. . . I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, and of the gods
suddenly destroyed in their own shrines." ("Elegia sexta"). Milton's lofty tone suits
the elevation of his artistry

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity is a nativity ode written by John Milton in

1629 and published in his Poems of Mr. John Milton (1645). The poem describes
Christ's Incarnation and his overthrow of earthly and pagan powers. The poem
also connects the Incarnation with Christ's Crucifixion.
It celebrates important Christian events: Christ's birth,the feast of the
Circumcision, and Good Friday.

The poem deals with both the Nativity and the Incarnation of Christ and Milton
believed that the two were connected. The Nativity and the Crucifixion represent
Christ's purpose as Christ in Milton's poetry, and contemporary poem, because
Christ becomes human-like in the Nativity to redeem fallen man and humanity is
redeemed when Christ sacrifices himself during the Crucifixion. Milton's reliance
on the connection is traditional, and Milton further connects the Nativity with the
creation of the world, a theme that is expanded upon later in Book VII of Paradise
Lost. Like the other two poems of the set and like other poems at the time, the
ode describes a narrator within the poem and experiencing the Nativity.

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