JOHN DONNE

Donne as a Poet of Love

What is your view of Donnes love poems that you have read?

OR

Assess Donne as a poet of love

OR

Analyze Donnes attitude towards love with the help of the poems prescribed.

OR

Donnes genius, temperament and learning gave to his poems certain qualities which
immediately arrested attention. - Discuss.

Answer:

Donnes love poems are the uninhibited and curiously annotated record passionate or ironical,
tender or teasing, as the case may be of many love affairs before marriage and many life - long
friendships. Donne was a frequent visitor of ladies. He developed love affairs and friendships
with a number of women. We can guess about Anne More, whom he courted in secret while he
lived in her uncles house, as secretary and with whom he eloped. Other sources of inspiration
for his love poems were Lady Bedford, Magdalan Herbert, Elizabeth Huntington and others. His
love as expressed in his poetry, therefore, was based on his own experiences. He experienced all
phases of love- Platonic, sensuous, serene, cynical, conjugal, illicit, lusty, picturesque and
sensual. Thus, Donnes love poetry expresses a very wide range of feelings from physical
passion to spiritual love, from the mood of cynicism and contempt for the lady, to the one of
faith and acceptance. Donne as a poet of love is closer to middle ages. His love poetry is
complete.

According to Grierson, there are three distant strains in his love poetry: cynical, conjugal
and platonic.

First is the cynical strain in which he rejects the cult of woman. He is very ironical in
describing the inconsistency of a woman. In his opinion:

A naked thinking heart that makes no show, is to a women , but a kind of Ghost.

(The Blossom)

This strain is chiefly found in poems like Womens Constancy.

Second is the conjugal love which is less artificial than the platonic strain, purer than the first and
simpler though not less in probability. This class of poems includes: The Anniversarie,
Valediction Forbidding Mourning etc. These poems are addressed to his wife whom he loved
so passionately. He passionately describes the immortality of his love in the Good Morrow:

If our two loves be one, or, they and I love so alike that none doe slacken, none can die.

Third, there is purely platonic strain of love which is to be found in poems like Cannonization,
The Funerall, The Blossome and The Primerose. In The Cannonization, he his beloved
as a saint. In The Extasie, two hearts melt into one to become pure spirits.

This illustration of the different forms of love by Donne adds to his spiritual and Metaphysical
strain and makes his love poetry, a complete phenomenon. Donnes genius temperament and
learning give his love poems, power and fascination. As a poet of love he is closer to the middle
ages. Contrary to his age, he has a very little of the Petrarchan style in his poetry.

In The Anniversarie, the leading theme is the unique experience of eternity in the act of love.
The Anniversarie is less romantic than the Sunne Rising or
The Cannonization while Sunne Rising has more dramatic vigour, and unconventional
context. The Blossome is built upon the Petrarchan theme of extreme faithfulness of the lover
of his beloved. But we note irony and realism here. This poem was written with an
unapproachable lady in mind. Probably, this lady was Countess of Bedfoard or Mrs. Herbert.

Donne expresses all varieties of love raining from lust for flesh to the love of soul. Donne soon
grew to feel the depth of experience of love. Poems like The Cannonization, Sunne Rising,
Loves Usury, suggest his spiritual attitude towards love. The Extasie probes the nature of
experience of love and offers metaphysical analysis. Love cannot be only of the body or only of
the soul. It must partake of both. In all his love poems, Dane is aware of this antithesis of body
and soul.

To sum up, it is crystal clear that Donnes conception of love was lofty and towering and beyond
the understanding of common man. Donne as a poet of love is undoubtedly, enchanting. We can
safely conclude with Drydens remark: He affects Metaphysics not only in his satires, but in
his amorous verses where nature only should reign and perplexes the minds of fair sex with nice
speculation of philosophy.

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 Donne as a Metaphysical Poet
As we survey the canvas of the 17th century English Literature, the name of John Donne stands
by itself. Donne was a celebrated and divine poet. Entire poetry of Donne was marked by
genuine feeling, harsh meters and strained and whimsical images. The chief feature of the
Metaphysical School of Poetry, of which Donne himself was the chief print and pioneer, has
been aptly described by Grierson as:

Metaphysical poetry has been inspired by a philosophical conception of the universe and the
role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence.

The term Metaphysical as applied to the poetry was borrowed from Drydens comment about
Donne: He affects the Metaphysics. This title was affirmed by Dr Johnson.

As used originally, this term was a term of contempt signifying habitual deviation from
naturalness of thought and style to novelty and quaintness. This in fact was the chief feature of
the kind of poetry which Donne, Crashaw and Marvel wrote. By convention, Vaughan and
Herbert also grouped with them.

A critical inspection of Donnes poetry shows that he love those sudden flights from material to
spiritual for which he has been given the title Metaphysical. Donne was an innovator and
revolted against the Petrarchan tradition of Elizabethan poetry popularised by Spencer and
Sydney. He aimed at the reality of thoughts and vividness of expression.

Donne and other Metaphysical poets were men of learning and to show their knowledge was
their entire endeavour. Donne was fond of remote, philosophical learning and expressed his
thoughts in a language marked with conceits. He draws images from varied sources such as
medieval, theology, scholastic philosophy, astronomy and contemporary science. In The
Extasie, he is referring to the interrelationship between the intelligence and sphere. In the
Good- Morrow, we have an illusion to the scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas
Whatever dyes, was not mixt equally.

The most distinctive feature of the metaphysical school of poetry is its imagery. It is often
unusual, striking, farfetched and hyperbolic. Donne had nothing to do with the familiar and easy.
In Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, he uses hyperboles like tear floods, and sigh
tempests. Also see the fantastic claim in the The Blossome: A naked thinking heart that makes
no show is to a woman, but a kinde of Ghost.

Donne has sheer experience of expressing the genuine passion as:

Our hands were firmly cemented with a fast balme which thence did spring,

Our eye beams twisted, and did thread

 Our eyes upon one double string.

No English poet other than Donne could have turned eye beams into tangible thread that
would first be twisted and then have eyes threaded on them. Donne could also warn Death Not
to be proud as she is a slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate people. Donne goes a step
further to before boldly: Death, thou shalt die.

This metaphysical spirit, encapsulated by his painted wit, prevails everywhere in Donnes poetry.
His love-lyrics, songs, satires, elegies, hymns all are filled with rich metaphysical contents.
Donne in his approach towards love and romance, sometimes seems cynic, anti-romantic and
unconventional in declaring: Nowhere lives a women true and fair.

But in most of his poems, he emerges as a lover who considers the spiritual union of two lovers
as a spiritual union of two minds through bodily existence. Thus Dryden was justified in his
remark that Donne:

Affects Metaphysical, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses where nature should
region, and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy

Metaphysical element in Donnes religious poems is also equally charming. The theme of
The frailty and decay of this world is generally the subject of Donnes religious poetry. His
dread of the wrath of God and his longing for Gods love is reflected in his religious poetry. Like
Donnes love poetry, his religious poetry also bears an unmistaken able stamp of his personality.
It is not written in conventional didactic style, bringing home to the readers, certain doctrines. On
the other hand, it is highly individualistic and personal, as all Donnes poetry is and it gives
expressions to his highly complex personality. In this connection, Leisiman observes:

Donnes best religious poetry is intensely personal; not an exposition of Christian doctrine, but
a passionate and dramatic prayer to be delivered from temptation and distraction, to be made
single hearted, to find in Gods will, his piece.

Wit, being a prominent feature of Metaphysical poetry, is present everywhere in

Donnes verses. Leisiman calls him The Monarch of Wit. Donne used the witty conceits in all
his poems and perhaps it is due to this that he became one of the most obscure poets of the
Elizabethan age like Browning became the most obscure poet in the Victorian era.

Such is the marvellous dome of Donnes poetry crowned by his pointed wit in
which are hidden exquisite treasures of Metaphysics which are the reflections of his own intense
and subtle moods and his philosophy of love and life.

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