John Donne
John Donne was the leading enthusiast of a style of poetry known as metaphysical poetry, which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This specific type of poetry features elaborate conceits and surprising symbols, wrapped up in original, challenging language structures, with learned themes that draw heavily on eccentric chains of reasoning. His jarring, unusual meters; his often eccentric metaphors and his process of oblique reasoning are all characteristics of the metaphysicals. Firstly, however, I am going to look at the form that Donne chose to adopt which at times deviated from the traditional Petrarchan structure; a form that is often viewed by contemporary audiences as an extreme variation from the tradition. In the 1590s, at the time when John Donne produced his Songs and Sonnets, the Petrarchan tradition had already had several centuries of undeniable rule over romantic poetry and literature in general. However, Donne chose to develop his own style and adapt the rhyme scheme in much of his poetry, often employing emjambment, the technique of running one line into another, contributing to the emotional effect of the poem. His poetry is often described as ‘rough’ for this reason, however, Don . . .
I believe this is evident in his poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, where Donne relates, in verse, his insights on the human condition of love and its relationship to the soul through the conceit of drawing compasses. This inconsistent nature attributed to females is hardly complimentary, but it is certainly an extreme change from the cold indifference of Petrarch's idyllic mistress. Death and how he viewed it in very extreme ways is also another theme that Donne decided to explore in his poetry. For example, while a considerable portion of Donne's work deals with death either directly or indirectly, some poems depict death as insignificant while others present it as something he has a great fear of. He understands that his view of equality is disruptive to commonly held beliefs so the alternative to their contempt is secrecy. In the rest of the poem, he states that the exercise of relating with a woman based on her virtue is useless, as it is almost impossible to find such a woman with virtuous heart. which is consequently explained by his analogy of compasses, however, the mixing has already begun evident in his comparisons to liquid beginning with the line “So let us melt, and make no noise”. ne had a clear purpose every time he ‘broke the rules’ of the strict sonnet form as he knew it would contribute to the emotional intensity of his argument and therefore result in a powerful effect. The opening lines, Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so demonstrate his own uncertainty on the issue. His work reduced the derisive distance which women were seen from but he rarely placed the object of his affection on a pedestal. Donne's reversal of that introversion came in the form of an intellectual exploration of the nature of his relationships themselves. The poem ends in a paradox, as Donne concludes: "and death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die. Donne uses these to explain how two different and gigantic events can either bring ‘harms and fears’, or ‘innocence’ adding to the theme of silent mixing. Donne demonstrates to the reader a separation of body and soul in the first stanza which implies that the soul is not part of the body and is only combined with the body until death. The poem The Canonization begins with, "For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love," launching an attack on the Petrarchan custom which demonstrates to me that he is not only assaulting the style but also the attitudes that come with it.
Common topics in this essay:
Mourning Donne, Sonnets Petrarchan, Unreachable Donnes, Death Proud, John Donne, separation body soul, woman based virtue, gender roles, petrarchan sonneteers, soul fixed root, period death, lovers bodies, harms fears, courtly love, body soul, woman based, women viewed, separation body, |
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