Transcript John Donne - Faulkner University

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Metaphysics
› the study of the ultimate reality beyond our
everyday world, including questions about
God, creation, and the afterlife
These poets are known for using symbols
and images from the "physical" world to
spin complicated arguments about such
"metaphysical" concerns.
 They are known especially for the use of
wit, which involves a lot of wordplay
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the most outstanding of the English Metaphysical
Poets
born in London to a prominent Roman Catholic
family but converted to Anglicanism during the
1590s
entered the University of Oxford at age 11 where
he studied for three years
› According to some accounts, he spent the next three
years at the University of Cambridge but took no degree
at either university.
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began the study of law at Lincoln's Inn, London, in
1592, and he seemed destined for a legal or
diplomatic career.
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was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas
Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal, in 1598
› His secret marriage in 1601 to Egerton's niece, Anne More,
resulted in his dismissal from this position and in a brief
imprisonment.
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principal literary accomplishments during this
period were Divine Poems (1607) and the prose
work Biathanatos (c. 1608, posthumously published
1644), in which he argued that suicide is not
intrinsically sinful.
became a priest of the Anglican Church in 1615
and was appointed royal chaplain later that year.
In 1621was named dean of St. Paul's Cathedral.
› attained eminence as a preacher, delivering sermons that
are regarded as the most brilliant and eloquent of his time.
poetry embraces a wide range of
secular and religious subjects
 wrote
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› cynical verse about inconstancy
› poems about true love
› lyrics on the mystical union of lovers' souls
and bodies
› satires and hymns depicting his own spiritual
struggles
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a figure of speech which makes an
unusual and sometimes elaborately
sustained comparison between two
dissimilar things.
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imitate the metaphors used by the Italian poet Petrarch.
used in love poetry, exploits a particular set of images for
comparisons with the despairing lover and his unpitying
but idolized mistress.
› the lover is a ship on a stormy sea, and his mistress "a
cloud of dark disdain“
› the lady is a sun whose beauty and virtue shine on her
lover from a distance
The paradoxical pain and pleasure of lovesickness is often
described using oxymoron
› uniting peace and war
› burning and freezing
characteristic of seventeenth-century writers influenced by John
Donne
 noteworthy specifically for their lack of conventionality. In
general, the metaphysical conceit will use some sort of shocking
or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor.
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When it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that
makes us look at something in an entirely new way.
draws upon a wide range of knowledge, mainly using highly
intellectual analogies; its comparisons are elaborately
rationalized.
› "The Flea" compares a flea bite to the act of love
› In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" separated lovers are
likened to the legs of a compass, the leg drawing the circle
eventually returning home to "the fixed foot"
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It is opposite to the rich melodies with smooth rhythm and flow
and the idealized view of sexual love which constituted the
central tradition of Elizabethan poetry
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especially in writers like the Petrarchan sonneteers and Spenser
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It adopts a diction and meter modeled on actual speech.
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It is usually organized in the dramatic or rhetorical form of an
urgent or heated argument.
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first drawing in the reader and then launching the argument
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It puts to use a subtle and often outrageous logic.
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It is marked by realism, irony and often a cynicism in its treatment
of the complexity of human motives.
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It reveals a persistent wittiness, making use of paradox, puns, and
startling parallels.
Stellar example of Donne’s use of the
conceit
 Belief he wrote poem to his wife before
he went away on a long holiday with his
friends.
 Theme:
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› true, spiritual love vs. physical love
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Imagery:
› Parting of two lovers is likened to death of a
virtuous man.
› Lovers are likened to planetary bodies.
› Lovers are likened to the two points of a
compass.
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No one’s sure when Holy Sonnets were
written.
› Many people think that Donne composed
them after the death of his wife in 1617
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weren’t published until 1633, two years
after his death.