Three Groups for Donne's Love Poetry

As we consider Donne's love poetry it is important to keep a few things in mind:

1) The persona in each poem does not necessarily represent Donne's own personal experience or his own views of love and lust.

2) In the past, it was popular to distinguish between an early rakish "Jack Donne," a middle, more faithful and married John Donne, and a late, sainted Reverend Donne.  In this system, the rakish poems could be assigned to young Jack, the faithful poems to married John, and the holy sonnets and other religious poems to the mature preacher.  While there is something to be said for this model, we are not always sure when certain poems were written.

3) As a result, poems with a jaded perspective may be poems that reflect Donne's actual feelings and experience, or they may represent a later Donne's artistic meditation on such a state, and they may be included by Donne in the larger collection as a reflection on such a state.  We can not be sure.

4) Likewise, poems often begin with a jaded perspective and end with a less jaded one, or perhaps the reverse--these are poems about the very human emotional changes that occur with romance.  The resulting message within the collection may be a more complex one than any one poem can provide.

5) Donne's poetry is written in reaction to the classical and Petrarchan conceits of traditional love poetry.  Donne almost never makes reference to classical pastoral settings or deities, and while some of his poetry choose traditional Petrarchan patterns, most do not.  His poetry has a startling realism to it.

His love poetry can be divided (though not always easily) into three broad responses:

• Anti-Petrarchan Love/Lust: a lack of contemplation or focus; women are regarded as parts or incomplete wholes.   Love tends to be cynical and profane.  People are partial and fallen.  Sometimes they are treated as property to be divided or discarded.  Sex is often a tool for self-gratification.  There is a large preoccupation with the life of the body--its desires and its corruptions.  At best, lovers are united by their bodies alone in these poems. (e.g. "The Indifferent" or "The Apparition")

• Faithful Love: a unity in love; The Vision of Eros -- lovers realize their true selves exist in the other.   Love tends to be a microcosm of two who are one flesh; thus, lovers are often commingled together as one being. They are a mixing of spirit and body, or they are moving toward such a balance of the two. Many of these poems derive their main metaphysical conceits from the paradoxes surrounding such a microcosm. (e.g. "The Canonization" or "The Good Morrow")

• Platonic/ Petrarchan Love: the beloved is idealized; the spirit is more important than the body; the ideal is somehow separate and transfixing. In these poems, the body takes a decidedly secondary role. (e.g. "The Ecstasy")

[Adapted from Herbet Grierson and Helen Gardner, Poetry of Contemplation]

Questions

"Go and catch a falling star"

1. How does the speaker use the catalogue of false beliefs to make his point?

2. What is the irony in the last few lines?

3. What makes this an anti-petrarchan poem?

"The Sun Rising"

1. How is the conceit of the lovers being commingled as a single microcosm used in this poem?

2. How is the political metaphor used?

3. Do the lovers achieve a balance of body and spirit in this poem?

"The Canonization"

1. How do the shifts in tone shape the meaning of this poem?

2. Is the speaker serious about the religious state of the lovers?  Why or why not?

3. If someone spoke these words to you, would you find them romantic?  Explain.

"A Valediction: Of Weeping"

1. Describe in detail the shifting metaphysical conceits.

2. Based on the above three categories, how would you categorize this poem?

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

1. Describe in detail the various metaphysical conceits.   What is their overall effect?

2. If someone spoke these words to you, would you find them romantic?  Explain.