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Donne is a metaphysical poet who uses metaphoric conceit in his poems by comparing two incredibly unlike things such as love and demeanors. Death is used as a metaphor in the departure of his wife. First, he compares his separation from his wife to the separation of a man's soul from his body when he dies (first stanza). The body represents physical love; the soul represents spiritual or intellectual love. While Donne and his wife are apart, they cannot express physical love; thus, they are like the body of a dead being.. However, Donne says, they remain united spiritually because their souls are one. So, Donne continues, he and his wife should let their physical bond "melt" when they part (line 5). He follows that metaphor with others, saying they should not cry sentimental "tear-floods" or indulge in "sigh-tempests" (line 6) when they say farewell. Such base sentimentality would cheapen their relationship. He also compares himself and his wife to celestial spheres, for their love is so profound that it exists in a higher plane than the love of husbands and wives whose relationship centers solely on physical pleasures where they require to remain together, physically...Finally, Donne compares his relationship with his wife to that of the two legs of a drawing compass. Although the legs are separate components of the compass, they are both part of the same object. If the outer leg traces a circle, the inner leg–though its point is fixed at…
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A text is essentially a product of its context, as its prevailing values are inherently derived by the author from society. However, the emergence of post-modern theories allows for audience interpretation, thus it must be recognised that meaning in texts can be shaped and reshaped. Significantly, this may occur as connections between texts are explored. These notions are reflected in the compostion of Edson’s W;t and Donne’s poetry as their relationship is established through intertextual references, corresponding values and ideas and the use of language features. Edson particularly portrays key values surrounding the notions of the importance of loved based relationships, and death and resurrection: central themes of Donne’s Holy Sonnets and Divine Poems. The purpose of these authors distinctly correlate as each has attempted to provide fresh insight into the human condition by challenging prevalent ideals. Thus, Edson incorporates Donne’s work to illuminate both explicit and implicit themes, creating an undeniable condition.…
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Donne’s poetry attempt to answer the mere impossible questions of life, death and love in eccentric and unexpected chains of reasoning, his complex figure of speech, elaborate imagery and bizarre metaphors creates a sense of vibrancy for the reader as they become enthralled in the emotions and meanings behind his poems.…
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One’s emotional suffering can lead to a better understanding of one’s identity. In Donne’s poem “If poysonous mineralls”, the speaker of the Sonnet seems to be a man that is asking desperately for forgiveness from God, feeling that it is not fair his sins are more evil because he possesses “intent or reason”. Donne’s era was at the time of the plague, and a time when Protestants clashed with Catholics, thus, he lived in a time of great suffering and conflict. “If lecherous goats, if serpents envious cannot be damned, alas, why should I be?” This angry, frustrated tone questions God’s choice of allowing these sinners to go unpunished, and he, marked as a sinner, must suffer for his mistakes. The iambic pentameter creates a rhythm in the Sonnet that makes it sound much more like a plea of one who is suffering, rather than a conversational and questioning approach. As the poem progresses, the transformation of Donne’s identity into a Protestant mindset,…
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In the second stanza, it reads that “Ah, what trifle is a heart, (9) if once into love’s hand it come!” (10). Being that trifle has the meaning of little importance or value. Trifle is a metaphoric symbol showing that the heart is of little value when dealing with feelings of love. It doesn’t mean much for love to have the heart as a whole if only “once” it’s taken hand in hand of lovers. The rest of the stanza portrays how love can become hurtful and brutal. “They come to us, but us love draws: (13) he swallow us and never chaws; (14).” Donne is explaining that love can come to you and without notice it can draw you in. Swallowing your heart creates a feeling of falling in love and never chaws, or chewing means your heart is not chewed on into pieces; likewise to griefs. “He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the Frye (16).” “He” is love that is compared to a tyrant pike, a type of fish and the heart is the Frye. The pike preys on the Frye; Donne is stating that love preys upon the heart in a matter time, taking over all feelings of love the person may have.…
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The erotic and the religious are confused immediately, as the poem begins with the warlike phrase “batter my heart”1. The verb ‘batter’ could refer to a battering ram, conveying the urgency that Donne requires God to act, as though he is in the middle of a conflict of faith of such magnitude his desperation makes it akin to a siege. Erotically, a battering ram can be seen as a phallic symbol involving rape, as it forces its way into the kingdom through the doors which were meant to only allow desirable people through. The sonnet is written according to Petrarchan custom, with 14 lines in iambic pentameter. However, this line begins with a stressed syllable as opposed to an unstressed one, creating a trochee. While this plosive does reflect the ferocity of the act commanded, beginning with a stop could also symbolise how he knows should not command acts from God, as though he is forcing it out in order for it to bypass his bane, “reason”2. As a result, this strongly demonstrates how Donne is reliant on force in order to overcome his qualms and anxieties.…
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Donne’s poems are interesting in the way they often present an ongoing thought process, rather than a story with a distinct beginning and end. Donne being from the literary culture; many of his poems reflect this mid-way change of heart, as he is comfortable dealing in ongoing reflection and experience, rather than static facts. One of Donne’s love poems, ‘The Sunne Rising’ centres around Donne, in bed with his lover, annoyed at the sun for disturbing their slumber. “Busie old foole, unruly Sunne” he writes. Donne, in personifying the sun, and describing such a thing in paradox (“unruly sun”), supports the idea that literary culture places more emphasis on emotion and description than logical fact. The structure of ideas throughout the poem thereafter is fluid. Donne is initially annoyed at the sun for its punctuality, saying that a love like his knows no time, and the sun would be better off chastising late schoolboys. As the poem progresses, Donne goes from annoyance, to mocking the sun's supposed power (“Thy beames, so reverend… I could eclipse then with a winke”), to then feeling content, and almost bad for the sun. Donne writes “Thou sunne are halfe as happy’as wee, in that the world’s contracted thus”, in which he is stating that the poor, old sun must have an easier job shining down on him and his lover, as their entire world is confined to each other. It is this notion of fluidity of ideas that further reflects the literary culture of Donne’s poems. He uses his writings, not to record tangible fact and feeling, but to support the idea that both his thoughts, and the subjects of his writing, can easily be written flexibly, as they are both…
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Through personification, Donne explains how fast love is by describing love as a “he”, calling it a monster that “swallows” the heart and as a warlike destroyer that uses a chain of cannons that, metaphorically, take out whole ranks. Both methods happen fast and in a sinister way (lines 14 and 15). Love is also personified as a “tyrant pike” that devours our hearts like small fish, yet another negative image (line 16). Overall in the second stanza, love is described as “a predator ready and willing to devour the defenseless human heart.” (AP Central)…
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The meter and stressed syllables of the poem create a very distinct sing-song-like quality as the rhythm and rhyme copy that of a child’s nursery rhyme. The stress on the last line of the first and last stanza on this already extremely loud and intense poem (due to syntax) is an unnecessary loop that brings the reader back to the topic. This is due to the choice in diction, the central topic, love, is only named three times in the entirety of this work yet is mentioned as “it” in nearly every single line. The childish quality calls for an obvious rhyme scheme, two internal rhymes and two end rhymes in each stanza. This paired with punctuation limited to dashes, commas, and exclamation points to end each sentence, makes this piece overtly boisterous to…
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Correspondingly, many of the poems found within the anthology share both the same connotations, structure and vocabulary that we have found within the prologue. A main specimen of similarity would be found within Sonnet 116, written by Shakespeare in 1609. This, as evident in it’s name is structured in sonnet form just as we have found in the prologue, yet again it does not speak directly of love but instead as a description of what love is and is not. ‘Love is not love. Which alter when it alteration finds’ Shakespeare here states that love is un bent or broken and therefore cannot be created or destroyed, in this context we can suggest that love is…
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Love is the conqueror of the strong and the weak, though it is foolish and evil at its core. Sophocles proves that love is the one destructive power in the universe through his third ode in “Antigone.” Its powerful message foreshadows the death of Antigone and her lover, Haemon, through its crisp imagery and perfect diction. The chorus passionately sings the evils of love while closely examining the situation of the Lovers’ potential ends. Force emanates from each word that Sophocles conducts, forcing the viewer to be enthralled in their meanings. The chorus ardently depicts the specifics and evils of love throughout “Antigone” through subtle repetition, personification of love itself, and the power behind each striking word.…
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The purity of love appears as pure as the actors that are required to perform it. Donne borrows inspiration from the Homeric epic The Odyssey and patterns of Ovidian lyric to express both disappointment and frustration due to its impurity, stemming from the goal accomplished through bodily reality. While Donne is able to attain love through its consummation, he expresses conflict in attempting to avoid deviation from the pursuit of love caused by a woman’s features in Love’s Progress, which draw men to the circular love in Love’s Growth unable to transform from the physical to the transcendent metaphysical. Both poems express a progression towards Donne’s idealised love as a religious experience, transcendent of the physical realm, which I…
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In the second stanza of Donne's poem, it reveals the characteristics of love. Its a predatory creature that "swallows us whole and never chaws". "He is a tyrant pike, our hearts the fry." THese two quote reveal the predatory nature of love. lines 9-12 reveals the vulnerabilty of the heart and once it has been hurt by love, theres no other past grief…
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John Donne is one of many poets of his time who wrote love poetry. The thing that sets him apart from the others is that he manages to successfully subvert the traditional conventions to his own ends. Each of the secular poems "The Flea", "The Sunne Rising" and "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" shows Donne's verbal dexterity, manipulation of the conventional form and the use of a variety of textual features.…
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John Donne’s petrarchan sonnet “Batter My Heart” is written traditional sonnet format. It is an apostrophe in which the author, hereafter referred to as the speaker, speaks to God. Whether the speaker is Donne himself is debatable as many elements of the speaker’s identity, including their gender, is unclear. Through careful use of imagery and simile,as well as paradox, John Donne delivers a concise image of the speakers desired relationship with God.…
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