Introduction:
John
Donne is a great genius, we can say a power of imagining a new recreational work
that give us something new to think and remember. And he is colloquial
and rhetorical and erudite in all his poems.
There is a plenty of passionate themes in this kind of poetry.
Description:
Paradoxes
Paradox
is important to Donne because in it he sees the resolution of the problem of
man: we live in a world wholly given over to evil, so much so that goodness and
holiness are considered deviant from the norm. Donne uses paradoxical
statements to get his reader's minds to jump from their usual tracks to
consider the lies we believe to be true, while offering us truths we would tend
to dismiss as false.
Belittling cosmic forces
Donne's
poetry sometimes seems to relish in belittling great or cosmic forces.
"The Sunne Rising" denigrates the sun as simply a lesser light
compared to his lover, and their love is portrayed as more important than the
whole world. These extravagant take downs are in keeping with his extreme
comparisons and sometimes strange metaphors.
Religion
A
great deal of Donne's poetry is exclusively divine, and even the more secular
poems often contain a heavy dose of religious thought and meaning. Donne saw
his Creator as central to his world, and thus he had no good reason to escape
the influence of the Divine on his work. To Donne, religion was not a separate
part of life, but the wellspring from which one's every day drew sustenance.
Death and the Hereafter
Death
is a common image in Donne's poetry. However, for Donne death is not so much a
somber subject producing gloomy thoughts, but a transition moment--often a
climax--denoting a change of state. In "The Flea," for example, the
woman's killing of the flea ostensibly ruins his argument for their physical
intimacy, but from this death he is able to form a positive proof that their
union would not have any greater effect than the loss of the blood she has just
obliterated.
Love as both physical and
spiritual
Donne
equates physical love and spiritual love in many of his works. In “Love’s
Infiniteness,” for example, Donne begins with a traditional-sounding love poem,
but by the third stanza the lover has transformed the love between himself and
his beloved into an abstract ideal which can be possessed absolutely and
completely.
In
Donne, physical union and religious ecstasy are either identical or analogous.
His later poetry (following his joining the ministry) maintains some of his
carnal playfulness from earlier poetry, but transforms it into a celebration of
union between soul and soul, or soul and God.
Interconnectedness of
humanity
One
of Donne's most famous statements, "No man is an island complete unto
himself," directs his readers to an often overlooked aspect of Donne's
metaphysical thinking. He sees every man and woman as spiritually interrelated,
noting that the death of one person affects every other. A death quickly
affects the deceased's circle of friends, family, and acquaintances, and it is
generally felt by the majority of humanity, even those who had no personal
interaction with the deceased.
Fidelity
Writers
in Donne's time often expressed negative views of women, and some of Donne's
poems seem to express such views with biting force. One corollary to seeing
divine and physical love as coming forth from the same source is the almost
obsessive focus on fidelity in Donne's works.
Conclusion: His restless mind to
seek far-fetched ideas, similitude and images in order to convey to the readers
the exact quality of interest. These themes make the readers crazy about his
poetry. Analyst also feel mind blowing chemistry in his thematic poetry. Which
makes the metaphysical poetry greater than ever of the history of English
poetry.
0 Comments