Donne poems (unfinished)
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1. The Good Mor- This poem was written by John Donne when he was
row context married to Anne Moore. During this period his professions
of love for her were a recurrent theme.
All published in 1633, a love poem where two lovers are
waking up in the morning. Speaker wants to examine the
state of their relationship so asks questions and reflects
on their time before their love - a 'new world' created by
mutual love.
Four Humours - liquids from the body associated with
illness and emotions;
Yellow bile =
liver, choleric temperament,
Black bile from kidney =
melancholic temperament
Red Blood from the heart =
sanguine temperament
White pilgrim from lungs =
phlegmatic temperament.
John Dryden - Donne focuses too much on the nature of
people's ideas of philosophy to describe love, when he
should focus on the feeling of love and how its gentile
2. The Good Mor- Infantile dependency on this first wondrous love - "sucked
row infantile on country pleasures"
reading Seven Sleepers den= cave= image of an undifferentiated
womb continued on through a mother's protection and
care of her infant identifies- through their shared nurtured
past- man with wife-> Donne leans as well on the identi-
fication of wife with mother- or mother with wife.
3. The Seven Sleepers' den is a cave that sheltered some
Christians hiding from Romans, who wake up to be in
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The Good Mor- Christian Europe-> wake from persecution into an age
row- Seven of righteousness and betterness. This identifies Donne's
sleepers lover with a quasi-divine saviour.
Seven Sleepers den= cave= image of an undifferentiated
womb continued on through a mother's protection and
care of her infant identifies- through their shared nurtured
past- man with wife-> Donne leans as well on the identi-
fication of wife with mother- or mother with wife.
4. Vulnerability in "Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on coun-
the Good Morrow try pleasures, childishly?" -> childlike semantic field->
Donne's vulnerability
5. Effect of con- Puts the addressee in a position of power through their
tinued rhetori- heightened knowledge
cal questions in
Good Morrow?
6. Effect of triadic "Let sea-discoverers to new world have gone... Let...
anaphoras in the Let..."
Good Morrow Creates image of strength through triumphant tone that
the triad of repetition brings. "pomp and strength"-> this
contrasts the vulnerability.
7. Further philoso- Schopenhauer's hedgehog dilemma- potential for pain is
phy: vulnerabili- an inevitable part of human relationships
ty in love
8. Donne trying Donne dreams through abstract language that there is an
to make things equality in the love between them- "What ever dies was
equal- Good Mor- not mixed equally"
row
9. Song: Go and A misogynistic poem- women can't be beautiful and faith-
Catch a Falling ful- Bill Phillips claims Donne is a "misogynistic menace"
Star context
10. Key quotes from "If thou findstone, let me know/ such a pilgrimage were
song: go and sweet"- word pilgrimage fills the line with relief- and al-
though used neutrally in the late sixteenth century, was
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catch a falling also fraught with Catholic potential. Maybe the emotional
star charge of the word (heightened by the fact it's sandwiched
between sibilance, ominous sounds) may come from
Donne's sweet regression to his childhood of Catholicism-
and this relation back to Catholicism just heightens the
theme of betrayal in the poem. The betrayal he has felt
from the woman is not purely sexual, but spiritual.
It seems there is hope in it all. But it seems that, much like
Ricks' conclusion- the conclusion that the poem seems
to be ramping up to- a forgiving of the woman, or an
exception to the rule- is never stated, disappointing the
reader that the poem's ending seems false to itself.
11. Who is Song: "thou"- it's somewhat accusatory, as if he's addressing the
Go and Catch a woman himself- it is unclear whether his friends would
Falling Star ad- have been intending to read this from the position of a
dressed to? woman or a man. Poems such as the Flea are also meant
to be read in the female voice.
12. John Carey "Song: catch a falling star" is more about self-improve-
ment than women. It commands with the imperative "go"
at the start of the poem and tells the reader/listener to go
and make discoveries.
13. Woman's Con- "one whole day"- "o", assonance, stress upon both o=
stancy opening spondee-> gives off ironic tone-> position of superiority
makes him sound like he's looking down on you
14. Contract law in "wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow?"-> excep-
Woman's con- tion clause
stancy
15. turn around "For by tomorrow, I may think so too"- um? So you
Woman's Con- basically never really loved her then? This kind of ties
stancy into Christopher Ricks' criticism of the poem- the poem's
whole buildup doesn't make sense when looking at its
final conclusion.
16. The girl is a "wh*re"- SANDERS is WRONG
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Dumb baby
critic: wilbur
sanders
17. Woman's Con- Good lord- reference to male embodiment of love-
stancy "oaths Eros/cupid. also very openly admits that she's been
made in rever- somewhat pressured into sleeping with him.
ential fear/ Of
Love, and his
wrath, any may
forswear?"
18. The Sun Rising- triumphalism of love- invective straight out. THIS is Donne
"Busy old fool, persona- Helen Gardner- his openings "are like the lump
unruly Sun" of gold flung down on the table".
19. The Sun Rises He however is always ruler of the woman. Dominant
"she's all states, misogyny of the time or the result of his arrogance?
and all princes I/
Nothing else is".
20. perfection of "Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime/ Nor hours,
love days, months, which are the rags of time"
21. The Sun Rising "I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,/ But that
and the relin- I would not lose her sight so long"- use of coordinating
quishing of pow- conjunction "but" is the first sign of Donne's loss of power
er in love in the power. He starts off in power- but it is clear that he
relinquishes and abandons this power for his lover.
22. Structure of The 30 line poem in three stanzas, with the poet/lover as the
Sun Rising speaker. The meter is irregular, ranging from 2-6 stresses
per line. However this less rigid structure matches the
theme of the poem- it's about real people, it's about
humanity. One can almost imagine Donne waking and
saying this as he awakens.
23. "Shine here A play on the Ptolemaic astronomical idea that the Earth
to us, and is the center of the universe, with the Sun rotating around
thou art every- the Earth.
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where;/ This bed
thy centre is,
these walls, thy
sphere"
24. Blasphemous Canonization as a title would be a bit panic-inducing- be-
opening of "The cause Catholics are the ones who decide who Saints are
canonization" based on the process of "canonisation", this, combined
with the blasphemy of "For God's sake" (taking the lord's
name in vain) would have made for a concerning opening.
25. Self destruction "We'are tapers too, and at our own cost die, and we in us
in love, and sub- find the'eagle and the dove. The phoenix riddle hath more
sequent rebirth wit by us, we two being one, are it"-> SEMANTIC FIELD
OF FIRE- the candles show that by the passionate heat
of their love they are destroyed, but simultaneously, in this
same fire, they are reborn.
26. "We die and rise Double entendre, could be referring to the "petit mort"/ the
the same" penis. Bedmates can "die and rise" just like Christ.
27. "we... prove mys- The mystery of love reflects the relationship between us
terious by this and God, which is equally mysterious (not understable by
love" empirical or analytic methods). Love elevates people to
the level of Gods (ooh more blasphemy)
28. the logical struc- it's separated into nice chunks (this is so lawyer-cod-
ture of the can- ed) first stanza deals with the insulting of someone who
onization scorns the love of the two/ second stanza shows the
harmlessness of their love/ three acts as an intensifier of
this, and claims their love to be positive for one another/
four intensifies upon these ideas, considering the legacy
that their love with build after their deaths/ five talks about
the expected triumph over the critic.
29. Song: Sweetest Summary: The speaker consoles his lover before depart-
love, I do not go ing on a journey. He presents this parting as practice for
the parting the couple will suffer when one of them dies.
The first two stanzas are comforting, the third presents
a tonal shift towards pessimism, and the next two have
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a worried tone as the speaker considers the destructive-
ness of his lover's grief and their separation. He states
that the two are tightly entwined and finally turns the
poem, stating that as long as one lover is alive, the other
cannot die, because they are so interdependent.
Key image: The speaker as like the sun, inevitably and
regularly returning to his lover — but with even more haste
because he has the sentience and 'desire' to return to her
swiftly.
Key context: Donne's career and need to make journeys,
Apollo (Greek God of light, sun, poetry - is referenced)
30. "Yesternight the The sun is a metaphor for his fidelity and desire to return.
sun went hence"
31. "When thou When she despairs, because he is part of her, she loses
sigh'st, thou him- or maybe because she sighs because she does not
sigh'st not wind, trust him? So lack of trust kills a relationship. Or maybe
But sigh'st my it's him telling her to be stoic- as is preached by seneca,
soul away;" who advises people to rehearse death, because those
who are prepared for death are free.
32. Stoicism in Talking about how we let misfortune rule us "come bad
"song: sweetest chance, And we join to it our strength, And we teach it art
love, I do not go" and length". "When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind, But
sigh'st my soul away".
33. Air and angels Donne draws on Aquinas' ideas of angels to be minds
and Aquinas without bodies which can manifest themselves as physi-
cal bodies when needing to communicate with humans to
create an elaborate conceit of his lover as a metaphysical
essence/ angel when saying "I loved thee... so in a voice,
so in a shapeless flame". This acceptance of the lover as
an innately more spiritual being seems Platonic in form,
which forces Donne to accept that, as a non-physical be-
ing, his lover is "purer", or closer to ideological perfection
that he is, being closer to God as a being of mind with no
body than he is as a being created with both body and
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mind. This acceptance of the lover as superior to himself
through the metaphor of his lover as quasi-divine puts
Donne in a position of non-physical vulnerability, due to
his position of spiritual inferiority.
34. "some lovely glo- Carey thinks that this means that Donne was blinded by
rious nothing I the woman's beauty, and was overwhelmed.
did see."
35. The use of He uses the divine mysteriousness to demonstrate the
the conceit be- mysteries of human love- and uses them as a way to
tween angels convey love as a form of worship, rather than desire. In
and women in comparison to standard Elizabethan poetic usage, the
Aire and Angels comparison of a girl to an angel is not a compliment,
because of Donne's insistence of the woman's absolute
equality to an angel.
36. "such dispari- Two interpretations of this: man's love is purer than
ty as is 'twixt women's- leads up to a cheap dig with an intro that doesn't
air and an- necessarily lead to the ending? this would not be unchar-
gels' purity, 'twixt acteristic for donne to do, however, I prefer the reading
women's love, that with the two loves of man and woman, they balance
and men's, will each other out. Disparity does not mean inequality.
ever be"
37. The Anniversary Can assume that this is probably about Anne Donne,
and security "Only our love hath no decay"- unlike the infidelity poems
there is no sense of change or instability.
38. "All king initial triumphant tone, semantic field of power- kings,
and all their glory, sun, no decayrjrj
favourites..."
39. "Only our love The majesty of the opening fades into darkness.
hath no decay"
40. The Anniversary "prince enough in one another"- the qualifying "enough"
has a lot in terms makes it seem more pleading. + use of rhetorical ques-
of trying to con- tions
vince you that
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things are going
to be alright
41. The Anniversary "Here upon earth, we'are kings"--> Donne knows that
and death's strip- they will be happy in death, but no happier than "all the
ping of superiori- rest". There is a time fuse to their relationship. It's a fear of
ty losing authority that truly scares Donne. Donne could've
presented the lovers as kings, like he does in the sun
rising, but chooses not to.
42. Power and words "(All other thoughts being inmates) then shall prove This,
packed into the or a love increased there above.."--> interjection+ quali-
Anniversary fication gives the verses a cramped feeling, he wrestles
with his words to convince us of stuff.
43. Twicknam Gar- Summary: The speaker expresses his heartbreak at a
den woman's rejection; he tries to take solace in a beautiful
garden but instead feels he has corrupted it by bringing
his melancholy in. He desires to become a weeping foun-
tain, which could be treated like a shrine by lovers. Finally,
he condemns all women as deceptive, except for his love
— however this is tragically ironic, as if his love is the only
true woman, then her rejection must also be genuine.
Key image: The speaker becoming a stone fountain,
'weeping', which lovers can come to and take the tears
to compare them to their lover's tears and find out if they
are true
Key context: Petrarchan Lovers, the Renaissance literary
symbol of the garden, Donne's patroness the Countess
of Bedford (owned the gardens, poem may be to her or a
joke for her)
44. manna vs gall #porcupine dilemma- love is poison
45. Kierkegaard in- Like Kierkegaard's theory of innocence as defining itself
nocence and through the process of its loss "True paradise, I have
Donne the serpent brought"- this is interesting because it seems
that Eden can only become "True Paradise", instead of
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just a place, there must be a method in which it can be
destroyed, namely, the serpent.
46. love's growth: love is not a quintessence (medieval concept- the purest
what is love? essence of something) or pure and simple stuff, it is mixed
(this goes against Fujito's claim that Donne is an "explorer
of the soul rather than the pursuer of the sensuality of
love")
47. delicacy of sex "gentle love deeds, as blossoms on a bough/ from love's
awakened root do bud out now"- delicate lines comparing
human love to the natural world.
48. regular meter of soothing, lyrical, as if he's trying to sooth his lover of his
valediction of departure ("diverse shore")
"a valediction of
weeping" (lines
of iambic meter,
heartbeat)
49. drowning in a bc he's going to sea.
valediction of
weeping
50. spherical objects globes (tears like coins, globe, world, moon) go back to
in a valediction imagery of cosmos as concentric circles that was devel-
of weeping oped by Plato and Aristotle. Demonstrates the conceit
throughout Donne's poems of the lovers as worlds.
51. indecision of tears are the girl's face, the tears become coins, their
what tears are? round shape and their enclosure of a human suggestive
of wombs? "pregnant of thee" then they become fruits-
indecision of what fruits are.
52. Love's alchemy "no it's more complicated than that... vain bubble"
reaction to Pla-
tonic and Petrar-
chan ideals of
love
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53. flea poems a smutty old joke which had a precedence in european
literatures- standard set up is a flea finds itself on a girl's
body, crawls around and makes comments on the breasts
and genitals and that's it. Donne then uses this standard
and turns it into an argumentative piece.
54. "This flea is you WOAH personal pronouns!!!
and I"
55. flea comparison sacred associations accentuate its fragility
to a temple
56. sucking and the sucking is a primal assimilative act which brings things
flea into each other.
57. A Nocturnal Donne mourning the death of Anne
upon St Lucy's
Day, Being the
Shortest Day
58. Oliver on "But "Donne's ego manages to steal the spotlight" Why does
I am by her he have to be a special "nothing"?? affirming and denying
death (which existence. but also lowkey this passage shows the effects
word wrongs of bereavement- it's full of illogical stuff.
her)/ Of the first
nothing the elixir
grown"- noctur-
nal
59. Can anyone ever augustine says that it is absurd to decide you don't want to
really want to be exist, because non-existence isn't something but nothing,
dead/ nothing? and you cannot logically make a choice when the object
of your choice does not exist. He points to suicide as
illogical- in his treatise on free will.
60. frank kermode donne the poet desires self-annihilation, donne the the-
on nocturnal ologian calls it impossible- neither will win this fight be-
cause you can't say someone can't be suicidal, but donne
also can't say he desires to be nothing.- he constantly
returns to this point in bits like "I am re-begot Of absence,
