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Since She Whom I Loved Hath Paid Her Last Debt (John Donne)
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A2 Unit 1-John Donne notes
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Since She Whom I Loved Hath Paid Her Last DebtFORM AND STRUCTURE
- The poem is a sonnet
- The poem has many characteristics typical of a Petrarchan sonnet-Octave / sestet
division
- There are also certain rhythm and structural patterns that indicate the influence of
the Shakespearean sonnet form- rhyme scheme (ABBAABBACDCDEE) and rhythm
(iambic pentameter)
- Octave: The first two quatrains depict how the lyrical voice, having loved his/her
wife, seeks and finds the love of God after her death
- Sestet: The lyrical voice presents God as a jealous lover who fears that he/she will be
tempted away by someone or something else.
LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY
Octave
- Line 1: “Since she whom I lov’d hath paid her last debt”- The first line opens with a
strong metaphor: death is a debt to be paid. The adjective “last” evokes the finality
of death. These first lines also establish the mourning of the lost and loved one. It is
probably the most autobiographical of the sonnets, detailing the effect of his wife's
early death, especially in driving him closer to God.
- Line 2: “To nature and to hers, and my good is dead”- The noun “nature” can be
interpreted both as the death of Donne’s wife and her role as a mother attempting
to bring life into the world (died in childbirth with couple’s twelfth child). The
possessive pronoun “my” suggests that she was the positive force in his life.
However, “good” here has a dual meaning. The second meaning of “goodwife” or
“goody”, an Elizabethan era term for a married woman of lowly station. When John
Donne married his wife, he did not have the permission of her father for the
marriage, they lived in abject poverty because her father denied the couple his
daughter’s dowry or any support. In their 16 years of marriage, John and Anne
Donne endured a lot of hardships and stayed together, inseparable, through all of it.
- Line 3: “And her soule early into heaven ravished”- The verb “ravished” carries
several implications–to seize and carry off by force, to carry off or rape a woman by
force. Donne often uses the language of physical assault and force to describe God’s
ability to irrevocably alter our lives. Death does not give us the option to escape–it is
essentially a kidnapping from this life. Secondly, there is the sense that is used in the
descriptions of Saints being enraptured or in ecstasy at the moment entry into
Heaven or a revelation of Divine Truth.
- Line 4: “Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set”- The adverb “wholly” emphasises
Donne’s full devotion to God following the death of his wife
- Line 5-6: “Here the admiring her my mind did whet / To seek the, God; so streams
do show the head;”-The verb “whet” emphasises the influence Donne’s wife had on
him. Even when his wife was still alive, Donne admired her so that her influence
“whetted” his desire and hunger for seeking God. Typically we hunger for carnal
relations with our wife, but Donne who had lived the life somewhat of an immoral
rake, was purified in the love his wife gave to him and he was driven to seek his
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