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John Donne Poems Analysis - elegies and religious poems (A**) £17.99
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John Donne Poems Analysis - elegies and religious poems (A**)
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Full poem-by-poem guide with quotes and analysis points for 18 of John Donne's poems. Selected and concise notes on 5 elegies and 13 religious poems and sonnets with chosen quotations along with analysis points for each poem. Supplemented with brief summaries of the overall poem argument and progr...

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  • August 11, 2023
  • 33
  • 2022/2023
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23. Elegy: Change (p.62)

Donne dramatizing and characterising a speaker who is purposefully not as witty and erudite
as he is, to then illuminate his flaws.
- New historicist viewpoint: a comment on the instability of the time, reaching the end
of the Elizabethan era. Seeking strong male leadership in a world where the female
leader seems to be losing her grip
- Misogyny is about the wider context of political insecurity, not specifically about the
woman. Wanting change on one hand but also not doing so (stability of Elizabethan
era)
Donne’s lover has changed and he expresses his dissatisfied attitude towards this change.
He feels that there is now justification for him to change his ways morally, with the
suggestion of a promiscuous motif that he potentially has.

1 woman is faithful – men can tame them

“thy” “thou” anaphora – saying how his lover is so directly faithful to him, emphasis on her
“hand” “faith” “good works” – playful imagery of Catholicism to describe his lover. Religious
language adds an element of ambiguity and uncertainty. Claiming that she is absolutely
faithful but adding uncertainty through religious imagery and the main clause
- Martin Luther doctrine 1521 ‘sola scriptura, sola fide, sola Christus, sola gratia’.
Become the doctrine of the protestant reformation
“sealed thy love” – love adopts a physicality, legislative connotations, love is exclusive and
ratified
“thou fall back” – lying on the bed, sexual connotations contrasts with religious imagery
- Emphasised by “apostasy” (to abandon a religion)
“apostasy / confirm thy love” – ironic denouncement of religion and then the strong verb
confirm at start of line
“much, much” – fear of speaker
“I fear thee” – not completely faithful, first use of personal ‘I’ pronoun, comparison to thee
“women are like the Arts..” – simile. Women aren’t compelled to be listened to and are
“forced unto none”.
- They are only valued the more they are admired and shared, i.e. the more
promiscuous she is. “unprized if unknown”
“open to all searchers” – imagery and language of conquest

Another man can catch the same woman. Women are made as ‘beasts’ to be in common for
all men. Not exclusively the property of one man
- Aristotle ‘On the Generation of Animals’ casting heaven, sun, male and earth mother
as female
“caught a bird and let him fly...not him, nor me” – language of the hunt, imagery of taming
and subduction of women or ‘birds’
Power imbalance in the animal/tamer relationship. Bird is kept in check and managed by the
fowler. Bird characterised as flighty and insubstantial
“women are made for men” – male game, fun of the catch

, “foxes and goats” – comparing women to animals and wild ones. Eventually also described
as “beasts”
- Foxes – sly cunning, wily, hot. Goats – lechery. Then progress into beasts.
“change when they please” – women characterised as uncontrollable. Foxes and goats
aren’t bound to men but men control them – ironic as he is characterising men as the
changeable beings, not women
- Placing women on the great chain of being as significantly below men
“bound” – vivid description, tied up, entrapment. Also the harsh “endure”
“make them apter to’endure than men” – men don’t have to endure monogamy. Women
are more inclined to endure a relationship than men. Are they really going to be
unchangeable and able to endure a monogamous relationship, whereas men have more
freedom

“they’are our clogs, not their own” – characterising women as shoes, metaphor, that can be
taken on or off. Other people can wear the same shoes
“chained to a galley” – even if men are trapped to a ship a ship can move
“Though danuby into the sea must flow, the sea receives the rhine, volga and po” –
metaphor of a river as a woman’s love. might seem to be channelled in a certain direction,
but ultimately travels into the sea. Doesn’t have a predetermined course.
“this liberty thou lov’st” – liberty of receiving
“canst thou love it and me” – love your nature and be faithful in marriage

2 speaker asks himself if he also must change, as she has done ‘to make us like’ in order to
find a greater love. end argues positively for infidelity/moderate promiscuity
- He is the ultimate instigator of change
- Yet he is characterising the changeable one as the woman by the end of the poem
- Forcing opinion onto women to condone his actual desire

“likeness glues love” – similarity strengthens a relationship.
Parallel syntax polyptoton in likeness and then like
“must I change too?” he hates changing himself more than she hates changing herself and
change in general
- Thy hate I hate it – parallel syntax
“allow her change” – she is changeable by nature
- Rather be unchanging and provoke her dislike
“force my opinion / to love not any one” – he will be monogamous and faithful, she can’t
bear it. Virtue signalling as he hates change, yet now he contradicts himself
- Won’t teach but will force his opinion, be a little changeable (not love any singular
‘one’ accepting the promiscuous nature of women) but not wanting her to love
absolutely all.

“captivity” vs “wild roguery” – contrasting metaphors parallel drawbacks of extremes of
loving alone and loving multiple people
“waters stink soon” – stagnant monogamy
“kiss one bank...” – running waters as a metaphor for change in relationships
Progression to “purest” yet contradictorily this is not monogamy but impure sexual change

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