An Introduction to John Donne Metaphysical Poetry: An Introduction to John Donne

John Donne 1572-1631, London, England Representative metaphysical poet Lovers’ eyeballs threaded on a string. A god who assaults the human heart with a battering ram. A teardrop that encompasses and drowns the world. John Donne’s poems abound with startling images, some of them exalting and others grotesque. With his strange and playful intelligence, expressed in puns, paradoxes and elaborately sustained metaphors know as “conceits” Donne has enthralled (and sometimes enraged) reader from his day to our own (Norton). Contemporary of Shakespeare, 1564-1616

The Early Seventeenth Century 1603: Death of Elizabeth; accession of James I, first Stuart king of England. Religious tension mounted during King James’s reign 1605: The Gunpowder Plot, a failed effort by Catholic extremists to blow up Parliament and the King 1620: Arrival of the Pilgrims in the New World aboard the Mayflower 1625: Death of James; accession of Charles I 1642: Outbreak of Civil War; theaters closed The Early Seventeenth Century

John Donne was born in London 1572 into a devout Roman Catholic household They suffered heavily for their loyalty to the Catholic Church He was a Catholic growing up in Protestant England during decades when anti-Roman feeling reached new heights. At some point in the 1590’s, having returned to London with travels abroad, he converted to the English church.

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the natural world. It is the study of being and reality. It asks fundamental questions such as: “Is there a God?” and “What is man’s place in the universe?” This study also includes questions of space, time, causality, existence, and possibility.

What is a metaphysical poem? Metaphysical poetry is concerned with the whole experience of man, but the intelligence, learning and seriousness of the poets means that the poetry is about the profound areas of experience especially - about love, romantic and sensual; about man's relationship with God - the eternal perspective, and, to a less extent, about pleasure, learning and art.

Metaphysical Poetry- Definition(1) By itself, metaphysical means dealing with the relationship between spirit to matter or the ultimate nature of reality. The Metaphysical poets are obviously not the only poets to deal with this subject matter, so there are a number of other qualities involved as well:  Use of ordinary speech mixed with puns, paradoxes and conceits (a paradoxical metaphor causing a shock to the reader by the strangeness of the objects compared; some examples: lovers and a compass, the soul and timber, the body and mind) Metaphysical Poetry- Definition(1)

Metaphysical Poetry- Definition (2) The exaltation of wit, which in the 17th century meant a nimbleness of thought; a sense of fancy (imagination of a fantastic or whimsical nature); and originality in figures of speech Abstruse terminology often drawn from science or law Often poems are presented in the form of an argument In love poetry, the metaphysical poets often draw on ideas from Renaissance Neo-Platonism to show the relationship between the soul and body and the union of lovers' souls They also try to show a psychological realism when describing the tensions of love. Metaphysical Poetry- Definition (2)

LOOKING AT THE POEMS’ ARGUMENTS Looking at the poets' technique should, perhaps, begin with a consideration of argument. In a way all of the poems have an argument, but it is interesting or striking in some more than others.

Conceit A conceit is an extended, elaborate metaphor. An extended metaphor is a metaphor that carries on through the entirety of the poem.

Metaphysical Conceit A metaphysical conceit is a conceit where the objects of comparison have no apparent connection. For example, in George Herbert’s poem Praise, he compares God’s generosity to a bottle full of endless tears. Another example is John Donne’s poem The Flea.

Context The imagery of the flea provided a popular subject for love poetry throughout Europe in the sixteenth century, the poet envied the flea it’s freedom on his mistress’s body, or it’s death at her hands while in the ecstasy of it’s contact with her. Donne varies the motif, turning the fact that the flea bites both the man and the woman into a seduction game.

Context The flea is characteristic of Donne’s more flippant, sometimes cynical poems. On one level it is clearly unrealistic; men and women are not seduced by discussions about fleas. Therein lies the conceit of the poem as it is exactly what the poet wants to draw our attention to, the metaphor of a flea for the lovers. There is a sense of realism in the way that the poem captures the energy of the speaking voice through the use of questions and imperatives-’Marke’, Oh stay’- to move the poem onwards. The realism is evident in the way that it accepts that sexual relationships can contain an element of competition The flea is presented as one half of a debate between a man and a woman.

In The Flea, the narrator reduces lovemaking to a physical or sexual act, he doesn’t want a relationship, he just wants to impose his desire. Donne is impatient, he says that love can be an enjoyable experience of the body. It doesn’t have to be romantic. The main themes of the poem are desire, sex and regret. Donne urges his potential partner to ‘seize the day’, enjoy the moment and not worry about the future. Themes