Love in the Poetry of John Donne
a paper by , student of English Literature at The Edinburgh Academy,
under the direction of Mr J. Marsh.
It is impossible to say exactly what Donne's attitude to love is precisely because he seems to have many different attitudes. This is due, in part, to the nature of Donne's life which falls neatly into two different periods. The first was from his birth in 1572 to his ordination in January 1615 and the second was from then till his death in March 1631. Most of his devotional poetry stems from this second period and the love poetry from the first. There is however an element of love in the devotional poetry and vice versa.
His love poetry can also be divided into two strains; that of the witty and the realistic. He draws some aspects of his style from Petrarch, the Italian sonateer who was perhaps the first poet to write about his love for a woman in an honest but still romantic way. However unlike Petrarch, who considered sexuality a burden, Donne appears not to condemn physical love. It seems unusual now but at the time of Donne's life it was thought that every time a couple indulged in sex, their lives were shortened but Donne treats this physical side of love as a gateway to something higher. In 'The Canonization' Donne takes this idea of death and turns it round. He says that if they die because of their love then they are martyrs and like the Phoenix they will be resurrected. From the same stanza comes this line,
'And wee in us finde the'Eagle and the Dove'.
In these times everything was thought of as part of a hierarchy, not least the universe which was thought to be constructed as a series of concentric crystal spheres. At the outermost sphere beyond the planets, God was to be found in the empireum or heaven. The devil was found in the centre of the earth and above him in hierarchical order was society with the king at the top who supposedly embodied the qualities of his subjects. This was how the notion of the divine right of kings arose as the king was 'nearest to God'.
It was thought that the empireum could be reached through the mind when a state of extasis was reached. This ecstasy was supposedly achievable in many different ways. Pythagoras believed that he could reach extasis by the consideration of numbers but in Donne's time, people thought that the state was attainable by the contemplation of the metaphysical; especially when it came to love. People thought that the first sphere was just above the moon and that above it the universe was fixed and changeless and in this line Donne highlights that their love is a part of both these worlds; that of the physical sublunary world (eagle) and that of the metaphysical (dove), of the sexual and the spiritual. Their love is supposedly unlike that of 'Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense)'. That quote was from 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' which explains that people whose love is purely physical don't stay together long because as soon as they are absent from each other, the thing which has caused their love, is removed. In this poem their is also an excellent example of metaphysical wit, which I mentioned earlier, in a conceit by which Donne compares the lovers to a mathematical compass which is two in one and perpetually joined. When one of the couple leaves for a while and the other stays at home, the static one leans towards the one which travels and also makes it go in a surrounding circle which causes it to end where it began.
For an example of the more realistic and less 'witty' and hyperbolic strain we need only to look at 'Song' where the final image of the parting lovers who 'Are but turn'd aside to sleepe'. This line conveys Donne's approval of sexual intimacy as a part of a relationship.
In the 'Holy Sonnet' written on his wife's death and in 'The Extasie', Donne covers the link between human love and spiritual, divine love. In the sonnet Donne uses the metaphor of a river to symbolize the path to an understanding of God's love. Their love was a tributary which introduced them to a minute understanding of divine love but with time the stream broadens and joins with other streams and rivers, steadily growing. When his wife died, Donne was afraid that his link with God would be severed as he first came to know God through her In 'The Extasie' he says that the is the souls book, i.e. a kind of advert for the soul. It was this divine link which Donne believed gave dignity to our sexual relationships and he prophetically imagines us looking at his poetry in a time when love has lost all meaning, praying to be shown the secret of his divine love. I have written below this amazing stanza, in full.
'And thus invoke us; You whom reverend love
Made one anothers hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole worlds soule extract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes,
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize,
Countries, Townes, Courts: Beg from above
A patterne of your love!'
Of course, characteristically, he apparently contradicts himself in another poem where he apparently rubbishes the foundations of metaphysical art. The woman who was before a soul-mate has become a mere 'Mummy, possest'. He also seems to deride himself as,
'That loving wretch that sweares,
'Tis not the bodies marry, but the mindes,
Which he in her Angelique findes'.
This is very reminiscent of so many 'new men' today. He continues in an increasingly self-insulting manner,
