Preview

John Donne and W; T Comparative Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
940 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
John Donne and W; T Comparative Essay
A text is essentially a product of its context, as its prevailing values are inherently derived by the author from society. However, the emergence of post-modern theories allows for audience interpretation, thus it must be recognised that meaning in texts can be shaped and reshaped. Significantly, this may occur as connections between texts are explored. These notions are reflected in the compostion of Edson’s W;t and Donne’s poetry as their relationship is established through intertextual references, corresponding values and ideas and the use of language features. Edson particularly portrays key values surrounding the notions of the importance of loved based relationships, and death and resurrection: central themes of Donne’s Holy Sonnets and Divine Poems. The purpose of these authors distinctly correlate as each has attempted to provide fresh insight into the human condition by challenging prevalent ideals. Thus, Edson incorporates Donne’s work to illuminate both explicit and implicit themes, creating an undeniable condition.
Prior to John Donne's Judeo Christian conversion he believed that life was only fulfilling if shared with another individual. He conveyed in his pre-conversion poems and stressed the power and importance of love to a person's well being and existence. Donne contrives the idea that love must not be a "Dull Sublunary lover's love", rather a relationship where "two souls...are one," a love, he explores his conceit, so strong it can stretch "like gold to aery thinness". His geometrical conceit explains that relationships "Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere." During the 17th century everything revolved around the sun, saying that lovers went against it was seen as going against the, thus showing how vital relationships are to human existence. The medium of a play allows us to a different view on how important love is one life's, and what is to be lost with its absence
Donne's values

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Donne is a metaphysical poet who uses metaphoric conceit in his poems by comparing two incredibly unlike things such as love and demeanors. Death is used as a metaphor in the departure of his wife. First, he compares his separation from his wife to the separation of a man's soul from his body when he dies (first stanza). The body represents physical love; the soul represents spiritual or intellectual love. While Donne and his wife are apart, they cannot express physical love; thus, they are like the body of a dead being.. However, Donne says, they remain united spiritually because their souls are one. So, Donne continues, he and his wife should let their physical bond "melt" when they part (line 5). He follows that metaphor with others, saying they should not cry sentimental "tear-floods" or indulge in "sigh-tempests" (line 6) when they say farewell. Such base sentimentality would cheapen their relationship. He also compares himself and his wife to celestial spheres, for their love is so profound that it exists in a higher plane than the love of husbands and wives whose relationship centers solely on physical pleasures where they require to remain together, physically...Finally, Donne compares his relationship with his wife to that of the two legs of a drawing compass. Although the legs are separate components of the compass, they are both part of the same object. If the outer leg traces a circle, the inner leg–though its point is fixed at…

    • 1324 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wit and Donne

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages

    As with many poets in the Renaissance area Donne was obsessed death. He was intrigued by the mystery of death and, due to his Catholic upbringing and his own Christian values, was convinced of the existence of an afterlife. What Donne struggles with within these Holy Sonnets is how he can settle on a particular view on the subject. One of the Holy Sonnets, “Death Be Not Proud”, presents Donne’s inner conflict. In this particular poem John Donne states that death is something that should not be feared but conquered, due to the faith he has in the presence of an afterlife. Through the personification of death in the first two lines, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful”, death is given a personality, an identity. It is due to this literary technique that Donne can put an emphasis on the idea that Christians have victory over death, and the promise of eternal life. That it is in this afterlife that death, no matter how “Mighty” or “dreadful” will have no hold over them. Donne is able to directly address death, and speak his mind in a way in which is normally restricted to person-to-person communication. During the 17th Century mortality was a big issue in society with the average woman giving birth to between 8-10 children.…

    • 1571 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Consider the ways in which Donne and Jennings use form, structure and language to present their thoughts and ideas. You should make relevant references to your wider reading in the poetry of love.…

    • 1834 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wit Play Analysis

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The connections shared between Donne’s metaphysical poetry and Edson’s play Wit, occupies more than the adaptation of ideas and form, it represents the relationship between text and context. Wit reshapes Donne’s experiences of agency and self evaluation, thereby rejuvenating the humanistic paradigms…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    John Donne’s Holy Sonnets were a series of metaphysical poems written during the early 17th Century while he was converting to Anglicism from Roman Catholicism. Sonnet 14, known as “Batter my heart, three person’d God”, documents how Donne desires God to exercise his mastery over him in order to banish his qualms from his mind, which are manifested in the “reason” or “enemy”. However, the language that Donne utilises suggest a desperate and non-consensual sexual relationship with God, as though the doubts must be banished with force so great that he is unable to resist. While the erotic and religious are confused, the confusion is only mildly dangerous, as the overall intent is beneficial, to make Donne a more God-fearing and moral person.…

    • 1196 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Change In Edson's Poems

    • 2452 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Donne’s poems are interesting in the way they often present an ongoing thought process, rather than a story with a distinct beginning and end. Donne being from the literary culture; many of his poems reflect this mid-way change of heart, as he is comfortable dealing in ongoing reflection and experience, rather than static facts. One of Donne’s love poems, ‘The Sunne Rising’ centres around Donne, in bed with his lover, annoyed at the sun for disturbing their slumber. “Busie old foole, unruly Sunne” he writes. Donne, in personifying the sun, and describing such a thing in paradox (“unruly sun”), supports the idea that literary culture places more emphasis on emotion and description than logical fact. The structure of ideas throughout the poem thereafter is fluid. Donne is initially annoyed at the sun for its punctuality, saying that a love like his knows no time, and the sun would be better off chastising late schoolboys. As the poem progresses, Donne goes from annoyance, to mocking the sun's supposed power (“Thy beames, so reverend… I could eclipse then with a winke”), to then feeling content, and almost bad for the sun. Donne writes “Thou sunne are halfe as happy’as wee, in that the world’s contracted thus”, in which he is stating that the poor, old sun must have an easier job shining down on him and his lover, as their entire world is confined to each other. It is this notion of fluidity of ideas that further reflects the literary culture of Donne’s poems. He uses his writings, not to record tangible fact and feeling, but to support the idea that both his thoughts, and the subjects of his writing, can easily be written flexibly, as they are both…

    • 2452 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poet John Donne was an English poet, satirist, lawyer and priest. His poems are very sex and love driven. They are usually sonnets or songs and always contain great metaphors and impressive uses of irony. The three poems I have chosen to analyze are “Break of Day”, “The Flea”, and “The Indifferent”. All three of these poems share a common theme in love and are alike in many ways but all three poems also differ in many ways too.…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Love In The Odyssey

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages

    While Donne appears to hold a holistic, unified view of love, undivided by the physical and made whole by the spiritual, the body of the woman is ironically the real obstruction of the abstract. Donne discards human bodies for celestial figures: “..free spheres move faster far than can/Birds whom the air resists…” (Lines 87-88). Air is yet another element that taints and obstructs the ‘free sphere’, yet it is vital to note the similar inhumanity of the poet in being described as a bird. Instead, both lovers described as celestial ‘spheres’ denotes transcendence from earthly ties, advancing instead along an “empty and ethereal way” (Line 89). Love, in its emptiest form, also appears at its purest. However, transformation of the poet, framed as the epic hero, prevents Donne from having a firmer grasp on pure…

    • 1309 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Donne's Love Poems

    • 841 Words
    • 3 Pages

    John Donne is one of many poets of his time who wrote love poetry. The thing that sets him apart from the others is that he manages to successfully subvert the traditional conventions to his own ends. Each of the secular poems "The Flea", "The Sunne Rising" and "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" shows Donne's verbal dexterity, manipulation of the conventional form and the use of a variety of textual features.…

    • 841 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The Canonization" Donne tries to fight why he cannot love Anne and asks what is the matter with his love , for he sees it as true. He writes in a civil manner asking if his love has hurt anyone , if the intensity that he loves her has ever injured anyone. Never fearing what others say or do to the couple he bases the security of his life on their love. He ponders why people are worrying about their love when awful people are committing horrible acts throughout the world. He says that they are one and nothing could break them apart. Not wanting to be bothered anymore and yearning to live free with his love he wonders if people will approve and , though his love will not die , fears that the impact of the world will destroy their…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poems the “Holy Sonnet IV” and the “Holy Sonnet VII”, the writer John Donne accepts the theme of death and understands that death doesn't wait for anyone. The similarities in each poem's theme of accepting death are very alike due to John Donne's morals that one must repent and go through death to reach an eternal life.…

    • 645 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Holy Sonnet 10 Tone

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The words “Death, be not proud” open John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 10, setting the tone, as the narrator addresses death himself. Donne, inspired by his experiences with religion, wrote a collection of poems known as “The Divine poems,” in which he establishes a connection between the narrator, and God. Holy Sonnet 10 is unique in that, the narrator addresses not God, but Death. As explored by both Joanne Woolway and Roberta J. Albrecht, Donne employs masterful use of apostrophe to address death, stylized structure giving rise to ambiguity, and the paradox of the death of christ, to convey a powerful, yet questioning, poem on death. Donne was born in London in 1572, belonging to a modestly wealthy Roman Catholic family, with a rich religious background.…

    • 524 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John Donne who is considered to be one of the wittiest poets of the seventeenth century writes the metaphysical poem "The Flea" and the religious poem "Holy Sonnet 14". In both poems, Donne explores the two opposing themes of physical and sacred love; in his love poem "The Flea," he depicts the speaker as an immoral human being who is solely concerned with pleasing himself, where as in his sacred poem "Holy Sonnet 14" Donne portrays the speaker as a noble human being because he is anxious to please God. In the book The Divine Poems, writer Helen Gardner supports this fact as she argues, "His Maker is more powerfully present to the imagination in his divine poems than any mistress is in his love poems" (Pg-2). Overall, it seems that both these poems operate on many different levels as the rhyme scheme in both poems varies from iambic tetrameter and pentameter to the Petrarchan sonnet form. Donne employs wit as well as complex paradoxes, which are symbolic of the strong opposing drives at play in his poetry, and abstract conceits to further complicate the subject matter in both his poems. This is evident to the reader as in "The Flea" Donne presents the notion of carnal love through religious expressions, where as in "Holy Sonnet 14" he depicts the notion of divine love through sexual expressions. Hence, Donne does an excellent job in revealing the fact that in "The Flea," the speaker appears to be arrogant, selfish, and disrespectful towards women. He is self absorbed and only cares about fulfilling his sexual fancy, while the speaker in "Holy Sonnet 14" comes across as a humble human being, who is worried about pleasing God.…

    • 1878 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An analysis

    • 1889 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The religious poetry of Donne, especially his “Holy Sonnets” clearly demonstrate this struggle in the religious journey of searching for the truth, through a closely woven line of argument, as often seen…

    • 1889 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Donne Essay

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages

    By comparatively analysing the connections between texts, a responder’s understanding of intrinsic human concerns are outwardly enhanced. Edson’s play “W;t” is a manifestation of the Selected Poetry of John Donne, and explores the analogous notions of redemption through self-examination and the need for human relationships. A responder, when taking both Edson and Donne’s work as one, understands the timelessness of human concerns. Hence, there can be no doubt, that fundamental to any comparative study is the question of what human existence actually means.…

    • 1066 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays