Study Questions
1. Donne’s two major modes
are religious spiritualism and erotic amorousness. How does he combine those
two modes in some of his poems? In which poems does he not combine
them?
His principal method of combination is simply
to mingle the discourses of spirituality and carnality—pleading
with God to rape him in the fourteenth Divine Meditation or
claiming to embody the sweat of Adam and the blood of Christ in
the “Hymn to God my God.” In the “Valediction,” Donne describes
an ideal of spiritual love that seems to unify the holy and the
romantic but that consciously eschews erotic desire. Poems, such
as “The Flea” and “The Sun Rising,” make little use of the spiritual
mode beyond passing reference (such as Donne’s calling the flea
his “marriage temple”); poems, such as “Death be not proud,” have
little to do with the worldly or the erotic.
2. How does Donne distinguish between
physical and spiritual love? Which does he prefer? (Think especially
about “The Flea” and “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning.”)
“Physical love” is love that is primarily
based upon the sensation or the presence of the beloved or that
emphasizes sexuality; in “The Flea,” Donne celebrates the physical
side of love when he tries to convince his beloved to sleep with
him. In the “Valediction,” Donne describes a spiritual love, “Inter-assured
of the mind,” which does not miss “eyes, lips, and hands” because
it is based on higher and more refined feelings than sensation.
In the “Valediction,” Donne is critical of “dull sublunary” physical
love, which could not survive in the absence of the beloved, and
expresses a profound preference for spiritual love, which is much
rarer—it is not the love of the common men and women. But there
are certainly erotic moments in Donne’s writing (The graphically sexual
“To His Mistress, on Going to Bed” comes to mind) when he would
seem to prefer the erotic to the intellectual.
3. Compare and contrast two of Donne’s
most famous religious poems, the tenth and fourteenth Divine Meditations. How
are they alike? How are they different? In what ways does Donne’s
mode of address to Death and God differ from what you might expect?
The poems are similar in their use of the
Shakespearean sonnet form, their spiritual-religious register, their expressed
desire for salvation, and their apostrophic mode of address—the
first poem speaks to Death, the second to God. The poems differ
in intent (the first is a contemptuous critique of Death, the second
a kind of plea or prayer asking for God’s aid) and in the tones
of their moral positions (the first is confidently bound for heaven,
the second deeply inclined toward sin). In each poem, Donne takes
a surprisingly self-confident, even casual, tone toward awesome
immortal powers: He does not cower before Death or plea for God’s
forgiveness, he mocks Death and pleas for God to wreck him to the
ground, imprison him, and ravish him—neither approach is the usual
mode for addressing supernatural beings.
4. One of the main characteristics of
metaphysical poetry is its reliance on bizarre and unexpected imagery
and symbolism. What are some of Donne’s strangest or most surprising
images and symbols? How does Donne use symbolism to advance his
themes?
5. Compare and contrast two of Donne’s most famous metaphysical
love poems, “The Canonization” and “The Sun Rising.” How are they
alike? How are they different? Does Donne’s urbane, sophisticated
treatment of love diminish the romantic passion in his poems?
6. Donne’s use of meter is frequently surprising; he
will often apply a regular ABAB rhyme scheme to lines of wildly
erratic tempo. What are some of the poems in which he uses this
technique? What effect does it have on the poems, either aesthetically
or thematically, or both?
7. Donne often uses humor in his poems: “The Flea” is
an elaborate joke, “The Canonization” and “A Valediction” satirize
Petrarchan love poems, and even a more serious poem, such as the
“Hymn to God my God,” makes extensive use of a pun. What roles do
wordplay and humor perform in Donne’s poems?
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