Techniques in John Donne’s Love Poetry

張玉玲

Abstract:John Donnes love poetry, with his wit, challenges ones habit of thought. This thesis, therefore, is an attempt to study Donnes poetic techniques by analyzing some of his love poems. Based on a close study of conceits, arguments and dramatic enactments Donne employs in his poems, the author of the paper concludes that Donne's ingenuity in dealing with poetry makes him perfectly combine passion and thought.

Key words:conceit argument dramatic enactment

John Donne , the founder of metaphysical school, remains a curiosity to many modern readers just as the deep, obscure word“metaphysics”suggests. He was born and educated in a Roman Catholic family but died as an Anglican bishop. He was once labeled in his time as an erotic poet with a masterly command of"far-fetch't"conceits and dazzling sophisms, which provoked lasting disputes, favorable or not. And then he was somehow neglected for about two centuries. After the ebb and flow of his reputation, Donne has finally obtained what he deserves as a poetic genius in modern times, which is greatly indebted to T. S. Eliot's contribution of revaluation. In a way, the"libertine"Donne arouses more interest than the"saint"one for it may reveal a less restrained Donne. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to probe into the enchanting world of John Donne's love poetry by analyzing his ingenuity in dealing with poetry

Songs and Sonnets and Elegies are Donne's main works of love poems, which deal with the theme of love with various patterns. These poems throw light on a fact that Donne himself is confused about the essence of love. He attempts to seek the truth, only to find it too complicated to define with a single word or pattern. His poems express different ideas about love, some of which are even contradictory. Here he glorifies sexual love; there he celebrates the union of sexual love and spiritual love; somewhere he insists on the inconstancy of love; elsewhere he extols the constant and everlasting love. For whatever, love in his amorous poems embodies varied human experiences.

Wandering in the world of Donne's love poetry, almost no one fails to be struck by the way he presents it. Donne excels in combining intense passion with intellectual ingenuity so that many critics agree that the blend of passion and thought is his chief quality. His ingenuity is mainly displayed in two distinguishing devices-conceit and argument. Among the others, dramatic enactment deserves to be mentioned.

Donne, whose manner is tortuous in Kermode's words (354), is never easy to read probably because of his particular liking for conceits and frequent use of arguments. Conceits, according to Dictionary of Literary-Rhetorical Conventions of the English Renaissance (53), are a product of intellectual ingenuity, a capacity for finding likenesses in the apparently unlike. Metaphysical conceit, which is usually regarded as a developed or extended metaphor, stresses a startling resemblance and this resemblance must be discovered through careful thought. Sometimes in Donne's love poetry conceits are used as a basis for argument, of which the poem"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"is a good example. The basic argument that the lovers' souls will not separate in spite of physical departure depends heavily on the conceits employed in this poem. The attractiveness, credibility and intelligence of his conceits determine the strength of the argument. Consider the sixth stanza:

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat. (21-24)

What seems to be a breach is really an expansion of their united souls, like"gold to airy thinness beat". The image of the thinnest gold foil, which is stretched to an extreme degree but not broken, stands for the united souls of the lovers though they are physically separated. Gold as a precious metal implies the value of their love and the"airy thinness"of the gold foil suggests its spiritual refinement. Later the poet proposes one of his best-known conceit - an analogy between the lovers' souls and the legs of a compass:

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two:

Thy soul the fix'd foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the other do. (25-28)

The relationship between the legs of the compass is like the relationship between the souls of the lovers who are physically separated. The analogy is developed as the operation of the compass and the corresponding relationship of the two souls are described in detail:

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must

Like the other foot, obliquely run;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begun. (29-36)

The conceit succeeds in suggesting that, just as the other foot of the compass invariably moves around the fixed foot, the speaker's soul is always guided by his lover's soul even in its absence, which exists as both center and home for the speaker's soul.

Evidently, Donne means to surprise when he, for example, chooses the startling image of a compass, a geometric instrument with its metallic coldness and the hardheaded, which seems at first unsuitable for love. More than that, however, Donne expects his readers to enjoy the process of transition from seeming inaptitude to suitability, which must be done through much thought. As a result, the argument finds confirmation through the use of conceits and Donne's wit finds a good expression in it.

Most of Donne's amorous poems take the form of argument, which is a distinctive characteristic of his love poetry. Kermode even says"We cannot think Donne without thinking of relentless argument"(354-355). His dialectical capacity is so superb that it invites numerous admirations. His argument contains a great persuasive power, sometimes heightened by unpredictable but well-timed reversals or shifts, amounting to his domination of the argument at any time. Perhaps"The Flea" is the most famous example to exhibit Donne's extraordinary polemic capability, where the speaker tries to persuade an unwilling woman to go to bed with him by employing a series of witty arguments. On the basis of the significant conceit, he shows his control and intelligence through flexible ratiocination. With the progress of the argument, the speaker tries to show that the reasons for the lady's refusal to go to bed with him are of little importance. His strategy is then to trivialize love and honor by connecting them with a flea. The speaker begins by comparing sexual intercourse with a fleabite, which are both claimed to be trivial:

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead, (3-6)

But when the lady attempts to clarify herself by killing the flea, the speaker urges her not to do so by glorifying the flea:

three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is; (10-14)

He even exaggerates the seriousness of killing the flea as"self-murder added be / And sacrilege, three sins I killing three."(17-18). Unfortunately, the lady kills the flea in the end with her nail stained with the flea's spilled blood. Yet the speaker abandons his accusation with ease and lightly points out that she has just wasted a drop of her blood and nothing worse than it. Then he returns to the idea that, even if she consents to his request, no greater honor will be sacrificed than a drop of blood caused by the death of the flea. To worry about the loss of virginity as a loss of honor would be"false". Obviously, the speaker's argument is sophistic, but it shows the poet's ingenuity in this aspect.

Donne's strongly dramatic enactment is also one of the distinguishing marks of his love poetry, which is displayed in dramatic situations and startlingly conversational openings. On the one hand, he tends to set a dramatic situation for many poems (as in"The Flea"or in"The Canonization" ), which has prompted the speaker's address. On the other, he often begins many poems with conversational utterance, giving a unique tinge of drama to his poetry. Noticeably, some poems open with a question or imperative, which aims to shock the readers into attention (Daiches 363) and does take effect as expected. There are so many memorable openings:

I'll tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do

To anger destiny, as she doth us; ("A Valediction: Of the Book" )

Busy old fool, unruly Sun

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us? ("The Sun Rising")

For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five gray hairs or ruin'd fortune flout, ("The Canonization")

The openings are indeed unconventional in English poetry with their energetic utterance working beautifully.

Donne's love poetry provides the readers with a kaleidoscope of love, through which the varieties and complexities of love are presented from different points of view. His ingenuity in handling poetry, displayed especially in conceits, arguments and dramatic enactments, corresponds perfectly to the intense passion and profound thought embodied in the poems. In this sense, Donne deserves the judgment made by Ben Johnson that he is "the first poet in the world in some things"( qtd, in A. F. Smith 169 ).

References:

[1]Bewley, Marius. Introduction. The Selected Poetry of Donne. New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1979. ix-xxxix.

[2]Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. Vol. 1. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1960. 346-389.

[3]Donker, Marjorie, and George M. Muldrow.“Conceit.” Dictionary of Literary-Rhetorical Conventions of the English Renaissance. London: Greewood Press, 1982. 52-57.

[4]Kermode, Frank. “John Donne.” British Writers. Ed. Ian Scott Kilvert. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1979. 352-369.

[5]Smith, A. F.. “The Poetry of John Donne.” The Penguin History of Literature ( English Poetry and Prose 1540-1674 ).Ed. Christopher Ricks. Vol. 2. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1970. 137-169.