Student Work
Student Reflections on Themes in John Donne's Poetry
Paris
Eternal life & love in
The Anniversary & A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
In the poem ‘The Anniversary’ the author John Donne uses themes of eternal life and love in order to portray his feelings to the reader. In the first stanza, he discusses how his love for his partner is timeless; it is as fresh and true as it was when they first met. In the second stanza he states ‘When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves removed’ which is describing how they may be separated at death but their souls will be rejoined in the afterlife which is when the theme of eternal life after death comes into play. This is used to show that they love each other’s souls, not just their physical forms like others do. They are royalty to each other which is one of the highest forms of honour. This is similar to the poem ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ where the author again describes how their love for each other is deep and true; ‘But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss’, This stanza is showing that because they love each other’s minds and souls, they do not need to be near each other for that love to continue. They can be far apart but the love stretches and does not break, ‘like gold to airy thinness beat’. This also translates to how when they eventually die and move to the afterlife the love between their souls will continue. This is a similar idea between both poems as they value a love between souls over love of physical forms as this way their love can continue in eternal life after death.
Aneke
Connection: Eternal Life
Poems: A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning, Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness, and Holy Sonnets : Death, be not proud.
In A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning there is a recurring theme of eternal life and that death is not the end of a human soul. We can see that as John Donne describes the loss of someone is not the end of a connection between two souls but more of a physical departure from the human body. An example of this is in the 5th stanza “But we by a love so much refines, That ourselves know not what it is, inter-assured of the mind.” This can be compared to Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness as he talks about where is true home on earth is and process of his soul leading on to somewhere beyond his physical form in the afterlife. He describes the process of death as the beginning of eternal life in Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud in the line “One short sleep past, we wake eternally.” Donne describes love as more of a psychological connection than a physical presence therefore linking these ideas together to create the theory that love is also eternal. In Vadediction : Forbidding Mourning the idea is also contributed to by explaining how love presents itself physically is only a small fraction of what love truly is. The theme of eternal life and love continues on again in the theme of his poem Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud. This poem centres around the idea death not truely killing someone but is a ‘short sleep’ that opens the door to eternal life of a human soul and that death only takes away our physical form his meaning our intellectual love will forever be eternal.
Forest
John Donne loves to use metaphorical and metaphysical comparisons to represent love particularly in his two pieces Forbidding Mourning and The Anniversary. In forbidding Mourning John refers to his love as refined and pure in the line “but we by a love so much refined, that ourselves not know what it is, inter-assured of the mind”, he cares not for the physical side of this woman but rather her mind and how they connect on an intellectual level and how his love for her has no end, even in death. John also references this in The Anniversary'' when in the opening paragraph he describes their love having no decay and everlasting even in death “All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay”. He also goes on to say in the final paragraph “Let us love nobly, and live and add again” he seems to value his love as noble rather than lust fueled and commonly delves into detail surrounding noble love and its true representation. John Donne also seems to reference this in most pieces and hints the souls of lovers never parting even after death. Essentially his message is, if one loves the mind and is in tune with the other person's mind so intensely, love with that person will never end due to how pure and intellectual it is.
Freya
Love and lust:
The talk of love and Lust is very prominent in John Donne’s work, with the themes being explored and portrayed in many different ways throughout his poetry. An example of this is the poem “The Anniversary” where John romantically declares his undying love for his spouse. In the first stanza of the poem, the weight of his love is declared to the reader when he states “All other things to their destruction draw, only our love hath no decay”. This shows that despite time moving on and everything becoming one year closer to death, their love for each other will not decay. A powerful statement to show the weight of his affection.
In the last stanza of this poem, the feelings of loyalty, love and security are solidified.
“Treason to us, except one of us two.
True and false fears let us refrain”
In this he talks about how they are safe from treason as the only ones who can hurt them in that way are each other, which their loyalty and love for each other won’t allow. This final stanza confirms the fondness of their love which he has been discussing in the poem so far, reassuring that they will love and live for each other for many years to come.
This poem is one that speaks about a very romantic, loyal and loving relationship and emits feelings of overwhelming joy and affection to the reader. In comparison, “The Flea” also written by John Donne is a poem that lacks the depth of ‘true love’ and instead tells a story of a lustful love. This poem carries the sense of urgency to have sex, using persavise language to try and convice not only their lover but the reader that their is no harm in giving it up. In the first stanza he states “Thou know'st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhood” where he uses a flea to try and convince his lover that being together is not a sin, as the flea has drunk both their bloods ( a much more intmate act thing than sex) and is not sinning. The haste that is communicated through this poem by using a flea to justify their actions shows that these feelings are coming from a place of lust, not love. A relationship as loving as the one depicted in “The Anniversary '' on the other hand, would most likely be more patient towards physical intimacy. Giving interesting insight to the contrast between how John Donne uses poetry to communicate his love versus his lust.
Skye
The Flea, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
By John Donne
These two poems both touch on the concept of love and relationships. However, the individual goals of the poems are very different.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is centred around the idea of eternal love between two souls. It talks about how Donne and his partner don't experience love as a material thing. Instead they feel connected through their minds and hearts. Donne saying "Inter-assured of the mind, care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss" shows that he doesn't believe that their bodies are what makes them love each other, so if these pieces of their bodies weren't there then their love would not be any different. Stanza 4 even points out the fact that Donne looks down on those who only love the physical aspects of their partner, and mentions that lovers that only love each other's bodies shouldn't be apart because that would remove the only thing they love each other for.
However, in his poem, The Flea, he seems to be doing exactly that. The Flea is all about Donne wanting to take a girl's virginity, and using a flea to justify it. When he says "And pampered swells with one blood made of two, and this, alas, is more than we would do", he is trying to guilt trip the girl by saying how this flea has mixed their blood before they've even had the chance to. He's telling the girl that, because they've both been bitten by this flea, their blood is already intertwined so the idea of him taking her virginity shouldn't be so outlandish to her because they're already connected. Donne shows little to no respect for this girl and even gets upset with her when she kills the flea. He uses the death of the flea as another way to make sex sound like less of a big deal, saying "-Learn how false, fears be: just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me". Because she says she doesn't feel any weaker after the flea is dead, he tries to twist her comment to make her think that if she could kill the flea so easily and nothing changed, who's to say that him taking her virginity would be any different? This poem completely contrasts the values and beliefs he seemed to have throughout 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' and paints him as the physical, "Dull sublunary lover" that he was so against.
Student Responses to Shakespeare's Sonnets
Paris
Comparing the themes of desire and different portrayals of love in
‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’ (Sonnet 130) & ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer‘s day?’ (Sonnet 18)
In sonnet 130, Shakespeare is essentially pointing out all of the flaws that he sees in his mistress such as her lips lacking colour, her breasts being too dark, her hair being wiry, and others. By doing so he is dismantling the belief that your love has to be a ‘goddess’ as supported in line 10: ‘I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground’, and also making fun of all of the other similar poems written at the same time that were all about the eternal beauty of people's lovers, such as John Donne’s ‘The Good-Morrow’. He says that despite these flaws, he loves her anyways; ‘I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound;’. This poem depicts how you can desire someone that has flaws and you don’t need to be perfect to be loved as someone should learn to love your imperfections. The last rhyming couplet talks about how his mistress is just as beautiful as any of the other muses that have been falsely compared in other poems. I believe that this poem could be useful for young people in any day and age as it makes them realise that not everyone is perfect, and that not everything people say about others is true. The poems that described their lovers as being beautiful beyond compare are similar to the beauty standard we see today, which a lot of the time, is not realistic and can be severely damaging to mental health.
Sonnet 18 is very different in the fact that while it is still talking about love, the way the poet views his lover is basically opposite to the other poem. In sonnet 18, he compares his lover to a summer's day as the title suggests. The author is saying that they are even better than something that is already lovely. ‘But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;’ is a way of saying that their beauty and light is eternal and the last two lines describe how her memory will always live on in his words. This is a different approach to the first poem because it is a very dream-like and smitten view, which focuses mostly on her physical appearance and her external beauty whereas sonnet 130 says that even though she may not be a ‘goddess’, he loves her for who she is. Sonnet 18 has a very beautiful young love feel to it which likely would have made it very popular, whereas sonnet 130 seems wiser and more mature, portraying the reality of life and love much more accurately, with less of a naïve positivity. This is likely because sonnet 18 was one of his first poems when he would have been young and optimistic, whereas 130 was written much later on when Shakespeare had probably gained some more life experience and had a more realistic and less materialistic view of life.
Forest
Sonnet: Crazy World
The world today feels hectic and crazy
Slowly being destroyed by cheap plastic
Yet every second gives us a baby
Now there’s a virus making people sick
No matter, we will repair her in vain
Or at least die trying to protect home
Think of the wonder, like the bullet train
perhaps we must shelter in one big dome…
War continues to plague this gorgeous land
Russia and Ukraine, back at it again
Yet again the world must take a big stand
Why must we fight? It seems truly insane
Hope is essential through a time like this
So let us all relax, pray and resist
Student Responses to Romantic Poetry
Forest
The Poem I chose to analyse is The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley, I particularly chose this poem because of it’s internal rhyme scheme and use of alliteration to further enhance the journey it takes the reader on through its highly detailed descriptions. Throughout the poem, the reader will develop an almost complete picture in the mind of each environment and experience described which is due to the wonderful construction of each line. Not only does this poem have a typically “different” rhyme scheme it also rhymes within the lines themselves such as “I bear light shade for the leaves when laid” the use of this internal rhyme only adds to it further as well as the use of alliteration woven through each stanza “fresh, thirsting, flowers”. Essentially as the name suggests the poem is about a cloud and what it brings to the earth in all its forms, whether it be rain, snow or hail. Through the use of personification the poet (Percy Bysshe Shelley) gives a human-like feel to the cloud as it moves and shapes itself into different forms, which adds to the picturesque images formed through-out the description. In comparison to other poems, The Cloud certainly has a different feel to it, rather than the poet romanticising a human, they are describing nature in such romantic beautiful terms that it creates a whole different feel and now seems less creepy and more acknowledging and appreciative of the beauty.