Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Donne-Holy Sonnet 14

HOLY SONNETS.

XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.



Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.


Donne--Holy Sonnet 10

HOLY SONNETS.

X.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

Quick and Rough Explication:

“ Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;”

Simple. Donne is anthropomorphizing Death, and addressing him as an equal, or indeed, as it becomes apparent later, as an inferior. Donne is saying that Death likes to think of himself as powerful and terrifying, and indeed some people have called him that, but he is not so in truth. In the next lines Donne explains why.

“ For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Death thinks that he is "overthrowing" men when he takes them, that is, conquering, vanquishing, defeating, ruining, causing to fall. Instead, and this here is the "Holy" conceit of the sonnet, a very Christian concept, he does not cause them to fall, but helps them to rise—death is the means by which man finds Resurrection (literally, "rising again"), eternal life and immortality through Christ in heaven. Donne is patronizing and sarcastic with "poor Death", who is so deluded as to think himself a bane on man's existence. And again, "nor yet canst thou kill me", hearkens back to the same idea that Death does not kill, but is instead the enabler of new, immortal life. Death cannot kill him, thus he holds no power over the speaker (whom we may treat as Donne).

“ From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.”

"rest and sleep, ... thy picture[s]" Here we have the Renaissance idea of sleep as death's image (cf. Donne, Woman's Constancy; Cowley, On the Death of Mr. William Hervey, Wroth, "When night's black mantle...", etc."), that is, death's likeness, semblance—a sleeping man looks much like a dead man, and vice versa (the parallel of sleeping/waking and dying/waking is played with later in the sonnet). Thus, if man gets much pleasure out of rest and sleep, which are but copies of death, how much more pleasure then must be gotten from death, the original? This is why, Donne posits, the best men of the era go unhesitatingly to their deaths—they have wisely realized this to be the case. They go with Death, their bones get to their rest (in the grave), and their souls get "delivered" (lit. set free), containing the meanings at the same time of 1. being freed from the human body (think: "shuffle off this mortal coil" —Hamlet), 2. freed from the fear of death, 3. delivered into heaven, and 4. delivered in the sense of being born, or reborn. Heady stuff, isn't it!

“ Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,”

Here, Donne furthers the idea that Death is not mighty, but indeed is a slave, with "Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men" as his masters. The personified Death does not always have the power to choose who is to die—Fate and chance may suddenly take someone, kings on a whim may doom people to their deaths, and desperate men, who see no way out, may take their own lives, thus cheating Death of his control and mastery. Next, Donne likens Death to a scavenger who cleans up where poison, war, and sickness have raged. How proud is his position now?

“ And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?”

Going back to the sleep/Death image, Donne notes that drugs alike have the power of producing sleep, and in fact, create a truer sleep than Death (since Death, as Donne already pointed out, is but a fleeting moment's sleep before resurrection). Thus, Death's omnipotent self-image is again belittled and shown as false hubris, and the insult is delivered home with “why swell'st thou then?”, i.e., 'since this is the case, what reason have you, Death, to be proud?' The image used is that of a chest swelling with pride.

“ One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.”

Thus, “one short sleep past”, that is, after we are dead a fleeting moment, “we wake eternally”, that is, we will wake up resurrected, to eternal life, never to sleep or die again. Then, death will cease to exist altogether, will die. Here now the personified Death has been shown to be not “mighty and dreadful” but a mere mortal, or rather less than we mortals, since he will die an eternal death at the resurrection, whereas we mortals will enjoy eternal life. The final pronouncement, “Death, thou shalt die” completes the idea that Death is the one who should be afraid, not the one to be feared.





Article Citation:

Jokinen, Anniina. “A Quick and Rough Explication of Donne's Holy Sonnet 10.” Luminarium.
27 Mar. 2002. [Date when you accessed the page].

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Flea--John Donne

THE FLEA.
by John Donne


MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
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 ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, 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.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning


A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne


AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.


From enotes...
"

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" shows many features associated with seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry in general, and with Donne's work in particular. Donne's contemporary, the English writer Izaak Walton, tells us the poem dates from 1611, when Donne, about to travel to France and Germany, wrote for his wife this valediction, or farewell speech. Like most poetry of Donne's time, it did not appear in print during the poet's lifetime. The poem was first published in 1633, two years after Donne's death, in a collection of his poems called Songs and Sonnets. Even during his life, however, Donne's poetry became well known because it circulated privately in manuscript and handwritten copies among literate Londoners.

The poem tenderly comforts the speaker's lover at their temporary parting, asking that they separate calmly and quietly, without tears or protests. The speaker justifies the desirability of such calmness by developing the ways in which the two share a holy love, both sexual and spiritual in nature. Donne's celebration of earthly love in this way has often been referred to as the "religion of love," a key feature of many other famous Donne poems, such as "The Canonization" and The Ecstasy. Donne treats their love as sacred, elevated above that of ordinary earthly lovers. He argues that because of the confidence their love gives them, they are strong enough to endure a temporary separation. In fact, he discovers ways of suggesting, through metaphysical conceit, that the two of them either possess a single soul and so can never really be divided, or have twin souls permanently connected to each other. A metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor or simile in which the poet draws an ingenious comparison between two very unlike objects. "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" ends with one of Donne's most famous metaphysical conceits, in which he argues for the lovers' closeness by comparing their two souls to the feet of a drawing compass—a simile that would not typically occur to a poet writing about his love"

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Faerie Queene, Book 3

From Spark Notes--

The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser

Book III, Cantos iii, iv & v

Summary

As a last effort to cure Britomart of her lovesickness, Glauce the nurse brings her to Merlin, the maker of the magic mirror. They hope he can tell them the name of the man Britomart saw in the mirror. Merlin agrees to their request: Not only does he reveal the name of Britomart's love, but he shows her the future of her line. The man in the mirror was a knight named Arthegall, the wizard says, who is related to King Arthur. The sons of Britomart and Arthegall will rule the Britons, and fight against the Saxons. After a time, the "wicked" Saxons will be victorious and the noble race of Britons will go into hiding. For 800 years, that race will be ruled wickedly in their own land, by the Saxons, the Danes, and then the Normans. Finally, a king will rise from the Britons to reclaim the throne--but here Merlin ends his predictions. Britomart is greatly encouraged to know that fate will smile so kindly on her love; she now is eager to find Arthegall. She determines to take up arms and dress like a knight, to enable herself to search for her love, who was lately in Faerie Land fighting alongside Arthur, as Merlin told her. There, she meets Redcrosse and (as we have seen) presses him for news of Arthegall.
Britomart, in fact, is a talented fighter; she is greater than all the female warriors that have been praised in history. And yet she is weakened by the good report that Redcrosse gives her of Arthegall; hearing praise of her loved one only deepens love's wound in her heart. Leaving Redcrosse to his own journey, she goes to the seacoast and pines for the man she cannot find. Suddenly, she sees a knight galloping toward her with his spear advanced; she takes up her own sacred spear and, charging, pierces his side and throws him to the ground. Feeling no pity, she continues onward, but Marinell (the strange knight) is wounded almost to death. His mother, a sea-nymph, hears of his dire condition and comes out of the sea to tend to him. They fear that he is beyond help; but still, they bind up his wound and bear him to the sea god Tryphon, who is skilled in healing.
Ignorant of all this, Britomart continues her journey; and Guyon and Arthur continue theirs, looking for the fair damsel Florimell, whom they saw fleeing a lusty shepherd. They come to a crossways and split up; Arthur's squire Timias also goes off his own way. It happens that Arthur chose rightly, for soon he sees the damsel, but she rides too quickly for him, and by night he has lost sight of her. He is distraught because he suspects that the damsel may be the Faerie Queene for whom he has been searching. Continuing in the morning, he meets a dwarf, who is chasing after the same girl. They continue the hunt together. Meanwhile, the squire Timias' path takes him after the lusty man who had been chasing Florimell. The villain runs ahead and gathers two friends to help lay a trap for the squire near a river that the lad must cross. When Timias' horse is in the river, they jump out and throw their spears at him; he is wounded in the thigh but still manages to cross the river. Once out, Timias gets his revenge, killing all three of them, but his wound has left him weakened, and he collapses on the riverbank. Luckily, a "noble hunteress" named Belphoebe comes upon the unconscious Timias (III.v.27). Filled with pity, she binds his wound, thus, saving his life, and she takes him back to her dwelling. When he recovers, however, the squire has a new wound: He has been struck by love. Unfortunately for him, Belphoebe is the model of "stedfast chastity" and has no desire to love a man; thus, Timias is left to the pangs of his lovesick heart (III.v.35).

Commentary

Merlin's discourse on the history of the Britons takes up nearly all of Canto iii, certainly more than was required to convince Britomart that she should go after Arthegall. This is because its larger purpose is not to contribute to the poem's plot, nor even to the allegory. Spenser includes the long history to establish a direct connection between characters in The Faerie Queen--especially Arthur--and his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. As much as the poet praises the Queen on her own merits, he also seeks to increase her stature and her place in history, by connecting her, in an unbroken chain, to the legendary heroes of Britain. Not only is she related to the great Arthur, but to the legendary founder of the Britons, Brute, and through him to the Trojans (this link will be brought up in detail in a later canto). This device of establishing ancestry has its roots in the New Testament--the Gospel of Matthew begins by tracing the line of Abraham through David to Christ. More applicable for Spenser is Virgil's connection in the Aeneid between Aeneas and Caesar Augustus--it is a secondary purpose of the poem to make that link, just as the justification of Elizabeth's rule is for The Faerie Queene. Of course, not all of Spenser's history can be proven; the earlier dates (pre-800) and people involve much speculation. Spenser's most important source is Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, from which the legend of King Arthur first arose. Monmouth invented much of this "history", and so Spenser's interpretation may at certain points be a few levels removed from the truth. However, the important thing is that no one could disprove most of his history, and so by incorporating it into The Faerie Queene, Spenser helped to make it a more authoritative version. It was simpler, anyway, to view the history of British rule by the Britons as a single chain.
With the plot of the poem, however, Spenser moves farther and farther away from an unbroken chain in these cantos. The story of Britomart is supposed to form the central plot of the Book, and yet we see the subplots--like the pursuit of Florimell--taking over the story, even if they have little to do with Britomart. Spenser picks up and drops different plot lines almost indiscriminately--for example, we hear an extensive background of Marinell, but after he is wounded, he disappears and does not reenter the poem until a different book. If there is a flaw in Spenser's ability to create a complex world that draws on many sources, it is the confusion that sometimes confronts the reader at keeping track of all the characters and plotlines. We note that the poet himself became a bit confused--when he had the dwarf claim that Florimell left home after Marinell's death, he forgets that she was already seen on the run two cantos ago.
What these numerous subplots do add to the poem is an extension of its allegory, an extension best achieved by adding new characters. In Florimell, we have a woman who desires chastity but not in the same way as Britomart. She is not so much active as she is acted upon, as the object of men's desire. She is Beauty, the kind of beauty that will always inflame lust in men; since this is not balanced with active, forceful chastity (Britomart), Florimell becomes a much-abused character. Belphoebe has a better lot, and yet she, too, is lacking something when compared to Britomart. Belphoebe is chaste, and actively so, but she is static in her chastity. She is the limit of what chastity can be without leading to Christian love, which is why she is out in nature, unadorned, like the satyrs. It is the transition toward love within chastity that Spenser admires in Britomart.