POETRY-1 (ENG403)

LECTURE – 22

JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)

• Decline of Elizabethan Age• End of Elizabethan Era• Political Upheavals• Religious Disturbance• Materialistic Social Attitude

REVIEW OF EARLIER POEMS

• Geoffrey Chaucer- 14th Centuryo Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

• Edmund Spenser- Elizabethan poeto The Faerie Queene

• John Milton- Puritano Paradise Lost

THE METAPHYSICAL SCHOOL

• John Donne- representative metaphysical poet– Love songs, hymns, elegies, holy sonnets

• George Herbert• Richard Crashaw• Henry Vaughan

CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY

• Dazzling wordplay• Explicitly sexual• Paradox• Subtle argumentation• Surprising contrasts• Intricate psychological analysis

CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY

• Striking imagery• Far fetched ideas. • Full of logic & reasoning.• Heterogeneous ideas are combined.• Theme like love is experimented like science

JOHN DONNE (1)

• Born in London in 1572• Most outstanding metaphysical poet. He is

poet, theologian and lawyer.• Roman Catholic family. • His father/warden/Ironmogers’ company• Went to Oxford at the age of 11• Went to Trinity College Cambridge1587-1589. • Took no degree from both.

JOHN DONNE (2)

• Went to attend Lincoln’s Inn in 1592.• He entered Anglican Communion in 1593. Travelled

to foreign countries in 1595-96. • Appointed secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton• keeper of the great seal in 1598• Dismissed from this job in 1601 • Secret marriage to Anne More• Anne More-Egerton’s niece

JOHN DONNE (3)

• Imprisoned for a short time• Worked as a lawyer for the next few years. • Found refuge with Sir Francis Wooley• Mrs Donne’s cousine at Pryford• Lived at Camberwell for a short time. • Lived at Mitcham from 1605-1607• Employed with Sir Thomas Morton in 1605• Reconciled with his father-in-law in 1608

JOHN DONNE (4)

• Poetic accomplishments– Divine poems (1607)– Biathanatos (1608)– Published posthumously (1644)– Suicide is not sinful

• Did M.A from Oxford in 1610.• Resided at the Drury House in 1610.

JOHN DONNE (5)

• Wrote Elegy: o An Anatomy of the World (1611)o Of the Progress of the Soul (1612)

• Death of 15 years old Elizabeth Drury • Gained Sir Robert Drury’s favour. • Travelled with him on the continent• Wrote Epithalamion in 1613 • Marriage of Rochester and the Countess

JOHN DONNE (6)

• Priest of Anglian Church in 1615• Appointed royal chaplain• Famous as a Preacher; delivering sermons • Brilliant & eloquent• His wife died in 1617 • Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621• Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocations in 1621• Held the living of St. Dunstan’s in the West from 1624-

1631.

PROSE WORKS• Juvenilia, or Certaine Pradoxes and Problemes• Catalogus Librorum Aulicorum• Biathanatos• Pseudo-Martyr• Conclave Ignati• Essays in Divinity• Three Sermons, Four Sermons, Five Sermons, Fifty

Sermons, and Letters to Several Persons of Honour.• Essays: satirical•

DONNE’S POETRY• Secular & Religious Subjects• Contrast to the Petrarchan love-doctrine of his time. • He wrote:• Songs• Sonnets• Divine poems• Elegies• Satires• Verse letters• Historical epistles etc.

DONNE’S SERMONS

• 160 Sermons– Memorable– Biblical passages– Theme of divine love– Decay & resurrection of the body

CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS POETRY

• His poetical works:o Unsurpassableo Tedious/weird oWire-drawn in their logic o Typical of cross-grainedoMathematical imaginary o Unconventional analogies and comparisons

IMAGERY

• The images:• Circles• Maps• Engravings• Elephants• Flea• Whales• New discoveries etc.

JOHN DONNE (7)

• Immaculate rhythm • Lacks smoothness & dignity. • Obsessed with the idea of death. • Donne preached “Death’s Duel”• his own funeral sermon,• Died in London on March 31, 1631.

LOVE SONGS & HOLY SONNETS

• Love Songso Go and Catch a Falling Staro Love’s Alchemy

• Holy Sonnetso Sonnet 1

Thou Hast made me, Shall thy work decay?o Sonnet 10

Death Be Not Proud

ELEMENTS OF HUMANISM

• Hunger for knowledge• Thirst for unraveling the mystery of Existence• The search of truth• Attitude to Love• Treatment of Love is unconventional• Differed from Elizabethan love poetry• Rejects the lofty cult of women• No deity/goddess

INTELLECTUAL GENIUS OF DONNE

• Challenged the conventions• True love: merger of souls• Two bodies, one soul

• Alchemy• Materialism

REVIEW OF LECTURE 22

• John Donne• Metaphysical Poetry• Biography• Works

o Poetry o Proseo Sermons

• Elements of Humanism• Donne’s Individuality