POETRY-1 (ENG403)

LECTURE – 23

RECAP OF LECTURE 22

• 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

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:

o Songso Sonnetso Divine poemso Elegieso Satireso Verse letterso 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.

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

INTELLECTUAL GENIUS OF DONNE

• Differed from Elizabethan love poetry• Rejects the lofty cult of women• No deity/goddess• Challenged the conventions• True love: merger of souls• Two bodies, one soul

THEMES

• Lovers as Microcosm• Neoplatonic Concept of Love• Religious Enlightenment as physical delight• Quest for one true religion

MOTIF/IMAGES• Spheres– Infinite associations– Conceits– Thematic connections

• Discovery & Conquest– Mystery – Magnificence

• Reflections– Eyes– tears

LOVE SONGS

• Go and Catch a Falling Star• Love’s Alchemy

TITLE OF THE POEM

• Go and Catch a Falling Star

• Imperative• Element of Impossibility

STANZA 1• GO and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging,And findWhat wind Serves to advance an honest mind.

STANZA 2

• If thou be'st born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,And swear,No whereLives a woman true and fair.

STANZA 3

• If thou find'st one, let me know,Such a pilgrimage were sweet;Yet do not, I would not go,Though at next door we might meet,Though she were true, when you met her,And last, till you write your letter,Yet sheWill beFalse, ere I come, to two, or three.

ANALYSIS OF POEM

• 3 Stanzas– Introduction– Climax– Falling action– Conclusion

• Rhyme Scheme• ABABCCDDD

TONE OF THE POEM

• Magical• Harsh and cruel• Bitter & resentful• Self-pitying• Irritable• Mocking• commanding• Hopeful & caring• Sour

IMAGERY OF POEM• ‘a falling star’• ‘mermaids singing’• Knowing past• Explaining devil’s hoof• ‘Ride ten thousand days and nights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee’.• ‘Go and catch a falling star’;

‘Though she were true, when you met her,…Yet she will be false, ere I come, to two, or three.’

•

GO and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,

• Pessimistic Attitude• Impossible tasks:• “a falling star”• “conceiving a child with mandrake root”

• Imparatives

Or who cleft the devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging, And findWhat wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

• Another impossible task• Mermaid- mythological figure

If thou be'st born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till age snow white hairs on thee,

• Alliteration• Journey

Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee,

And swear,No where

Lives a woman true and fair.

• Woman- true & fair

If thou find'st one, let me know,Such a pilgrimage were sweet;

Yet do not, I would not go,Though at next door we might meet,

Though she were true, when you met her,

• Pilgrimage- holy journey

And last, till you write your letter,Yet sheWill be

False, ere I come, to two, or three.

• Woman- false

TITLE OF THE POEM

• LOVE'S ALCHEMY

Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,Say, where his centric happiness doth lie.

I have loved, and got, and told,But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

I should not find that hidden mystery.

• Mining art• Centric- esential

• Hidden mystery- love; philosopher’s stone

O! 'tis imposture all ;And as no chemic yet th' elixir got,

But glorifies his pregnant pot,If by the way to him befall

• Elixir- give immortlity

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summer's night.

• Odoriferous- smell

• Oxymoron

Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,Shall we for this vain bubble's shadow pay?

• Shadow- useless, deceit

Ends love in this, that my manCan be as happy as I can, if he can

Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?

• Scorn- contempt

That loving wretch that swears,'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,

Which he in her angelic finds,Would swear as justly, that he hears,

In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.

• Hoarse- ruff

Hope not for mind in women; at their best,Sweetness and wit they are, but mummy, possess'd.

• Mummy- stuffed, without intellect

LOVE’S ALCHEMY

Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I,Say, where his centric happiness doth lie.I have loved, and got, and told,But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,I should not find that hidden mystery.

O! 'tis imposture all ;And as no chemic yet th' elixir got,But glorifies his pregnant pot,If by the way to him befall

REVIEW OF LECTURE 23

• Go and Catch a Falling Star• Love’s Alchemy

• The Sun Rising• A Valediction: of Weeping