Religion and existence have always been subjects that mankind has struggled with for centuries, often resulting in wars, persecution, and social change. This perpetual struggle has provided the backbone for many distinct schools of thought, none so much as literature. Man’s relationship with religion and the validity of life, has been the target of many writers, but many of the questions revolving around faith and our own existence, remain unanswered in many regards. These philosophical and spiritual subjects gave birth to a movement, in which writers and poets examined the concepts of being, religion, and other fields from a logical viewpoint, opposed to one based in emotion. The English poet John Donne is recognized widely as the father of the movement, which was later called metaphysical poetry. Donne best exemplifies the struggle of understanding religion and existence through his poems, Holy Sonnet X: Death Be Not Proud, A Hymn to God The Father, and Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness.
The rise of the metaphysical poetic movement is attributed to events that occurred in preceding years, as the movement was born out of a period of social discourse and political turmoil. While metaphysical poetry emerged in the 17th century as a major “...poetic style in which philosophical and spiritual subjects were approached with reason and often concluded in paradox” (A Brief Guide to Metaphysical Poets 1), the major formative events that brought metaphysical poetry to fruition occurred in the 16th century, the waning years of the Elizabethan Era. Under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I, England was plunged into a series of religious conflicts, both internal and external, all of which were the result of breaking away from the Roman Catholic ...
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Anderson, Phil. "“Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness” Analysis Essay- John Donne." http://schoolworkhelper.net/. St. Rosemary Educational Institution, November 13, 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2011. http://schoolworkhelper.net/2010/11/“hymn-to-god-my-god-in-my-sickness”-analysis-essay-john-donne/
"John Donne." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/169175/John-Donne
Jokinen, Anniina. “The Life of John Donne.” Luminarium. 22 June 2006. Web. 5 Nov. 2011. http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebio.htm
White, H. C. "Donne, John." New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2003. 866-869. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 Nov. 2011. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CCX3407703368&v=2.1&u=miam50083&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w
Hester, M. Thomas. "Donne's (Re)Annunciation of the Virgin(ia Colony) in Elegy XIX." South Central Review: 49-63.
In order to better understand Philip's critique of Donne within the lines of her poetry, a reading
The student paper written by Delys Waite titled, Imagery, Meter, and Sound in Donne’s Holy Sonnet 7, takes a formalist approach to critiquing the poem. Waite focuses only on a few literary devices to look at how those devices influence the form of the poem. Waite goes into detail describing sound by showing how groups of words have similar sounds that makes the reader say the words slower with more pauses. He addresses these words and how they sound to help emphasize different ideas the poet is trying to get across. Waite does this in a detailed manner by using accents over the letters that create these sounds and by deeply explaining the sound in each word. In the paper, he also discusses imagery and how the images that the poet is creating show how the poet feels about God.
John Donne uses poetry to explore his own identity, express his feelings, and most of all, he uses it to deal with the personal experiences occurring in his life. Donne's poetry is a confrontation or struggle to find a place in this world, or rather, a role to play in a society from which he often finds himself detached or withdrawn. This essay will discuss Donne's states of mind, his views on love, women, religion, his relationship with God; and finally how the use of poetic form plays a part in his exploration for an identity and salvation.
The 17th century opened with a generation of great social change which culminated in the eventual execution of King Charles I in 1649. This created an atmosphere of conflict that permeates much of the literature of the period. The writings of John Donne are rife with this conflict, reflecting in their content a view of love and women radically and cynically altered from that which preceding generations of poets had handed down.
Donne, John. “Hymn to God, my God, in My Sickness.” Poems of John Donne. vol I. E. K. Chambers, ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 211-212.
iv[iv] Helen Gandner, ed., John Donne: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1962) 47.
Each four-line section expounds upon one aspect of the Trinity- God the Spirit/God the Father/God the Son. Donne continually juxtaposes the explication of aspects of the Trinity with explication of man’s relationship to God, resulting in a high degree of conflation throughout. The first line opens with a simultaneous statement of doubt and faith, “Wilt thou love God, as He thee?” While the speaker is convinced of God’s love, he doubts his ability to reciprocate. This is in contrast to many of Donne’s other Holy Sonnets in which the speaker continuously implores ...
[8-16] Donne, John. “From Meditation 17”. Excerpt from McDougal Litell’s “The Language of Literature”, Page 455. McDougal Litell Inc., 2000.
Donne, John. "The Flea." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: M. H. Abrams, 1993. 1081.
By making many references to the Bible, John Donne's Holy Sonnets reveal his want to be accepted and forgiven by God. A fear of death without God's forgiveness of sins is conveyed in these sonnets. Donne expresses extreme anxiety and fright that Satan has taken over his soul and God won't forgive him for it or his sins. A central theme of healing and forgiveness imply that John Donne, however much he wrote about God and being holy, wasn't such a holy man all of the time and tried to make up for it in his writing.
The metaphysical era in poetry started in the 17th century when a number of poets extended the content of their poems to a more elaborate one which investigated the principles of nature and thought. John Donne was part of this literary movement and he explored the themes of love, death, and religion to such an extent, that he instilled his own beliefs and theories into his poems. His earlier works, such as The Flea and The Sunne Rising, exhibit his sexist views of women as he wrote more about the physical pleasures of being in a relationship with women. However, John Donne displays maturity and adulthood in his later works, The Canonization and A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, in which his attitude transcends to a more grown up one. The content of his earlier works focused on pursuing women for his sexual desires, which contrasts heavily with his latter work. John Donne’s desire for physical pleasure subsides and he seeks to gain an emotional bond with women, as expressed in his later poetry.
Ribes, P. (2007, July 16). John Donne: Holy Sonnet XIV or the Plenitude of Metaphor. Retrieved October 6, 2011, from Sederi: http://sederi.org/docs/yearbooks/07/7_16_ribes.pdf
John Donne is unanimously acknowledged as a true metaphysical poet because he made an unlike conceptual thought against the Elizabethan poetry, showed an analytical pattern of love and affection and displayed an essence of dissonance in words and expressions. This paper concentrates on the exploration of the characteristics of Donne’s metaphysical poetry highlighting extended form of epigrams, conceits, paradoxes and ratiocinations. Donne in respect of the manifestation of metaphysical beauty was an unparallel and super ordinate among all poets such as Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, Abraham Cowley, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell and many more. Donne, in fact, gave a breakthrough about the initiation of a new form of poetry-metaphysical poetry. He was natural, unconventional, and persistently believed in the argumentation and cross analysis of his thoughts and emotions through direct languages. He also concentrated on love and religion through intellectual, analytical and psychological point of view. His poetry is not only scholastic and witty but also reflective and philosophical.
Donne, John. "A Valediction of my Name, In the Window." Poems of John Donne - Vol I. Ed.