Thematic Comparison of Lovelace’s To Lucasta and Donne’s Song
Modern perceptions of love as expressed in literature-- with gender equality and the abandonment of expected role-playing-- did not arbitrarily become pervasive, but are the product of centuries of incremental progression. The seventeenth century in particular provided a foundation for this progression, as poets for the very first time began to question the dictated structure and male domination of the Elizabethan era. Two poems of the seventeenth century, the cavalier "To Lucasta on Going to the Wars" by Richard Lovelace and the metaphysical "Song" by John Donne, each focusing on the pain inflicted by different aspects of love, employ tactics emblematic of the century’s poetry to demonstrate love’s puzzling nature. Both ostensible attempts to comfort their audiences by universalizing and morally justifying love’s baneful realities, they eventually fail and leave their audiences with only exacerbated pain. "To Lucasta," Lovelace’s attempt to justify his departure from his lover Lucasta for the British Civil War by subjugating his sensual love to honor, fails in its illogical and contradictory nature, and acknowledges the ability of love’s endurance to victimize man, while "Song," by trying to alleviate the pain of fleeting love, only underscores love’s inevitable elusiveness.
Lovelace, one of the preeminent cavalier poets of the seventeenth century, attempts to use his particular situation with his lover Lucasta as well as an appeal to honor and patriotism to justify to all soldiers the departure of their lovers, but the poem’s inconsistencies obviate success. Throughout the poem, Lovelace’s mind, understanding the need to go to battle, remains at war with hi...
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...love for his precious Lucasta, however, inconsistencies and wavering pervade his writing, and reveal his involuntary mockery of soldierly values and his unbreakable bond to Lucasta. As he must venture into battle, he becomes a victim of love’s enduring impregnability.
Donne, in his "Song" attempts at first to comfort all men who have encountered the difficulties of romantic relations. With his strong, dominating voice, however, he obliterates the prospects of enduring love. Much the opposite of Lovelace, Donne delineates himself as a victim of love’s elusiveness. What the two poems have in common is their discomforting effect on their audiences resulting from their eventual resignation to their respective perceived realities. For Lovelace, this reality is a future of battle and a separation from all that matters; for Donne, it is a life void of enduring love.
Perhaps it is Shakespeare’s last unspoken word on the concept of love: childlike and mischievous. For those under love’s spell, perception becomes distorted in the subjectivity of the imagination rather than the objectivity of truth. Helena’s metaphor effectively imparts Shakespeare’s notion that Love has a beguiling and capricious nature. For Shakespeare, lover’s left disillusioned and irrational is conceivably the happiest
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.
John Donne's view of love deviated greatly from the Medieval philosophy of courtly love, which had been expressed in poetry handed down from the sonnets of such poetic giants as Sidney and Petrarch. The general verse until then had focused greatly on the unrivalled importance of love in the context of the life of the poet (or his creation's voice). Until then, "love" had consisted mostly of an obsession with one woman, and an exploration of the feelings and situations that this caused in the narrator.
Victor grows up in school both on the American Indian Reservation, then later in the farm town junior high. He faces serious discrimination at both of these schools, due to his Native American background. This is made clear in both of the schools by the way the other students treat him as well as how his teachers treat him. His classmates would steal his glasses, trip him, call him names, fight him, and many other forms of bullying. His teachers also bullied him verbally. One of his teachers gave him a spelling test and because he aced it, she made him swallow the test. When Victor was at a high school dance and he passed out on the ground. His teacher approached him and the first thing he asked was, “What’s that boy been drinking? ...
The concept of love has long been the preferred topic of conversation among prominent male poets. Towards the closing of the sixteenth century, however, the emerging of the female poet took place. With the introduction of Queen Elizabeth, an initial path was now cleared for future women poets to share their views on the acclaimed topic of love. Due to this clashing of ideas, the conflicting views of two exceedingly different sexes could manifest itself. Who better to discuss the topic of love then Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who expresses her ideas with intelligence comparable to the best male poets, and Emerson, world renowned for his poignant opinions? In accordance with the long history of conflict between males and females, both Emerson’s "Give All to Love" and Browning’s "Sonnet 43" convey the pleasure love brings, but while Emerson’s poem urges the retention of individualism in a relationship, Browning pleads for a complete surrender to love.
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Even though they were centuries apart, both Aristotle and John Donne share the same opinion that “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Donne captures this beautiful idea of a spiritual love in a poem called Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, written for his wife before he left on a trip in 1611. In only nine stanzas, John Donne presents the ideals for true love; the forbidding mourning due to their physical separation through metaphors such as the “trepidation of the Spheres”, “expansion of gold thread”, and the “union of a compass”; and it will come to prove that True love is a spiritual love that will transcend any physical love.
John Donne, a famous poet in the 17th century, was well known for writing love poems. In his early years, Donne was a Catholic Priest who in his later converted to church of England and became an Anglican Priest. During this period, he wrote poems that reflected his religious views and his love for his wife Ann. In one of his poems, John Donne uses the word Canonization to confuse his readers to believing that the poem is about religious views. However, he actually uses the word ‘Canonization’ to talk about love tribulations. John Donne’s poem, ‘Canonization’, is a unique creation which was not unusual for poetry written by poets of his day. Canonization, can be said to have a lot of hidden meaning that can be compared to the poet’s own life experiences and it is also contradictory to what the word ‘Canonization’ really means. Donne makes the readers change their opinion on what they already know about love and believe his concepts on love.
In this essay I would like to emphasize different ideas of how love is understood and discussed in literature. This topic has been immortal. One can notice that throughout the whole history writers have always been returning to this subject no matter what century people lived in or what their nationality was.
John Donne and William Shakespeare are each notorious for their brilliant poetry. William Shakespeare is said to be the founder of proper sonnets, while John Donne is proclaimed to be the chief metaphysical poet. Each poet has survived the changing centuries and will forever stand the test of time. Although both John Donne and William Shakespeare share a common theme of love in their poems, they each use different tactics to portray this underlying meaning. With a closer examination it can be determined that Donne and Shakespeare have similar qualities in their 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.
LOVE is word we Homo sapiens have defined and yet struggled to understand throughout time and different cultures. It is a word that can mean simultaneously both pain and ecstasy. Such a simple four-letter word has been the bane of some poet’s existence and at the same time been the muse for others. When pondered about, love can be determined as an easy emotion but at the same time vastly hard to achieve. This contradiction and overall ideology has been the topic of poets, writers and artist since humans first invented the word. Divided by two different artistic movements, both Sir Thomas Wyatt and William Shakespeare were no strangers to the subject of love. While Wyatt wrote primarily poems and is credited as the father of sonnets, Shakespeare wrote both plays and sonnets. Each author tackle’s the subject from there own prospective and offers their thoughts on what they think the word love means. Two sonnets that can represent both authors’ attitudes on love are Wyatt’s “The Long Love” and Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130”. While some similarities between “Sonnet 130” and “The Long Love” are evident, the differences are striking. Both sonnets offering wonderful examples on what two brilliant minds think of the overdone and universal theme of love.
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John Donne lived in an era when the lyric was at its pinnacle. Poets were writing well-rounded, almost musical poetry on subjects that ranged from all kinds of love to enchantment with nature. Donne could not help but revolt against this excess of fluency and melody. John Donne's style stands in such sharp contrast to the accepted Elizabethan lyrical style that it becomes difficult to accept the fact that his works date from the same era. To highlight this statement, one has to compare a typical Elizabethan lyric to one of Donne's works.