John Donne

In the first stanza, the speaker discusses how he first experienced romantic love in abstract form, as a desire for love. However, a desire for love could not, by itself, satisfy him. The speaker...

John Donne is an early seventeenth-century literary trailblazer. He is the most important of a group of poets later called the metaphysicals. He was also, in his role as an Anglican priest, the...

This is one of those poems that Donne wrote before he turned religious. It's goal is seduction. In short, the woman he is dreaming about awakens him. He tries to seduce her, but she refuses. He...

Imagery is describing using the five sense of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. If you can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch an item in a poem, then it is an image. In this poem, Donne's...

Samuel Johnson said of metaphysical poetry: [In it, t]he most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together Johnson's is an unflattering way of putting it, but Donne's metaphysical imagery...

In "A Farewell to Love" the speaker expresses both awareness and remorse at his seemingly insatiable sexual appetite. This dissolute young man appears regretful of the way in which he's worshipped...

With so many important poets dominating the time periods you mention, the scope of your question is enormous! However, I’ll try to answer it as succinctly as possible in the space we have available...

"The Legacy," a poem written by John Donne, a poet during the reign of James I in England, is a love poem. This is a lovely poem about how much the speaker loves the woman in his life. He first...

John Donne's "love lyrics" were not published until after his death. It is assumed that they were written before he married Anne More. These poems are sometimes what one would expect of a more wild...

Metaphysical poetry came out of 17th century England. It is characterized by strange conceits (comparisons), images, or paradoxes (seemingly contradictory statements that actually have truth to...

John Donne was a metaphysical poet, which means going beyond or transcending the physical or material world. In terms of understanding his context or time period, Donne was a clergyman who believed...

Here are some possible responses to your question: So-called “metaphysical” poetry often seems highly learned and intellectual. Donne was himself a highly learned and intellectual man. He...

Recurring themes are found throughout Donne's work. The younger Donne tended to pose as something of a rake, writing witty poems of satire and seduction. He belongs to the group of poets often...

One theme that weaves through the majority of John Donne's works is love or romance. He was unique in his era for being fairly straightforward in his notions and descriptions of sex, with many...

I will paraphrase and also provide some possible interpretation of the meaning of Donne's lines in "Air and Angels." The speaker begins: Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee, Before I knew thy face...

Donne was a cleric (priest) in the Church of England and rose through the hierarchy to become the Dean of London's St. Paul's Cathedral. He is known for sleeping in a coffin to remind himself of...

In "Batter My Heart, three-person'd God," Donne draws liberally upon biblical imagery in calling upon the Almighty to take hold of and consume him. The opening quatrain is replete with verbs...

In Donne's work as a whole we see a split between, on the one hand, what C.S. Lewis called "the dazzling sublimity of his religious poems" and, on the other, a reveling in sexual themes which some...

The early poetry of John Donne uses metaphysical conceits to show the physical union of the male and female, husband and wife, lover and mistress. His complex use of conceits compares to the act of...

Samuel Johnson coined the term metaphysical and described the metaphysical poetry of the seventeenth century as follows: the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art...

The easiest way to talk about metrical feet is to explain it in terms of cadence, or the "beat." If you try to read the poem slowly, you will find that it has a series of predictable "ups" and...

The answer to this question could all depend on which of his many poems you wanted to believe reveal his attitude. He is well known for his love poems, and in those he is very much in praise of...

John Donne uses apostrophe, or direct address, by talking to his beloved in this poem: he speaks directly to her to reassure her that he will not be gone long on his journey. He uses enjambment, or...

Samuel Johnson, who came up with the term "metaphysical" to describe seventeenth-century poets like Donne, stated that in their poems, The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together;...

John Donne’s poetry often uses “conceits” – that is, comparisons in which the similarities between two things are explained over the course of several lines (or even multiple stanzas) rather than...

I. My name, here written, Adds my own strength and permanence to this window, A window that since I added my self to it has been As strong and permanent as me;Your gaze will make it even...

Here’s how I interpret it: All human beings have lustful desires that need to be quashed. All human beings are inherently sinful, and it is only through vigilance that they avoid sin. There are...

In poems like "Loves Growth" and "The Extasie" Donne argues that body and soul should be closely associated for a fulfilling and loving relationsip. Love is therefore conceived as both physical and...

In the opening metaphor of this sonnet, Donne imagines life as a play; as he is now approaching his "last scene," the play—the speaker's life—must soon come to an end. This is a euphemistic way to...

John Donne's poetry evolved over his lifetime from witty and cynical to profoundly religious, and also reflected his conversion from the Roman Catholicism into which he was born to Anglicanism, and...

It appears that Grierson's own view is that Donne is a realist but not truly an intellectual, if I understand him correctly: A metaphysical, a philosophical poet to the degree to which even his...

"A Jet Ring Sent" and "The Triple Fool" are both love poems by John Donne. More specifically, they are poems about the pains of unrequited love. Neither is addressed to the beloved, and, in fact,...

Donne's "Satire 3" is a characteristically learned and witty meditation on the subject of religion. Religious matters were hugely important in Donne's day, and the question of which religion to...

In John Donne’s poem titled “Satire 3,” the speaker urges readers to “seek true religion.” This advice is relevant to issues of freedom of conscience in a number of different ways, including the...

John Donne is an Elizabethan poet who was also a satirist, lawyer, and a priest. His vast experience with the subject of humanities through both his law and religious careers made him the perfect...

The "Metaphysical Poets" or the "School of Donne" was simply a group of poets inspired by (or having works similar to) John Donne. Metaphysics, in general, is the speculation on basic principles...

It depends what you mean by a "holy message." Clearly, these two poems are both very religious in their theme and nature, and express an intimate relationship between the speaker and his God....

The Metaphysical poets did not exist as a "band" of writers. Instead, these poets were placed together (historically by Samuel Johnson) based upon the similarities of their writings. Not known to...

In “The Broken Heart,” John Donne uses word choice describing disease, violence, and destruction to show that love is an unstoppable force that causes one much sorrow and heartbreak. In the first...

Actually, it was Samuel Johnson who coined the phrase "metaphysical" in reference to John Donne's poetry. Dryden used the word "metaphysics" to describe, what he thought, Donne's over-intellectual...

John Donne gives us the first hint of the poem's meaning with the title. Alchemy was a precursor to modern day chemistry. Those who performed alchemy believed they could change substances into...

John Donne's poem "Aire and Angels" points out the separation between physical love of this world and that which is heavenly. This is, in fact, one of the many themes in Donne's poem: ...love and...

The phrase "metaphysical poetry" was initially used disparagingly by John Dryden (1631-1700) and Samuel Johnson (1709-84) who applied it to a group of seventeenth-century poets, whom they...

Donne's poems definitely qualify as belonging to the metaphysical school. The metaphysical poets (though they were only stylistically affiliated, not personally) include a small number of early...

One way in which it is possible to mine for argumentative topics about John Donne's poetry is to take a look at parts of his life to see how they might have influenced his style or choice of...

Three motifs in "The Triple Fool" are wise/wiseman, love/pain/grief, and fool. The motif of the fool may be the best for illustrating how motifs present and connect to a work's central ideas....