Analysis

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"The Ecstasy" is a metaphysical poem written by famed English poet John Donne. It is commonly referred to as "The Extasie," as this is the poem's original title. It consists of 76 lines, which are sometimes organized into 19 stanzas. Each line is in iambic tetrameter, and each stanza follows a basic abab rhyme scheme.

"The Ecstasy" is considered to be one of Donne's most popular love poems; however, there are some critics, poets, and writers who feel that the poem is a bit too explicit. (C. S. Lewis notably thought that the poem's argument that the body can express the soul's pure and divine love through sex was "singularly unpleasant.") Nonetheless, the majority of analysts agree that the poem is one of Donne's most influential and meaningful, as well as one of the most complex poems in his literary opus. According to some, Donne wrote the poem to showcase his endless devotion to his wife, whom he loved dearly.

The poem is essentially about the connection and relationship between body and soul. Donne agrees with Plato's philosophy on love and soulmates, and believes that the purest form of love is born when the souls of two lovers connect spiritually. As a Christian, he also agrees with the Christian teaching that the state of ecstasy that lovers feel is a way to connect and communicate with God and divine forces. 

However, unlike Plato and the Church, Donne argues that the most authentic way for souls to achieve pure spiritual love and connection is to connect physically—or, in other words, sexually. Thus, Donne is one of the first poets of his time to present the act and the concept of sexual pleasure in a more modern context.

Donne doesn't explicitly say that sex is the only way to achieve true love, but he argues that physical connection between bodies is as important and necessary as spiritual connection between souls. To strengthen his point, Donne uses numerous metaphors of connection and imbrication, all of which conform to two central ideas: first, that the body is an essential means of allowing souls to communicate ("Love's mysteries in souls do grow, / But yet the body is his book"), and second, that attempting to sever this fundamental connection between body and soul is akin to destroying the "subtle knot which makes us man."

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