Student Question
How would you summarize John Donne's "Satire 3"?
Quick answer:
"Satire 3" by John Donne explores the complex issue of religious choice, highlighting the importance of finding true religion amidst various options like Catholicism, Calvinism, and Anglicanism. Donne critiques each faith's shortcomings, ultimately embracing Anglicanism through elimination rather than enthusiasm. He emphasizes the need for sincerity and following one's conscience in spiritual matters, describing the quest for truth as a challenging journey requiring dedication and personal conviction before life's end.
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 follow was considered essential both to one's earthly wellbeing as well as to the ultimate destiny of the soul.
The question was of especial relevance to Donne as he changed his own religion from the Catholicism of his birth to Anglicanism, where he rose through the ranks of ecclesiastical preferment, eventually becoming dean of St. Paul's Cathedral.
The poem begins in anguish; Donne doesn't know whether to laugh or cry as his soul is wracked with sin, tormented by the prospect of eternal damnation. Complaining about it will do no good at all. The only cure for sin is a devotion to the religious life:
Is not our mistress, fair Religion,As worthy of all our souls' devotionAs virtue was in the first blinded age?
Crantz to such brave loves will not be enthrall'd, But loves her only, who at Geneva is call'd Religion, plain, simple, sullen, young, Contemptuous, yet unhandsome; as among Lecherous humours, there is one that judges No wenches wholesome, but coarse country drudges
Graius is in the position of the ward who unthinkingly follows the guidance of his guardian concerning marriage. And Donne acknowledges the rightness of this approach even though he is acutely aware that "some preachers" are corrupt, selling their Church like pimps ("bawds") sell women. Still, Donne accepts their word. Although it is essential that we find the true religion, Donne also emphasizes the importance of following one's own conscience. The journey will be long and hard, with many steep climbs and twists and turns:Graius stays still at home here, and because Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws, Still new like fashions, bid him think that she Which dwells with us is only perfect, he Embraceth her whom his godfathers will Tender to him, being tender, as wards still Take such wives as their guardians offer, or Pay values.
Whatever destination you arrive at in your faith journey, it is important to be sincere and to go wherever your convictions take you. Donne has made his stand and so must we all while there is still light.On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and he that will Reach her, about must and about must go, And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so. Yet strive so that before age, death's twilight, Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.
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