Donne and Changing Attitudes:
Heightened emotion in all poems = genuine feeling.
Elegy: Mistress Going to Bed: sex/thirsty
Elegy: His Mistress: conquering/exploring a woman, no real respect
Elegy: His Picture: sexually frustrated/controlling – she must be younger than him
Holy Sonnet 9 (poisonous minerals): seeking God’s forgiveness for his youthful
excesses, more mature. No ref to women.
Elegy: The Autumnal: in praise to get £, not to woo. Sexual tone, praising older
women because the uncontrollable fire of their youth has passed.
Elegy: The Comparison: JD is confused by women.
Elegy: Change: more mature, there needs to be a change in the way that we court
people, women should have sex w/more than just one man.
Air and Angels: no sex = no love.
A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day: grieving for his wife,
almost as though all the passion/heightened emotion that was put into his love is now
being put into grief.
Song: Sweetest Love: JD is in love (1st time?), going on an expedition and reassuring
his wife – if it’s his destiny to die, it’s only a temporary situation because he will
reunite w/her in heaven. Likening their love to spirituality.
Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star: women are untrustworthy.
The Legacy: JD is being hurt repeatedly by his lover, but because he loves her, he is
allowing her to continue hurting him.
The Dissolution: rude/immature/early JD, she can orgasm first but his will be better.
The Blossom: JD is saying that true love can only be achieved by a union of
body/mind. Bullying tone – if she doesn’t satisfy him, he will go somewhere else.
Love’s Alchemy: most misogynistic poem, v cynical, love turns something beautiful
into something that is base – women are fake, having sex w/her is like having sex
w/dead meat.
Love’s Deity: JD has fallen in love w/someone who’s already in love; noble tone but
he is trying to steal another woman in the first place.
The Relic: v spiritual, he hopes they’ll be buried together so that they can go to the
next world together.
Love’s Exchange: maturing, finally accepting that love comes w/pain – progressed
from being a lad, to finding ‘the one’.
The Good Morrow: His previous loves were childish in comparison to now. JD
believes that him/lover are equals – V controversial view for the time.
The Sun Rising: 2 young lovers dismiss the outside world and see the sun as an
intruder on their love. Prominent issue w/authority in this poem.
The Canonization: likening a forbidden love to religion. Lovers are like saints/martyrs
– Catholic influence. JD heavily satirises Petrarchan love to highlight how harmless
his love is.
The Anniversary: JD meditates on the timelessness of the unshakeable world of love –
full of arrogance/hyperbole. Critics suggest that this was written on their first wedding
anniversary.
Heightened emotion in all poems = genuine feeling.
Elegy: Mistress Going to Bed: sex/thirsty
Elegy: His Mistress: conquering/exploring a woman, no real respect
Elegy: His Picture: sexually frustrated/controlling – she must be younger than him
Holy Sonnet 9 (poisonous minerals): seeking God’s forgiveness for his youthful
excesses, more mature. No ref to women.
Elegy: The Autumnal: in praise to get £, not to woo. Sexual tone, praising older
women because the uncontrollable fire of their youth has passed.
Elegy: The Comparison: JD is confused by women.
Elegy: Change: more mature, there needs to be a change in the way that we court
people, women should have sex w/more than just one man.
Air and Angels: no sex = no love.
A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day: grieving for his wife,
almost as though all the passion/heightened emotion that was put into his love is now
being put into grief.
Song: Sweetest Love: JD is in love (1st time?), going on an expedition and reassuring
his wife – if it’s his destiny to die, it’s only a temporary situation because he will
reunite w/her in heaven. Likening their love to spirituality.
Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star: women are untrustworthy.
The Legacy: JD is being hurt repeatedly by his lover, but because he loves her, he is
allowing her to continue hurting him.
The Dissolution: rude/immature/early JD, she can orgasm first but his will be better.
The Blossom: JD is saying that true love can only be achieved by a union of
body/mind. Bullying tone – if she doesn’t satisfy him, he will go somewhere else.
Love’s Alchemy: most misogynistic poem, v cynical, love turns something beautiful
into something that is base – women are fake, having sex w/her is like having sex
w/dead meat.
Love’s Deity: JD has fallen in love w/someone who’s already in love; noble tone but
he is trying to steal another woman in the first place.
The Relic: v spiritual, he hopes they’ll be buried together so that they can go to the
next world together.
Love’s Exchange: maturing, finally accepting that love comes w/pain – progressed
from being a lad, to finding ‘the one’.
The Good Morrow: His previous loves were childish in comparison to now. JD
believes that him/lover are equals – V controversial view for the time.
The Sun Rising: 2 young lovers dismiss the outside world and see the sun as an
intruder on their love. Prominent issue w/authority in this poem.
The Canonization: likening a forbidden love to religion. Lovers are like saints/martyrs
– Catholic influence. JD heavily satirises Petrarchan love to highlight how harmless
his love is.
The Anniversary: JD meditates on the timelessness of the unshakeable world of love –
full of arrogance/hyperbole. Critics suggest that this was written on their first wedding
anniversary.
