DONNE CRITICS:
Achsah Guibbery:
Aggressively sexualised.
Allowed his head to govern his heart – didn’t join COE for emotional reasons.
Fear of death haunts Donne’s love poems.
Donne’s attitude towards women and gender roles varies considerably, depending on
the audience.
Clare Middleton:
Sexually confident young man-about-town
Donne’s young man does not ever quite acknowledge his inappropriate tone.
‘Moderating’ ‘quickly adopts’ – often changes his line of argument when the first one
fails.
Undaunted
Pain and suffering are the unwelcome counterparts of happiness and contentment –
Donne’s growing maturity towards love over time.
(Go, and catch a falling star):
o The verse form is choppy and fragmented
o The fluency of the lines is gradually disrupted w/commas as the poem
develops, reinforcing the speaker’s stated inability to sustain any belief in the
existence of ‘a woman true, and fair’.
o Petrarchan list of impossible tasks
o Gulping, staccato rhythms…the contrast w/the lyrical opening line could not
be greater.
(Love’s Growth):
o Emotionally mature man who has found the almost inexpressible contentment
of a relationship that combines both physical and spiritual elements of love.
o Much less emphasis on the ego of the speaker.
C.S. Lewis:
Donne’s real limitation is…that he writes in a chaos of violent and transitory passions.
Izaak Walton:
There are two Donnes: Jack Donne; and Dr John Donne
Helen Gardner:
The brilliant abrupt openings...are like the lump of gold flung down on the table
John Carey:
The complexities are not riddles to be solved, but natural and unresolvable, like
living.
Thomas de Quincey:
A rhetorician, not a poet.
Achsah Guibbery:
Aggressively sexualised.
Allowed his head to govern his heart – didn’t join COE for emotional reasons.
Fear of death haunts Donne’s love poems.
Donne’s attitude towards women and gender roles varies considerably, depending on
the audience.
Clare Middleton:
Sexually confident young man-about-town
Donne’s young man does not ever quite acknowledge his inappropriate tone.
‘Moderating’ ‘quickly adopts’ – often changes his line of argument when the first one
fails.
Undaunted
Pain and suffering are the unwelcome counterparts of happiness and contentment –
Donne’s growing maturity towards love over time.
(Go, and catch a falling star):
o The verse form is choppy and fragmented
o The fluency of the lines is gradually disrupted w/commas as the poem
develops, reinforcing the speaker’s stated inability to sustain any belief in the
existence of ‘a woman true, and fair’.
o Petrarchan list of impossible tasks
o Gulping, staccato rhythms…the contrast w/the lyrical opening line could not
be greater.
(Love’s Growth):
o Emotionally mature man who has found the almost inexpressible contentment
of a relationship that combines both physical and spiritual elements of love.
o Much less emphasis on the ego of the speaker.
C.S. Lewis:
Donne’s real limitation is…that he writes in a chaos of violent and transitory passions.
Izaak Walton:
There are two Donnes: Jack Donne; and Dr John Donne
Helen Gardner:
The brilliant abrupt openings...are like the lump of gold flung down on the table
John Carey:
The complexities are not riddles to be solved, but natural and unresolvable, like
living.
Thomas de Quincey:
A rhetorician, not a poet.
