POETRY-1 (ENG403)

LECTURE – 24

RECAP OF LECTURE 23

• John Donne- representative metaphysical poet– Love songs, hymns, elegies, holy sonnets

• George Herbert• Richard Crashaw• Henry Vaughan

CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY

• Dazzling wordplay• Explicitly sexual• Paradox• Subtle argumentation• Surprising contrasts• Intricate psychological analysis

CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY

• Striking imagery• Far fetched ideas. • Full of logic & reasoning.• Heterogeneous ideas are combined.• Theme like love is experimented like science

DONNE’S POETRY• Secular & Religious Subjects• Contrast to the Petrarchan love-doctrine of his time. • He wrote:

o Songso Sonnetso Divine poemso Elegieso Satireso Verse letterso Historical epistles etc.

CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS POETRY

• His poetical works:o Unsurpassableo Tedious/weird oWire-drawn in their logic o Typical of cross-grainedoMathematical imaginary o Unconventional analogies and comparisons

IMAGERY

• The images:• Circles• Maps• Engravings• Elephants• Flea• Whales• New discoveries etc.

ELEMENTS OF HUMANISM

• Hunger for knowledge• Thirst for unraveling the mystery of Existence• The search of truth• Attitude to Love• Treatment of Love is unconventional

INTELLECTUAL GENIUS OF DONNE

• Differed from Elizabethan love poetry• Rejects the lofty cult of women• No deity/goddess• Challenged the conventions• True love: merger of souls• Two bodies, one soul

THEMES

• Lovers as Microcosm• Neoplatonic Concept of Love• Religious Enlightenment as physical delight• Quest for one true religion

MOTIF/IMAGES• Spheres– Infinite associations– Conceits– Thematic connections

• Discovery & Conquest– Mystery – Magnificence

• Reflections– Eyes– tears

REVIEW OF LECTURE 23

• Go and Catch a Falling Star• Love’s Alchemy

LOVE SONGS

• The Sun Rising• A Valediction: Of Weeping

THE SUN RISING

• BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus,Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices ;Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

THE SUN RISING

• 3 Stanzas• Each Stanza: 10 lines • Rhyme Scheme: ABBACDCDEE• Lines 1,5,6: Iambic Tetrameter• Line 2: Diameter• Lines 3,4 7,8,9,10: Pentameter

BUSY old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ?

• Personifies Sun

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices ;Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

• Hyperbole

Thy beams so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou think ?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, But that I would not lose her sight so long.

If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and to-morrow late tell me,

Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ;Nothing else is ;

Princes do but play us ; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

• Metaphor

Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus ;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

• Microcosm of World

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

• Renaissance Element

A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING

• LET me pour forthMy tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,And by this mintage they are something worth.For thus they bePregnant of thee ;Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more ;When a tear falls, that thou fall'st which it bore ;So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING

• 3 Stanzas• Each Stanza: 9 Lines• Rhyme Scheme ABBACCDDD

IMAGERY

• Money • Cartographer• Moon

LET me pour forthMy tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,

For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,And by this mintage they are something worth.

• Metaphor- Money

For thus they bePregnant of thee ;

Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more ;When a tear falls, that thou fall'st which it bore ;So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers

shore.

On a round ballA workman, that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.

• Metaphor- mapmaker

So doth each tear,Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow

This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolvèd so.

O ! more than moon,Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere ;Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear

To teach the sea, what it may do too soon ;

• Metaphor- moon

Let not the windExample find

To do me more harm than it purposeth :Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,

Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.

 

REVIEW OF LECTURE 24

• The Sun Rising• A Valediction: Of Weeping

• Holy Sonnets