Donne Love Poetry example essay topic
482 words
John Donne's poetry John Donne's finest achievements can be found in his love poetry. The Sunne Rising, A valediction Forbidding Mourning and The Relique are three examples of this. Whether speaking directly or indirectly to his subject, in each of the poems, Donne describes his love for his lady. He does this using personification, metaphors, rhetorical devices and many other techniques to strengthen the argument he is presenting. The Sunne Rising is set in bed with Donne's lover. The poem is directed at the sun but is talking, for the majority of the poem, above how great the couple's love is for each other. Donne begins the poem by scolding the sun for interrupting them; "Busi e old fool e, unruly Sunne, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us?" In this sentence Donne tells the sun to leave them and then in the next couple of lines, questions the sun why everybody should move to it's timing. Donne then goes on to say that their love is so great that they shouldn't have to obey anybody else's timing. Donne finishes the poem by saying that the couple are the world and that the sun should revolve around them instead of bothering with others. This is a technique called a conceit and is used often by Donne.
He began his poem by simply telling the sun to leave them and ended up convincing us that Donne and his lover are the whole world and that the sun only shines for them. He uses this technique so subtly that it is hard to grasp his plan until the end of the poem by which time he has already persuaded us. A valediction: Forbidding Mourning is again, about his love for a lady but this time, it is directed at her. Donne is going away for a short while and the poem is telling her to hold strong to their love and he will return.
Donne uses another conceit in this poem but this time compares their love to a compass. His argument is that when he leaves, she will remain firm at home: the fixed foot, and he will roam but then return to where he began. Again Donne convinces us that two things, so unalike at first glance, could really be so similar. In the third poem, The Relique, Donne again uses conceit as a technique. The poem starts with his grave being 'dug up', as an ordinary person's would be in those days, and goes on to compare Donne and his lady to saints and then to miracles.
Donne love poetry is a very fine achievement and the poems are written so skilfully that he always manages to persuade the reader of the most unlikely comparisons in them.
