First Looking At Donne's Poems example essay topic

Grant Mitchell-Yr 12-Mr Edwards-Assessment task-Critical Studies of texts The songs and sonnets of John Donne all share the common feature of exploring important ideas and concerns. His poems are great literary texts in the sense that the ideas conveyed in his poems, would have at the time, and still are today considered to be important moral issues. Society would regard his work as something that is worthy of the expression of feelings through poetry. By looking at the idea of love, he is ensuring that his poems would spark some kind of interest with almost anyone who reads them, as most people have some kind of experience with love and would easily be able to relate their own feelings to those of Donne.

In 'The Sunny Rising' he talks about the sun coming trough his window and disturbing him and his lover from their sleep. "Busy old fool, unruly sun, why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains call on us?" This is something that most people can relate to, laying in bed with the sun coming through the window and disturbing you from your sleep. Most people would agree that the sun is unpleasant to wake up to in the morning, so by using those three lines to begin his poem, he automatically captivates most readers, making them agree with his complaint to the sun and ensuring that the reader will wish to continue reading. Donne also explored the important ideas and concerns that people may have held towards religion. He showed through his poems that he is a true man of god.

This is an attitude that would have also extended to the majority of the people at the time the poem was written. Peoples lives were still very much dominated by the church, so writings which elevated the churches positions, such as Donnes poetry, would have been easily accepted by the people and leaders of society at the time. Donne's poetry is written in a way which, after reading a poem once the reader has quite a vague understanding of what Donne is trying to say. His verses are written using very vague and open terms, which can be interpret ated in many different ways. By using these vague terms, Donne gives the reader the chance to change the meaning of his poems slightly, to suit each readers own particular feelings towards the ideas expressed in the poem. By doing this he allows each reader to have a personalised understanding of the poem.

His writing is also extremely well written in the sense that hearing the poem read aloud compared with reading it yourself can give you very different perspectives on the poem. His writings have a great sense of rhythm to them, so that when read aloud, with proper emphasis you can get a much more well defined tone to the poetry, which along with its good sense of natural rhythm allows it to be understood and evaluated more clearly by the reader. This technique is one of the things that first struck me about Donne's poetry. He also explores the notion of love extremely well in 'A valediction; forbidding mourning'. In this poem he takes an interesting perspective of love.

He uses a very literal and unromantic metaphor to represent his and his partners love, "as stiff twin compasses are two, thy soul the fixt foot". By using this technique it gives the reader an excellent literal image of his love for his partner. The compass legs representing each lover, the distance between the two points the distance between the lovers, and the fix part of the compass shows that no matter how far the lovers travel from each other, their souls are still always going to be joined. When first looking at Donne's poems, it is easy to not understand exactly what is being said until you examine it more carefully. As you look deeper into the poems, you can see the complexicity of the issues.

It is also obvious the fact that there are many different interpretations offered to the reader. The deeper you look into the poems, the more the issues, which are first presented on the surface, can be examined and it is then that the reader can fully interpret the poetry and open the text up to a whole lot of different interpretations. By looking at the different possible interpretations, the reader gets a better understanding of exactly what Donne was trying to say in his writings. The message that Donne is trying to express may not necessarily be the same as what the reader interprets, but it is important to understand that there is no need for it to be.

If the reader can read a poem, interpret it totally differently to the way the writer did and yet still understand the poem, still let the poem deliver a message to them then the poet has shown incredible talent in the fact that he can reach the readers emotions, make them think about an issue even when they are not necessarily thinking along the same chain of thought. Donnes poetry overall does express the features of a great literary text in the sense that it does explore important ideas, it does have distinct literary qualities and yes it is open to different interpretations but what is important to note is the unique way in which Donne does these things. By keeping his work original and inventive it gives the instant impression that this is something new, something different and it automatically promotes the readers creative thought, which in turn helps with interpreting the poetry.