|The Love Poetry of John Donne | |
|by Ian Mackean | |
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| |John Donne's Songs and Sonnets do not describe a single unchanging view of love; they express a wide variety of emotions and |[|
| |attitudes, as if Donne himself were trying to define his experience of love through his poetry. Love can be an experience of the |p|
| |body, the soul, or both; it can be a religious experience, or merely a sensual one, and it can give rise to emotions ranging from |i|
| |ecstasy to despair. Taking any one poem in isolation will give us a limited view of Donne's attitude to love, but treating each |c|
| |poem as part of a totality of experience, represented by all the Songs and Sonnets, it gives us an insight into the complex range |]|
| |of experiences that can be grouped under the single heading 'Love'. |[|
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| |In 'To his Mistris Going to Bed' we see how highly Donne can praise sensual pleasure. He addresses the woman as: |i|
| |Oh my America, my new found lande, |c|
| |My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man'd, |]|
| |My myne of precious stones, my Empiree [1] |[|
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|The images are of physical, material wealth, and anyone reading this poem alone would think Donne's interest in women was limited to the|
|sexual level. He describes sex in terms of a religious experience; the woman is an 'Angel', she provides 'A heaven like Mahomet's |
|Paradise', and the bed is 'loves hallow'd temple'. But although erotic, this is not a love