For Monday, let's continue our practice at analyzing poems by tackling a rather complicated example, "The Canonization," by John Donne. We can start by recognizing that the poem is a little dramatic monologue, with the speaker of the poem addressing an imaginary listener. Let's let the the first commenter analyze the first stanza. The second person to make a comment can agree or disagree with something the first student said, then comment on stanza two. We can continue this for three more people, the third person explaining the third stanza, the fourth explaining the fourth, and the fifth the fifth. Subsequent students can choose any stanza and add to the remarks already made. Remember that you can define words, locate the main subjects and verbs so as to understand what is being said, and try your hand at explaining the metaphysical conceits.Saturday, October 22, 2011
Question for October 24: "The Canonization"
For Monday, let's continue our practice at analyzing poems by tackling a rather complicated example, "The Canonization," by John Donne. We can start by recognizing that the poem is a little dramatic monologue, with the speaker of the poem addressing an imaginary listener. Let's let the the first commenter analyze the first stanza. The second person to make a comment can agree or disagree with something the first student said, then comment on stanza two. We can continue this for three more people, the third person explaining the third stanza, the fourth explaining the fourth, and the fifth the fifth. Subsequent students can choose any stanza and add to the remarks already made. Remember that you can define words, locate the main subjects and verbs so as to understand what is being said, and try your hand at explaining the metaphysical conceits.
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---Dream Big---
ReplyDeleteJohn Donne begins by saying, “For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love, or chide my palsy, or my gout, my five gray hairs, or ruined fortune, flout….” I think he is trying to convey the amount of love he feels for this person and he doesn’t care what anyone says or feels about his love. He wants to be left alone and tries to get the person he’s addressing to focus in on other things such as their, “wealth of state, your mind with arts improve, take you a course, get you a place.” When he tells his addressee to get a “place”, he is telling them to find something to find an appointment in court or elsewhere; he wants them to find something else to preoccupy their thoughts. He doesn’t understand why this person could be focusing so much on how he expresses his love.
He also tells the person that they may go find themselves a place in the king’s court; whatever places the person decides to go, Donne will support as long as he is allowed to love the way he wants to. At the end of the stanza, he states, “Contemplate what you will approve (try), so you will let me love.” The main idea in the first stanza is to get the person he’s addressing know that he is going to love how he sees fit regardless of how others may feel. In essence, the underlying idea of the first stanza stresses how frustrated he is with being judged in regards to his love. He wants to be free to love in peace.
I agree with Dream Big on his/her thoughts about the first stanza. I think that Donne is telling someone who is criticizing him about his love to complain about any of Donne’s faults, to go anywhere and do anything he wants to take his mind off of Donne and his lover but not to talk about his relationship. Now the second stanza is easy, and Donne pretty much sums the whole theme of it up in the first line, “Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?” Six of the nine lines of the stanza are rhetorical questions emphasizing this point. Whose ships did his love drown? Whose lawns died because he cried too much? When did he ruin spring and kill all of the trees with his cold moods because his lover neglected him? They all reflect the same reasoning Donne is trying to convey: his love has not affected anyone else. The last three lines are very close to the same meaning of the earlier lines, “Soldiers find ware, and lawyers find out still litigious men, which quarrels move, though she and I do love.” Donne is telling the person from the first stanza (which could be more than one person; or, since it’s a poem, it probably refers to people talking badly about other’s love in general) that he and his mistress’s relationship has not changed the world, in fact it has barely affected anyone. Soldiers still fight in wars, lawyers still take cases, and people still commit crimes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dandelion on his/her comments about the second stanza. It does seem as if Donne’s rhetorical questions are asking about why others talk poorly of his love with another when his love isn’t affecting them. The Third stanza isn’t much different with the whole theme of his defiant love. “Call us what you will, we are much such by love” –The entity that is me and my lover together, was created by love, and you shouldn’t criticize something so genuine. After the first line he describes his love. Again he uses an insect metaphor. The only difference, in comparison to ‘The Flea’ is that both of them are flies, which stood as a symbol for lustfulness. Then he also addresses them both being tapers, or candles. This candle attracts the fly in until it is trapped for death. So not only are Donne and his lover flies, they are both also tapers. Meaning they both draw each other in and are lustful. “We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die”. Meaning that we are the ones attracting each other, and it will be by our own will that we die, and by die he means experiencing orgasm. He goes on to create yet another metaphor describing his lover. He being the eagle and his lover the dove respectively. The Dove was known for its meekness, and mercy- qualities more fitting for a female while he being the eagle has strength and vision. He describes the couple as being separate persons but in combination they are like a phoenix. “The riddle hath more wit- By us: we too being one, are fit. So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.” The sex-neutral bird, the phoenix contains both of their personas, representing a marriage of man and woman (or dove and eagle). The phoenix is know for it’s immortality and he’s saying that their love will last forever. “We die and rise the same, and prove- Mysterious by this love.” It’s unclear to me if he is still using die as a metaphor for orgasm but I personally don’t believe he is. I almost see that as ‘till death do us part’, defining the resilience and immortality of their love together.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dream Big and Dandelion, Donne is speaking to whomever is criticizing him and his love basically speaking up for his heart. He feels like they should just let him be and let him love. To add to RedBlue in stanza three, He basically is just stating how strong their love is, he states in the first line call us what you want we are made by real love. When he stated in line two "Call her one, me another fly" basically saying in my opinion when you talk about her you are talking about me as well. They love so hard for each other that they are one, such as if they have taken in vows. "We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love.” In my opinion means we live on the same time and we prove our love to everyone mysteriously. With reading stanza three he basically states how they can die trying to prove their love or just live with loving each other. And if they haven't showed how much they love their chronicles will speak for them. Which is having their past speak for them. Saying towards the end their love will build but even as they grow old and turn to ashes their love will still be strong. Using metaphors he speak on how their love will grow and improve by them being canonized for love.
ReplyDelete-Bird91
Red Blue made a good point by saying that the phoenix represents the marriage of the young couple. They are brought together by the phoenix’s fire and made into one. I believe that Donne is saying that he and his lover both find their strong and meek sides. He is trying to suggest that to enter into something as important as marriage you need both things. Donne believes that he loves this woman so deeply that it is “Mysterious” compared to all other love. The Fourth stanza starts out, “We can die by it, if not live by love.” My interpretation of this is that Donne is saying that he would die for his lover. He goes on to describe that since Love is not meant to be put into a “Tomb or Hearse” that it will fit into a verse of poetry. Then Donne says that if he cannot capture his love for her in one verse he will write an entire sonnet for her. In Donnes opinion the sonnet he could write about their love would be seen by many people. Travelers would come see it as if they were visiting ancient burial sites. Passers by would read them and all agree that this man was truly in love. Beyond a doubt and bless the couple so that their love can be accepted by all people as the strongest.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dandelion on his or her opinions about the lines in the second stanza. In most of the stanza, all he is saying that his love has not affected anyone else, and towards the end, he's saying that their relationship has not affected the world because soldiers are still fighting, lawyers still have cases, and people are still committing crimes. In the third stanza, the speaker tells the addressee to "Call us what you will", for it is love that makes them so. He doesn't care about what people have to say about him and his lover because they have love and that's all he's caring about at the moment. Love is what makes them, so everything else is irrelevant. He says the addressee can "Call her one, him another fly", and that they are also like tapers (candles), which burn by feeding upon their own selves ("and at our own cost die"). He uses the word "flies" because flies were emblems of transcience and lustfulness. He uses the word "tapers" because candles attract flies to their death. In eachother the lovers find the eagle and the dove (which could indicate a marriage between a man and a woman). They light up the riddle of the pheonix, meaning that they "die and rise the same" just like the pheonix does. What is not like the pheonix, is the love that slays and resurrects them.
ReplyDelete