Tuesday, November 4, 2008

"The Funeral," by John Donne

Vanessa & Amanda

The Funeral By John Donne


The author of The Funeral was religious man who was born in the year of 1572 in London. He was a poet who wrote many renowned sonnets, and being somewhat of an outsider, was never censored in what he wrote. However, when England made a shift to anti-roman sentiment, Catholics and their church were persecution and harassment. Around the 1590’s John converted to the English church because he could no longer tolerate the strict Catholic Church and the issues that surrounded it. He later became an ordained minister of the Church of England and was very successful.

Words we need to know!
1. Viceroy: a governor of a country or province who rules as the representative of his or her king or sovereign.
2. Manacled: to be chained at the wrists of hips.
3. Dissolution: the termination of a meeting or relationship.
4. Sinewy: Possessing physical strength and weight
5. Relics: ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated.

Questions for thought!
1. How is John Donne’s past reflected in his poetry.
2. Is this “mistress” metaphysical manifestation for Johns love of Poetry or literally his mistress?
3. What is the significance of the title?
4. What is the undertone of this poem, meaning is this a depressing poem or perhaps an uplifting one.
5. How does this poem reflect John’s opinion of himself?


Summary & Analysis
The poem begins with the narrator advising those who come to see his literal dead body to not question or touch the “subtle wreath of hair which crowns his arm”, because it is his outward soul. He talks about ascending towards heaven because he is a “Viceroy to that” meaning that he was always a servant of god. He will go to heaven and god will do what he pleases to do with him, while his provinces, the activities he achieved on earth, will remain on earth. In the next stanza he talks about his literal death in comparison to the greater idea that the poem addresses which is the idea of his eternal being. He will last forever by word of poetry. So in other words this poem in our oppion is similar to many lover he has composed, only this love is poetry.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Air and Angels

Gideon

Elina

  1. Air and Angels by John Donne
  2. Persecuted for being born a catholic, John Donne converted to the Church of England, only to become a minister in his later years. Donne’s life contained many ups and downs, which his works reflect. Donne had a long and prosperous marriage; the father of 12 children, he wrote many different poems on the topic of love.

3. Some lovely glorious nothing did I see. – He couldn’t see the spiritual beauty, “true love”, that a woman could.

But since my soul, whose child love is, - Due to the less holy state of his soul, he experiences love physically.

Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do, - The only way that he could experience love was through the body.

So thy love may be my love's sphere – So that his sphere could be within her sphere. In some way her sphere transcends his sphere.

As is 'twixt air's and angels' purity, 'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be. – Similar to the difference between Angels and Air, although men’s love is great, women’s love is more spiritual and a “better” love than men’s.

4. - How is the difference between air and angels comparable to the difference between men and women’s love?

- What is the speaker’s attitude toward the difference between men and women’s love?

- Why is the speaker able to love only in a physical sense?

- How does this poem compare to some of Donne’s other works? Do you think that the poem is similar to other contemporary English poems?

- What do the first two lines mean?

5. The speaker begins the poem by addressing a woman that he is in love with. He states that he loved her before he knew her physically. The speaker begins to talk about the way he loves. Unable to love in a spiritual sense, he states that he is nothing without his body; the only way he can experience love is through physicality. Throughout the first half of the poem the speaker talks about love in terms of humans. He then explores what love means in terms of ballasts, pinnaces, and boats. Finally he reaches what is to be the main point of the poem when talking about spiritual love. First talking about the different spheres of love, the speaker then compares the difference between air and angels to the difference between men and women’s love. While air is pure in a physical sense, angels have a spirituality that transcends the purity of air. Similarly, while men can love in a physical sense, women can love in a spiritual way that transcends physical love. The poem examines the difference in the way people love, making it clear that women are able to love spiritually while men cannot.