Metaphysical Poetry on Love

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Metaphysical Poetry on Love

• John Donne and Andrew Marvell

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Outline

• An Example first Valediction Forbidding
  Mourning Watch out for logical transition,
  original figurative language (conceit)
• Platonic Love
• Metaphysical Poetry Defined
• Metaphysical Poetry in Context

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A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

• AS virtuous men pass mildly away,      And
  whisper to their souls to go,  Whilst some of
  their sad friends do say,     "Now his breath
  goes," and some say, "No."                     
• So let us melt, and make no noise,       No
  tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move 'Twere
  profanation of our joys      To tell the laity
  our love. 

Proposition
Melt disappear as if by dissolving
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A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

• Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears    
  Men reckon what it did, and meant
                    But trepidation of the
  spheres,      Though greater far, is innocent. 
• Dull sublunary lovers' love      Whose soul is
  sensecannot admit  Of absence, 'cause it doth
  remove  
• The thing which elemented it. 
• But we by a love so much refined,     That
  ourselves know not what it is,  Inter-assurèd of
  the mind,      Care less, eyes, lips and hands
  to miss.                          

Explanation
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A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

• Our two souls therefore, which are one,     
  Though I must go, endure not yet  A breach, but
  an expansion,      Like gold to aery thinness
  beat. 
• If they be two, they are two so    
•     As stiff twin compasses are two   Thy soul,
  the fix'd foot, makes no show      To move, but
  doth, if th' other do. 
• And though it in the centre sit,      Yet, when
  the other far doth roam,      It leans, and
  hearkens after it,      And grows erect, as that
  comes home. 
• Such wilt thou be to me, who must,     Like th'
  other foot, obliquely run Thy firmness makes
  my circle just,  
•     And makes me end where I begun.

Elaboration and Conclusion
Obliquely not straight, devious
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"A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" Platonic
Love

• Form nine four-line tetrameter stanzas, rhyming
  abab, cdcd, and so on.
•   How does the speaker compare the love of him
  and his lover with that of "laity" (l. 8) or
  "dull sublunary lovers" (13)?
• e.g. the difference of their parting movements
  like those of earthquake and the movement of
  heavenly spheres (stanza 3)
• the difference of their attitudes toward parting
  (stanzas 4 and 5).
• Out of sight, out of mind
• Departure as expansion, love made truer through
  trials.

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"Valediction (???) farewell utterances

• Parting compared to
• death of virtuous men,
• movement of heavenly spheres,
• the beating of gold foil
• The two feet of a compass? What do you think
  about the idea of having one foot fixed in the
  center, while the other making a circle around?

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Donnes Neo-Platonic Love

• the preeminence of soul over body, the
  distinction between love and lust, and the
  goodness of striving for perfection through
  devotion to a woman's beauty.
• Source (1) Plato
• beauty proceeds in a series of steps
• from the love of one beautiful body
• to that of two,
• to the love of physical beauty in general, and
  ultimately to beauty absolute the source and
  cause of all that perishing beauty of all other
  things." 

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Donnes Neo-Platonic Love

• Source (2) the Renaissance Platonic lover
• Christianized by equating this ultimate beauty
  with the Divine Beauty of God,
• move in stages through the desire for his
  mistress, whose beauty he recognizes as an
  emanation of God's, to the worship of the Divine
  itself. 
• embraces sexuality (the mystical union of souls)
  which is directed to an ideal end.

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John Donne (1572-1631)

• Donne had refused to take Anglican orders in
  1607, but King James persisted, so finally Donne
  gave in. (source)
• Started to write holy sonnets after the death of
  his wife in 1617.

• Having inherited a considerable fortune, young
  "Jack Donne" spent his money on womanizing, on
  books, at the theatre, and on travels.
• Secret marriage in 1601, which got him
  imprisoned.

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The Flea Starting Questions

• (note)
• How is the flea used in the speakers persuasion
  of his lady to go to bed? Describe the speaker's
  tone.
• Why does the speaker say that to kill the flea
  would be "three sins in killing three"?
• In the third stanza, the woman has killed the
  flea. What is the speaker's response to that?
  Does he change his position?
• How would you argue against the speaker if you
  were the lady?

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The Flea

• MARK but this flea, and mark in this,How little
  that which thou deniest me is It suck'd me
  first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our
  two bloods mingled be.Thou know'st that this
  cannot be saidA sin, nor shame, nor loss of
  maidenhead     Yet this enjoys before it woo, 
    And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two
      And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

1. The flea where two bloods mingle before
wooing pregnancy before marriage
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The Flea (2)

• O stay, three lives in one flea spare,Where we
  almost, yea, more than married are.This flea is
  you and I, and thisOur marriage bed, and
  marriage temple is.Though parents grudge, and
  you, we're met,And cloister'd in these living
  walls of jet.    Though use make you apt to kill
  me,    Let not to that self-murder added be,   
  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

(use habit) 2. The flea three lives marriage
bed and temple? killing the flea refusing sex
self-murder, killing me and sacrilege and 3
sins
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The Flea

• Cruel and sudden, hast thou sincePurpled thy
  nail in blood of innocence?Wherein could this
  flea guilty be,Except in that drop which it
  suck'd from thee?Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st
  that thouFind'st not thyself nor me the weaker
  now.'Tis true then learn how false fears be
  Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to
  me,Will waste, as this flea's death took life
  from thee.

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The Flea -- Notes

• the 17-century idea was of sex as a "mingling of
  the blood It was believed that women became
  pregnant when the blood of the man (present in
  his semen) mixed with her blood during sexual
  intercourse.
• The Flea -- "Fleas were a popular subject for
  jocose humorous and amatory love poetry in
  all countries at the Renaissance". Their
  popularity stems from an event that happened in a
  literary salon (a place where poets and others
  came to recite poetry and converse). The salon
  was run by two ladies, and on an occasion a flea
  happened to land upon one lady's breast. The
  poets were amazed at the creature's audacity, and
  were inspired to write poetry about the beast.
  (source)

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The Flea -- as a Metaphysical Conceit

• The Flea Flea sex as no loss gt Flea Church,
  etc. gt Flea no loss
• this mingling of blood, causing a swell ? 3
  lives
• more than married ? the flea as their temple and
  bed we cloister'd in these living walls of jet
  
• Killing the flea 1) kill three lives, a
  "sacrilege" 2) kill/lose nothing, just as your
  losing your virginity

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The Flea -- the other poetic device

• Iambic, three nine-line stanzas, identical in
  form. . (The first six lines alternate,
  triameter, then tetrameter, rhyming aabbcc. The
  seventh line is trimeter, the eighth and ninth,
  tetrameter. ddd).
• Direct address and Casual tone Mark but this
  flea...
• Repetition And mark in this
• Imagery religious (church, cloysterd, sacrilege,
  three sins in killing three - more holy trinity
  imageryblood of innocence ) and sexual (mingle)
  
• Argument sophistry-- Circular argument. The flea
  starts and ends as nothing.

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Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

• Marvell was engaged in political activities,
  taking part in embassies to Holland and Russia
  and writing political pamphlets and satires.
• A controversial person (one with a sense of
  balance and fairness a bad-tempered,
  hard-drinking lifelong bachelor) and an
  unclassifiable poet

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To his Coy Mistress
Premise 1 time and space enough

• HAD we but world enough, and time,
• This coyness, Lady, were no crime
• We would sit down and think which way
• To walk and pass our long love's day.
• Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
• Shouldst rubies find I by the tide
• Of Humber would complain. I would
• Love you ten years before the Flood,
• And you should, if you please, refuse

• Till the conversion of the Jews.
• My vegetable love should grow
• Vaster than empires, and more slow
• An hundred years should go to praise
• Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze
• Two hundred to adore each breast,
• But thirty thousand to the rest
• An age at least to every part,
• And the last age should show your heart.
• For, Lady, you deserve this state,
• Nor would I love at lower rate.

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To his Coy Mistress

• Now therefore, while the youthful hue
• Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
• And while thy willing soul transpires
• At every pore with instant fires,
• Now let us sport us while we may,
• And now, like amorous birds of prey,
• Rather at once our time devour
• Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
• Let us roll all our strength and all
• Our sweetness up into one ball,
• And tear our pleasures with rough strife
• Thorough the iron gates of life
• Thus, though we cannot make our sun
• Stand still, yet we will make him run.

•  But at my back I always hear
• Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near
• And yonder all before us lie
• Deserts of vast eternity.
• Thy beauty shall no more be found,
• Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
• My echoing song then worms shall try
• That long preserved virginity,
• And your quaint honour turn to dust,
• And into ashes all my lust
• The grave 's a fine and private place,
• But none, I think, do there embrace.

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Questions

• What is the main argument and how is it
  developed?
• What conceits and other poetic devices are used?

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Argument carpe diem

• or "seize the day" --
• a very common literary motif in poetry.
• emphasizes that life is short and time is
  fleeting as the speaker attempts to entice his
  listener, a young lady usually described as a
  virgin.
• frequently use the rose as a symbol of transient
  physical beauty and the finality of death.
• e.g.

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Argument carpe diem

• To Virgins, To Make Much Of TimeRobert Herrick
• Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,    Old Time is
  still a-flyingAnd this same flower that smiles
  today,    To-morrow will be dying.
• . . .

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Argument and Imagery

• Argument -- If we lived forever there would be no
  need to hurry. However, we do not live forever.
  Therefore we must seize the day.

• Imagery
• Praising foreverand slowly images of space and
  time alternate with each other.
• mortality marble vault images of sterility,
  rotting corpses, tombs, and a shocking denial of
  the procreative activity of sex.
• Seize the day images of transience and daring
  action

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Imagery of action

• Rather at once our time devour
• Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
• Let us roll all our strength and all
• Our sweetness up into one ball,
• And tear our pleasures with rough strife
• Thorough the iron gates of life

• Devour eat up time quickly and at a large amount
  each time.
• Like birds of prey (hawks) eat up their prey
  (rabbits) unthinkingly and instinctively
• Rolled into one Ball sexual act
• Gates of life inevitable aging process and
  difficulties which lead us to death.

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Metaphors and Conceits

• Metaphors
• vegetable love slow and quiet.
• Times wings chariot
• Gates of life

• Paradox -- tearing "pleasures with "strife"
• Conceit Hyperbole
• the use of large space and time to woo slowly.
• Marble vault as both the grave and the sexual
  organ.
• Punsun/son run (go faster, run away)

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Metaphysical Poetry Defined

• Spirit Matter
• The exaltation of wit, which in the 17th century
  meant a nimbleness of thought a sense of fancy
  (imagination of a fantastic or whimsical nature)
  and originality in figures of speech
• Often poems are presented in the form of an
  argument
• In love poetry, the metaphysical poets often draw
  on ideas from Renaissance Neo-Platonism to show
  the relationship between the soul and body and
  the union of lovers' souls
• They also try to show a psychological realism
  when describing the tensions of love.

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Metaphysical Poetry Defined

• 5. Use of ordinary speech mixed with puns,
  paradoxes and conceits
• Metaphysical Conceit a paradoxical and extended
  metaphor
• causing a shock to the reader by the strangeness
  of the objects compared e.g departure and
  death, beating of gold foil, lovers and a
  compass)
• Abstruse terminology often drawn from science or
  law
• http//www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/perio
  d/metaphysicals.html

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Metaphysical Poetry in Context

1. The European baroque period (1580 to
   approximately 1680) extravagance, psychological
   tension, theatricality, eccentricity, and
   originality of its creations (in all artistic
   media), as well as for the quirkiness and
   intricacy of its thought
2. the seventeenth century in England, a time of
   radical changes in politics (e.g. Puritan
   revolution, Civil war, execution of Charles I ?
   Restoration ) and modes of literary expression.
   For a while during the Commonwealth Period
   (1649-1660), drama disappeared, public theaters
   closed because of fears of immoral influences,
   and incendiary (??? ) political pamphlets
   circulated.

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Metaphysical Poetry in Context

• Peter Paul Rubens Garden of Love c.  1638 Museo
  del Prado, Madrid
• http//www.eng.fju.edu.tw/English_Literature/17th_
  c/paintings/rubens.htm

-- The colors are soft and warm, light, gay,
ripe, and sensous.  -- The figures melt into each
other in a soft, flowing rhythm.  ... -- The
courtly man in the broad-brimmed hat
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