John Donne Poem Synopsis

Question 1

The Good Morrow

Answer 1

LOVE:
An aubade (morning love poem) - suggests secular love can have an enlightening effect and can mirror the joys and revelations of religious devotion.

Question 2

Song: ‘Go and Catch a Falling Star’

Answer 2

MISOGYNISTIC:
Speaker suggests he can look the whole world over, but finding a woman who is both beautiful and faithful to him is about as unlikely as finding a mythical creature such as a mermaid/ the devil.

Question 3

The Sun Rising

Answer 3

LOVE:
The speaker orders the sun to warm his bed so he and his lover can stay there all day instead of getting up to face the day and go to work - likens microcosm of the bedroom to the whole world.

Question 4

The Canonization

Answer 4

LOVE:
Tells his mocking friend to leave him alone and ‘let him love’ - love hasn’t hurt anyone so him and his lover should be allowed to love - if they can’t love in this life, when they ascend to heaven they will become Saints of love.

Question 5

Song: ‘Sweetest love, I do not go’

Answer 5

LOVE:
Speaker states he is going to leave but this doesn’t mean the end of their relationship - their parting will prepare them for their parting at death - compares himself to the sun which goes away when it gets dark but comes back in the morning.

Question 6

Air and Angels

Answer 6

LOVE:
Explores the connection between spiritual and material love - love needs and physical body to enter the world and act it isn’t just spiritual.

Question 7

The Anniversary

Answer 7

LOVE:
About the first anniversary of him and his lover - the world and everything in it has grown one year older thus one year closer to destruction but their love haven’t as their souls/ love will never die even when their physical body does.

Question 8

Twicknam Garden

Answer 8

UNREQUITED LOVE:
Poet emotionally devastated as of unrequited situation he finds himself in - compares his emotions to the garden he finds himself it - bitterness - shame of loving a woman who is faithful to her husband.

Question 9

Love’s Exchange

Answer 9

UNREQUITED LOVE:
The complexities of love, sacrifice and selflessness - gives himself entirely to love even in the face of rejection.

Question 10

A Valediction of Weeping

Answer 10

LOVE:
A sad goodbye - the speaker and his lover share a last goodbye before he leaves her on a long voyage - every teardrop that holds his beloved’s reflection is like a whole globe marked with continents - love can make two people each other’s worlds and turn a farewell into the end of the world.

Question 11

Love’s Alchemy

Answer 11

Alchemy - medieval science aimed at the discovery of the elixir of life (a mysterious substance that could cure disease) - they failed to discover this substance - Donne likens this to the true nature of love being a mystery.

Question 12

The Flea

Answer 12

LUSTFUL:
Speaker tries to seduce his mistress by suggesting that since her and her have been bitten by this flea, they may as well have sex as their bodily fluids have already mingled.

Question 13

A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day

Answer 13

LOVE:
The speaker’s depressed state following the death of the woman he loved - everything is dead in the world on this winters day just like his own soul - doesn’t see a reason to carry on living after their separation.

Question 14

The Apparition

Answer 14

LUSTFUL
When he dies of heartbreak, he will haunt her and her new lover so she is sorry she ever rejected him - wants revenge on her - consumed by jealousy.

Question 15

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Answer 15

LOVE:
Parting from his wife - their love will transcend this distance whilst he is on this voyage as their souls are unified by love.

Question 16

The Ecstasy

Answer 16

LOVE:
Donne agrees with Plato that true love is spiritual & a unification of the souls, however, he suggests we shouldn’t ignore the importance of the body - the body is what brings two lovers physically together and is essential for the union of the souls.

Question 17

Love’s Deity

Answer 17

UNREQUITED LOVE
Speaker longs to converse with an old lover’s ghost who loved before the deity of love came into existence - implies that a more pure/ reciprocal form of affection once existed - challenges the notion that love is always mutual.

Question 18

The Funeral

Answer 18

LOVE:
Speaker wears a manacle of hair around his wrist - when he dies he hopes his deceased lover and his souls will be reunited for a split second at death as a part of her soul returns to the hair on his wrist.

Question 19

The Blossom

Answer 19

UNREQUITED LOVE:
Speaks to his heart who tells him to go after the woman it loves - tells his heart that a woman will not recognise a naked heart - she will only notice a body and she doesn’t love his.

Question 20

The Relic

Answer 20

LOVE:
Poet imagines a day, some years down the line, when someone finds his bones with the bracelet of hair around it, he predicts someone will try to pass his remains off to the relics of saints but people should focus on the miraculous love he and his lover shared.

Question 21

The Dissolution

Answer 21

Exploration of the fragility of human life and the inevitability of death - even though the speaker’s body is dying, his spirit loves on through his writing.

Question 22

Farewell to Love

Answer 22

UNREQUITED LOVE
The poet suggests that once love is attained, the allure fades, leaving behind emptiness and sadness - he will admire beauty from afar from now on.

Question 23

Elegy: Change

Answer 23

MISOGYNISTIC
Inconsistency in women’s lives is a fact - he likens women to flowing water they are transitory and flow into many partners without hesitation - they want all men just as a sea receives all rivers.

Question 24

Elegy: His Picture

Answer 24

LOVE:
Donne gives his lover a miniature of himself before he departs on his voyage - he knows he wont come back physically the same but suggests that superficial attraction in love is childish and mature love is more spiritual.

Question 25

Elegy: The Comparison

Answer 25

Poet compares the superlative beauty of his mistress with the superlative ugliness of his addressee’s mistress.

Question 26

Elegy: The Autumnal

Answer 26

LOVE
Captures the essence of human autumn and suggests its similar to the ageing of life - said to be addressed to George Herberts mother - youthful beauty cannot compare to mature beauty and the warmth, wiseness and spirituality that comes with it.

Question 27

Elegy: To His Mistress Going To Bed

Answer 27

LUSTFUL
Speaker offers elegant and elaborate compliments to his mistress in attempt to persuade her to sleep with him.