positions

Question 1

The Anniversary:

Answer 1

ME: Transcendent timelessness of the experience of love in contrast to the world of time in which we live.

In this poem, Donne reflects upon the transcendent timelessness of the experience of love in contrast to the world of time in which we live. Donne uses the poem to commemorate the first meeting of the lovers ‘a year’ ago, suggesting that, despite the ravages of time, their love is capable of transcending decay and death. He uses semantic fields of royalty, associated conceits regarding treason, lineation and other structural devices to communicate these ideas about the possibility of love transcending the ravages of time.

Question 2

The Canonisation

Answer 2

Left alone by outside world to love freely and argues for the spiritual/supremacy of their love

Question 3

Holy Sonnet III Oh might those sighs and tears

Answer 3

interdependent imagery of pain and sin to express the speaker’s simultaneous desire and dread regarding the “coming ills” of his penitence, courtesy of his sinful, idolatrous past, with no relief of previous “past joys” to help him.

Question 4

Holy Sonnet XVII Since she whom I loved

Answer 4

Expresses a quiet sense of injustice whilst simultaneously reinforcing his faith/insatiable desire for God, turning his efforts to divine affection despite its present insufficiency at delivering satisfaction.

Question 5

Good Friday 1613

Answer 5

Guilt at travelling West (clue in title) on the day commemorating Christ’s crucifixion. Intense religious meditation @ turning point in life

Question 6

Holy Sonnet V I am a little world

Answer 6

In this Holy Sonnet - range of techniques - central microcosmic conceit, geographical and apocalyptic imagery, as well as enjambment and caesura, to explore and try and control his dread of God’s retribution due to his past sins.

Question 7

Holy Sonnet XIX: O vex to me

Answer 7

In this sonnet, (Donne uses semantic fields of conflict and change, powerful verbs of fear and the final rhyming couplet to explore) thespeaker’s self-reproach about the fluctuations in his faith and his fear about the eternal consequences of this “inconstancy”.
SELF-REPROACH:

Question 8

Hymn to God the Father

Answer 8

Confession of overwhelming sinfulness. Incompleteness. What drives it is fear, not love. His sin of fear is the last & most dominant sin. Yet light-hearted, emphasized by ‘father’ in title & anaphoric informal ‘Thou’. He is like the prodigal son, has squandered his (spiritual) wealth.

Question 9

Song: Sweetest love, I do not go…

Answer 9

Little philosophizing, rhythms of verse are smooth & mellifluous. Preoccupied with parting, anxious about time, preoccupied with own ideas. Different arguments to persuade mistress not to worry about trip away. Dramatic situation.

THEIRS: In this song, the speaker uses different arguments to persuade his mistress (or perhaps Donne’s own wife in 1611) not to “sigh” and worry about his trip away, since he will return. He uses a range of techniques, such as antithetical imagery of death and intimacy, sound effects and a final life-affirming rhyming couplet, to urge his lover to be more optimistic about his trip away.

Question 10

The Funeral

Answer 10

Imagines himself as martyr of love who has died because of lover’s rejection; mixture of lightheartedness & seriousness. Punish her by suicide & satisfaction of carrying part of her to grave.

theirs: In “The Funeral”, Donne uses morbid, grotesque conceits and imagery as the speaker desperately contemplates becoming a martyr to love because the addressee has rejected him.

Question 11

A Valediction of Weeping

Answer 11

theirs: In this farewell poem, Donne uses water,cartographic and deathimagery and conceits as his speaker urges them both to try and contain their sorrow at parting, perhaps because such intense grief may prefigure the death of their seemingly fragile relationship.

Question 12

Elegy: The Autumnal

Answer 12

Autumn (‘age’s glory’) is seen as fruition & contrasted against the final decay seen in winter.

theirs OVERVIEW: In Donne’s Elegy: The Autumnal, Donne shapes the reader’s response to the idea that “young beauties” cannot compare to the subject’s mature beauty with his use of seasonal motifs, antithetical imagery of youth and maturity as well as some shocking, comical conceits.

Question 13

the blossom

Answer 13

Cynical attitude to parting & fidelity by parodying traditional Petrarchan addresses by the lover to his heart. Tells his own heart to leave cold, unresponsive woman behind.

In ___, Donne parodies the Petrarachan trope of the lover speaking to his heart, using such methods as the symbol of the blossom, colloquial speech patterns and precise verbs (modals and imperatives) all to show the speaker desperately trying to regain control of his heart and move on to another, more welcoming lover.

Question 14

Farewell to Love

Answer 14

The speaker rejects romantic & physical love to lead a more religious, chaste life; at the end, though, the humorous tone seems to undermine the serious conviction of the speaker

theirs; : In this complex, playful poem, Donne uses a wide range of methods, such as sexual innuendo, semantic fields of depression and references to death, to suggest that the speaker will now reject romantic, physical love in favour of religious fervour but also to undercut this message with humorous double meanings and conceits.

Question 15

Love’s alchemy

Answer 15

Lyric poem peaker denies Petrarchan ideal of love (mysterious & women worthy), instead maintaining love is a ‘vain bubble’s shadow’, retorting to cynicism & misogyny to express, in a mechanical, arrogant tone, his disillusionment & alienation.

Question 16

Twicknam Garden

Answer 16

Narrator seeks consolation for a broken heart in beauties of nature but ends up corrupting environment with miserable perspective & suicidal disposition

In this poem, Donne uses poetic techniques, such as religious and natural imagery, as well as an extended stone fountain conceit, to explore how he is being “killed” by unrequited love, since his mistress is the only “true” woman and the pain of her rejection is therefore even sharper.

Question 17

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

Answer 17

Earnest love lyric poem, uses metaphysical wit to comfort lover at their parting, asking her to ‘endure’ the grief & separate calmly as their love is transcendental & they will reunite.

Question 18

Love’s Exchange

Answer 18

Speaker who believes that he has given his body and soul to love & received no reward in return: a bargain, ‘exchange’, but between ‘Love’ & [usually] the devil, this is paradoxical.

theirs: In Love’s Exchange, Donne uses the central conceit of an ‘exchange’, or pact with Cupid, legal and gruesome imagery to present a speaker who feels powerfully that he has given his body and soul to love and received no reward in return.

Question 19

Elegy: Change

Answer 19

In _______ Donne uses juxtaposingimagery of the profane and sacred, as well as animal and geographical imagery, to argue that, because of women’s inconstancy, he may as wellconsider a change of lovertoo.

Mine: Speaker advances the thought that a woman in inconstancy is natural. Fears mistresses inconstancy, yet finally accepts philosophy of variety in love, whilst maintaining his right to remain constant. Concerned with the need for discrimination/limits.

Question 20

The Ecstasy

Answer 20

In this poem, Donne uses contrasting imagery of the body and the soulto muse on the possibility of achieving an”ecstasy” when the souls of two lovers leave their bodies and co-mingle. However,he then argues that such a spiritual exaltation is potentially incomplete without physical consummation as well.

Question 21

The Apparition

Answer 21

A poem in which a hurt speaker attempts with vengeance to threaten a woman who has rejected him, in an attempt to get her back: can be seen as humorous; certainty/sexual jealousy can appeal to vanity of woman/flattering– an intimate, generous compliment– love poem!; threatening (vengeful, hurt, cruel, gloating lover intimidate).
She becomes ‘neglected’ instead of him, and the assertion that his love is ‘spent’ is undermined by the intensity of the tone.

Question 22

Holy Sonnet IX If poisonous minerals

Answer 22

In the octave of this holy Petrarchan sonnet, Donne’s techniques include interrogatives, conditionals and natural imagery, used to question God’s (mis)treatment of him, concerned very much with the earthly sphere. However, after the volta, Donne uses imagery of cleansing and a pleading tone to explore the omnibenevolent, forgiving nature of God.

Question 23

Holy Sonnet VI: This is my play’s last scene

Answer 23

xamines the transition from life to death with a heavily religious focus; acknowledges inevitability of death but believes his body & sins will be consumed by earth, & soul to heaven. Anxiety about death & afterlife. Terrified & impatient for last judgement. Urgent & momentous for his self-dramatizing.

Question 24

Holy Sonnet XI: Spit in my face, you jews

Answer 24

Overwhelming sense of guilt (conscious of effect of sins on God who he loves, condemning him to self hatred)

Question 25

Holy Sonnet XIII What if this present were the worlds

Answer 25

In this holy Petrarchan sonnet, Donne uses a direct address to his soul and antithetical imagery (horrific, apocalyptic versus holy) to consider the speaker’s chances of salvation if the Last Judgement were to be this very night. He concludes that, since Christ has a “piteous mind” he is most likely to be forgiven.

Question 26

Song go and Catch a falling star

Answer 26

In this poem, which reverberates with the immediacy of the speaker’s dramatic voice, we encounter a speaker who seems both deeply cynical at the prospect of finding a woman who is beautiful & faithful whilst simultaneously revealing his insecurities/hurt by rejected

Question 27

Batter my heart

Answer 27

APOSTROPHE to God. Ongoing struggle with faith & religion; worries he is not strong enough to worship & be true to God (personal sinfulness, apathy/lack of devotion- ‘mend’ implies broken). Imagery of violent sexuality & warfare to make an impassioned plea to God for some spiritual breakthrough: like Love poetry, desired intensity & complete experience.
Paradox: repaired if God does violence

Question 28

Hymn to God My God, in My sickness

Answer 28

Lyric. Hymn. (personal & emotional) Represents his mind’s attempt to summarize itself, and his attempt to offer, as he says, a sermon to his soul. Allusion to debate about location of eden emblematic of the whole poem’s struggle: where is our true home? Lies on death bed, physical vulnerability, contemplates what awaits him: emboldened. Conscious of suffering & at peace with it. No fight & fire. He is ready.

Question 29

elegy 19

Answer 29

Light-hearted yet powerful elegy in which speaker does all in his power to convince a woman to sleep with im, and in which coherent structure is overridden by colourful, potent & imaginative imagery that aims to exploit metaphysical wit to access her.

Question 30

Death be not proud

Answer 30

Death is the one who should be afraid, taunts it so it loses its power in our imagination: attempts to humble death to quell his own fears & to assert his spiritual faith. Becomes rather arrogant. Death does not kill, but is the enabler of new life.

Question 31

Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day

Answer 31

Elegy: speaker ponders nature of nothingness whilst communicating grief/anguish @ death of lover. How he has been transformed by love. the tone of the poem is “resigned,” the movement as “inexorable.” (regular rhyme). Deader than dead. Emptier than empty.

Question 32

The Flea

Answer 32

Guiltily obsessed with eligion. Intellectual mastery. Irreverent wit, out of trivial incident. Combination of feeling (sexual desire) with thought (logical argument). Wants no relationship, just physical desire: impatient, doesn’t have to be romantic.

Question 33

The Sun Rising

Answer 33

Confidently & officiously commands the sun, the lovers world is a microcosm so full & powerful it may exclude all outside demands or realities. Celebration of ‘now’, intimate, dramatic moment, to escape the tyranny of time.

Question 34

The Good Morrow

Answer 34

lyrical aubade; speaker, by contrasting present love with superficiality of previous relationships, identifies the power & strength of their love’s connection &, in elevating it above earth into a spiritual reality, argues for its transcendence above mere sexual love & its consequent immortality, albeit with a typical subtlety of doubt

Question 35

air and angels

Answer 35

Speaker begins by complimenting the woman in comparing her to an angel and and by asserting that his love has the purity of angels instead. Donne explores that true love is a combination of both the physical and the spiritual

also seems to assert that women are inferior to men

Question 36

The Relic

Answer 36

time after death; grave opened & bones thrown out to make room for another occupant
no conceivable application to love poem
miracle lies in virtuousness of their behaviour as lovers whose relationship ignored sex, kissed only at meeting & parting & never challenged moral law which restrains natural impulse.
loving, sexually experienced man; couple young and chaste

Question 37

Love’s deity

Answer 37

angry exploration of unrequited love in which the speaker feels initially mistreated by Cupid for forcing him to love a woman already in love with someone else.
in the end though, speaker realises he cant force her to change her mind, since falsehood & cheating is even worse than his anger.

Question 38

Elegy: the comparison

Answer 38

through his poetic methods, Donne presents us with a speaker who celebrates his lover’s attributes whilst also mocking those of the listener & his lover, resulting in a speaker who seems to be capable of great love, but also capable of great cruelty towards others.

Question 39

Elegy: his picture

Answer 39

In elegy his picture a love poem about lovers parting Donne’s speaker tries to reassure himself & the woman that although he might change as a result of the journey he must make, his picture will remind her of what he was & as a result their love will continue