SEMESTER-I UNIT –I
JOHN DONNE: VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING, THE
GOOD MORROW, BATTER MY HEART
UNIT STUCTURE
Learning Objectives
Introduction
Metaphysical Poetry
John Donne: The Poet
The Texts of the Poems
Reading the Poems: Major Themes and Critical Reception of John Donne
Summing Up
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
After going through this part of unit-I you will be able to
Discuss metaphysical poetry
Discuss the life and work of John Donne as leader of the metaphysical school of
poetry
Discuss the features of John Donne’s poetry
Make yourself familiar with the major themes of his poetry
Examine and analyse his poetic style
Discuss what is it that makes his poetry unique
Introduction
John Donne is one of the most celebrated poets of English literature. He is known for his
distinct poetic style and unique treatment of the theme. He wrote both love poems and
religious poems. His love poems are known for the variety of approaches to love. He is called
the leader of the metaphysical school of poets because it is his poetry and poetic style that led
to this distinct style of writing poetry. Apart from John Donne others in the group of
metaphysical poets include Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, George Herbert and others. Lets
us discuss something about metaphysical poetry.
Metaphysical Poetry
The ‘Metaphysical poetry’ emerged as a special branch of poetry in the Elizabethan period.
While the traditional Elizabethan lyrics were characterised by the conventional Petrarchan
paraphernalias, the ‘Metaphysical poetry’ is marked by novelty of expression and technical
ingenuity. The major poets in this school are John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert,
henry Vaughan, Abraham Cowley and others.
The term ‘metaphysical’ was, however, applied rather accidentally to designate a particular
group of poets. Dryden disapprovingly wrote of Donne, “He(Donne) affects the metaphysics
not only in his satires but in his amorous verses where nature only should reign and perplexes
the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy”. Dr Johnson subsequently employed the term
‘to a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets’. Since then Donne and his
followers are described as ‘metaphysical poets’.
However, the term ‘metaphysical’ is not used in the dictionary sense. Dr Johnson also did not
mean that Donne and his followers were philosophers or philosophers poets like Lucretius or
Dante. They had used the knowledge of the philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Thomas
Aquinas in their poetry.
So, the term ‘metaphysical poets’ means a special group of poets whose poetry has some
common characteristics that differentiate them from their contemporaries.
So, what are the features or characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry that differentiate from others
genre of poetry? Let us discuss some of them:
Concentration of Thought:
Helen Gardner points out that a metaphysical poem is marked for its concentration. A
metaphysical poem is usually brief, concise and closely woven. The reader is held to an idea or
a line of argument. He is not allowed to pause and ponder over a passage. A metaphysical
poems demands that we pay attention and rad on. Gardner says, it is like a limiting frame in
which words and thought are compressed, ‘a box where sweets compacted lie’.
Metaphysical Conceit
A unique feature of metaphysical poetry is its use of highly unconventional conceit. However, it
is not used for decoration. It is used to persuade, to define, to prove a point. The speaker says
something, it explains that. It is also highly erudite and impresses by strangeness.
Dialogic/ Argumentative Approach
A metaphysical poem is written in a dialogic manner. The speaker engages in a dialogue with
either the beloved or God or the reader. Although the listener is silent, he /she engages in the
dialogue.
Unification of Sensibility
A metaphysical poem uniquely blends passion and rationality, emotion and intellectualism.
There is an admixture of intellectualised passion or passionate intellectuality.
Intellectualism
The metaphysical poets were men of learning and naturally their poetry bears an unmistakable
stamp of their wide knowledge and intellect.
Dramatic Beginning and Colloquialism
A metaphysical poem is often marked by sudden and dramatic beginning. See the beginning of
The Cannonization-
‘For God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love’
A metaphysical poem is also marked by the use of rough everyday / colloquial language.
A Rough Comparison between Elizabethan Lyrics and metaphysical poetry can be made for
use of the students
Elizabethan Lyrics Metaphysical Poetry
Appeals to heart heart and mind
Treatment of theme- simple marked by technical
innovation
Imagery- conventional highly unconventional
imagery
Ladylove- idealised and idolised realistic/ ironic
presentation
Diction/ metre- standard colloquial, based on
actual speech
The rise of metaphysical poetry in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period can be attributed to
the following reasons-
1. Saturation of Elizabethan lyrics
2. Complexity of life- political and religious strife
3. New learning
4. Metaphysical poets were learned men
JOHN DONNE: THE POET
John Donne is considered now to be the preeminent metaphysical poet of his time. He was
born in 1572 to Roman Catholic parents, when practicing that religion was illegal in England.
His work is distinguished by its emotional and sonic intensity and its capacity to plumb the
paradoxes of faith, human and divine love, and the possibility of salvation. Donne often
employs conceits, or extended metaphors, to yoke together “heterogenous ideas,” in the words
of Samuel Johnson, thus generating the powerful ambiguity for which his work is famous. After
resurgence in his popularity in the early 20th century, Donne’s standing as a great English poet,
and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured.
In Donne’s own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who
read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a
preacher. For some 30 years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his
powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion
and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the 18th century, and for much of the 19th
century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. It was not until the end of the 1800s that
Donne’s poetry was eagerly taken up by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His
prose remained largely unnoticed until 1919.
In the first two decades of the 20th century Donne’s poetry was decisively rehabilitated. Its
extraordinary appeal to modern readers throws light on the Modernist movement, as well as on
our intuitive response to our own times. Donne may no longer be the cult figure he became in
the 1920s and 1930s, when T.S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats, among others, discovered in
his poetry the peculiar fusion of intellect and passion and the alert contemporariness which
they aspired to in their own art. He is not a poet for all tastes and times; yet for many readers
Donne remains what Ben Jonson judged him: “the first poet in the world in some things.” His
poems continue to engage the attention and challenge the experience of readers who come to
him afresh. His high place in the pantheon of the English poets now seems secure.
The Poems:
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
The breath goes now, 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.
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 sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center 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.
Discussion of the Poem
John Donne, a 17th-century writer, politician, lawyer, and priest, wrote "A Valediction:
Forbidding Mourning" on the occasion of parting from his wife, Anne More Donne, in 1611.
Donne was going on a diplomatic mission to France, leaving his wife behind in England. A
"valediction" is a farewell speech. This poem cautions against grief about separation, and affirms
the special, particular love the speaker and his lover share. Like most of Donne's poems, it was
not published until after his death.
The speaker opens with an image of good men dying quietly, softly urging their souls to leave
their bodies. These virtuous deaths are so imperceptible that the dying men's friends disagree
about whether or not the men have stopped breathing yet.
The speaker argues that he and the lover he's bidding farewell to should take these deaths as a
model, and part ways silently. They should not give in to the temptation to weep and sigh
excessively. In fact, grieving so openly would degrade their private love by broadcasting it to
ordinary people.
Natural earthly disturbances, such as earthquakes, hurt and scare human beings. Ordinary
people notice these events happening and wonder what they mean. However, the movements
of the heavens, while being larger and more significant, go unnoticed by most people.
Boring, commonplace people feel a kind of love that, because it depends on sensual
connection, can't handle separation. Being physically apart takes away the physical bond that
their love depends on.
The speaker and his lover, on the other hand, experience a more rare and special kind of
bond. They can't even understand it themselves, but they are linked mentally, certain of one
another on a non-physical plane. Because of this, it matters less to them when their bodies are
apart.
The souls of the lovers are unified by love. Although the speaker must leave, their souls will not
be broken apart. Instead, they will expand to cover the distance between them, as fine metal
expands when it is hammered.
If their souls are in fact individual, they are nevertheless linked in the way the legs of a drawing
compass are linked. The soul of the lover is like the stationary foot of the compass, which does
not appear to move itself but actually does respond to the other foot's movement.
This stationary compass foot sits in the center of a paper. When the other compass foot moves
further away, the stationary foot changes its angle to lean in that direction, as if longing to be
nearer to its partner. As the moving foot returns, closing the compass, the stationary foot stands
straight again, seeming alert and excited.
The speaker's lover, he argues, will be like his stationary foot, while he himself must travel a
circuitous, indirect route. Her fixed position provides him with the stability to create a perfect
circle, which ends exactly where it began—bringing the speaker back to his lover once again.
Themes & Style
John Donne wrote “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” on the occasion of his separation
from his wife, Anne, on diplomatic business. The poem concerns what happens when two
lovers have to part, and explains the spiritual unification that makes this particular parting
essentially unimportant. The speaker argues that separation should not matter to him and his
lover because genuine love transcends physical distance.
A valediction is a farewell. Donne’s title, however, explicitly prohibits grief about saying
goodbye (hence the subtitle of “Forbidden Mourning”) because the speaker and his lover are
linked so strongly by spiritual bonds that their separation has little meaning. Indeed, the
speaker characterizes himself and his lover as “Inter-assured of the mind.” Donne created this
compound word—which combines the prefix “inter,” meaning mutually and reciprocally, with
“assured,” meaning confident, secure, or dependable—to emphasize that the two lovers are
linked by a mutual mental certainty about their love. They are so close in this way that the
separation of their bodies doesn’t mean much.
The speaker further assures his lover that their souls, as well as their minds, are unified.
Physical separation doesn’t “breach” or break this bond. Instead, their souls expand outward to
cover the distance between them, as a soft metal is beaten to spread thinly over a larger surface
area.
The speaker introduces the most detailed simile in the poem when he compares the soul of
himself and his lover to the two legs of a drafting compass, in order to explain how they are still
connected even when physically apart. The addressee of the poem is the “fixed foot” of the
compass, the point that stays on the paper. The speaker is the moving point, which draws the
circle. Although one leg of the compass doesn’t move, the speaker points out that it “leans” as
the other leg moves farther, making a wider circle, and “grows erect” when the other leg comes
nearer.
The speaker asserts that his lover will play the “fixed foot” to his moving foot. Although the
speaker “must” travel away, he will remain on a “just” path, correct and faithful. Together, the
legs of the compass create a circle, which has an associative resonance with the spheres in
stanza 4. In the popular philosophy of the time, circles and spheres represented perfection,
harmony. The speaker’s faith in his lover’s “firmness” will make him trace a perfect circle,
which ends precisely where it began. This ending also implies a promise of return, since the
speaker intends to “end where I begun,” coming back to his lover after his travels. True love, in
the speaker’s summation, not only can withstand any separation, but will always bring lovers
back to each other.
The speaker of Donne’s poem argues that visible grief at the lovers’ parting would be a
“profanation of our joys”—that is, that to loudly mourn would belittle the love the couple shares
by proclaiming it to the ordinary world. Yet even as the poem urges a reliance on the power of
spiritual connection in order to soften the pain of separation, it presents such connection as
rare. The speaker disparages more ordinary, earthly love, as well as any bold proclamations of
feeling, as indicative of the need for physical proximity. In doing so, he elevates the quiet surety
he shares with his partner as the mark of true, spiritual love.
The speaker begins by describing the quiet deaths of “virtuous men.” These deaths are almost
imperceptible as the men “whisper to their souls to go,” indicating their readiness for death
with the smallest possible sound. Their watching friends in fact have difficulty telling whether or
not their breathing has actually stopped, because it is already so subtle and faint. The speaker
argues that his parting with his lover should imitate the quiet quality of the deaths he describes.
He cautions against “tear-floods” and “sigh-tempests,” the usual signs of separation, because
they make the grief of parting too readily apparent to others. Their particular kind of love, he
claims, would be degraded by letting other people know about it. The parting he wants is thus
invisible to the outside world. It doesn’t make a sound, or show signs of physical grief like tears
and sighs.
By referring to the rest of the world as “the laity” (usually used to contrast ordinary people with
clergy), the speaker also implies a religious element to the love he shares. He and his lover
have a sacred spiritual bond, which other people cannot understand. In this way, the speaker
further indicates that the love he’s talking about is different from the usual kind. The speaker
then contrasts movements of the earth (possibly referring to earthquakes and similar natural
disasters) with the “trepidation of the spheres” (although it’s commonly used to indicate anxiety
and fear, an archaic meaning of the word “trepidation” is a physical trembling motion). The
speaker points out that disturbances of the earth are very noticeable, causing “harms and fears.”
This is an implied analogy for the troubles of ordinary lovers, whose separations are stormy
and public. In contrast, the trembling of the cosmos (according to the Ptolemaic model), while
actually much more significant, goes unnoticed by people on earth. For the speaker, then, his
parting with his lover should follow this example. It’s a massive event, yet must remain invisible
to outsiders.
The speaker goes on to stress that his refined, highly mental conception of love is different
from that of “dull sublunary lovers,” who need concrete proximity to one another. “Sublunary”
means both “under the moon” and “mundane" or "worldly.” Donne thus refers to popular love
poetry’s use of the moon as a romantic image, yet dismisses this as earth-bound and boring.
The “soul” of commonplace love is “sense,” or physical sensation. This kind of love cannot
cope with absence, because it is essentially about sharing pleasures of the body.
The speaker and his lover, in contrast, have a connection of mind and soul that makes physical
presence less important. For them, love has been “so much refined” that it is beyond even their
understanding. What they can understand is the link between them, which goes beyond
ordinary romantic and sexual feeling. They are “Inter-assured of the mind,” and so do not
need their bodies to be near each other in order to preserve their love. In this way, Donne
implicitly separates mundane, worldly love from what, in his eyes, is more genuine, spiritual
connection.
The Good-Morrow
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
Discussion of the Poem
“The Good Morrow” is an aubade—a morning love poem—written by the English poet John
Donne, likely in the 1590s. In it, the speaker describes love as a profound experience that's
almost like a religious epiphany. Indeed, the poem claims that erotic love can produce the
same effects that religion can. Through love, the speaker’s soul awakens; because of love, the
speaker abandons the outside world; in love, the speaker finds immortality. This is a potentially
subversive argument, for two reasons. First, because the poem suggests that all love—even love
outside of marriage—might have this transformative, enlightening effect. Second, because of the
idea that romantic love can mirror the joys and revelations of religious devotion.
“The Good Morrow” is a celebration of love, which it presents as an intense and unparalleled
pleasure. All the joys that the two lovers experienced before they found each other pale in
comparison to the joy they experience together. Indeed, love is so powerful that the speaker
describes it as an awakening of the soul: it is almost a religious experience. And like a religious
experience, it reshapes the lovers’ attitude to the world at large. Like monks or nuns who
dedicate themselves to religious practice, the two lovers dedicate themselves to love above
adventure and career success. “The Good Morrow” thus translates romantic —and erotic—love
into a religious, even holy, experience. Love itself, the speaker suggests, is capable of producing
the same insights as religion.
“The Good Morrow” separates the lives of the lovers into two parts: before they found each
other, and after. The speaker describes the first part of their lives with disdain: the pleasures
they enjoyed were “childish.” Indeed, they were not even “weaned”: they were like babies. Like
children, they had a limited understanding of life. They were aware of only some of its
“country” (or lowly) pleasures, going through the motions of life without knowing there could
be something more.
But once they find each other, it feels as though their eyes have been opened. The speaker
realizes that any “beauty” experienced before this love was really nothing more than a
“dream”—a pale imitation—of the joy and pleasure the speaker has now. “Good-morrow to our
waking souls,” the speaker announces at the start of stanza 2, as though the lovers had been
asleep and are just now glimpsing the light of day for the first time.
Since the sun is often associated with Jesus Christ in Christian religious traditions and light is
often associated with enlightenment, the speaker’s description of this experience is implicitly
cast in religious terms. That is, the speaker makes waking up alongside a lover sound like a
religious epiphany or a conversion experience. The consequences of this epiphany are also
implicitly religious. Having tasted the intense pleasures of love, the lovers give up on adventure
and exploration: instead they treat their “one little room” as “an everywhere.” In this way, they
become like monks or nuns: people who separate themselves from the world to dedicate
themselves to their faith.
Further, the lovers' devotion to each other wins them immortality: “none can die,” the speaker
announces in the poem’s final line. Immortality is more commonly taken to be the reward for
dedicated religious faith, not earthly pleasures like romantic love. In describing this relationship
in religious terms, the speaker breaks down the traditional distinctions between love and
religion. Where many religious traditions treat erotic love as something potentially harmful to
religious devotion, the speaker of “The Good Morrow” suggests that erotic love leads to the
same devotion, insight, and immortality that religion promises.
However, the speaker doesn’t specify the nature of the love in question. If the lovers are
married, for instance, the reader doesn’t hear anything about it. Instead, the speaker focuses on
the perfection of their love, noting the way the two lovers complement each other. Unlike other
poems that argue for the holiness of married love specifically (like Anne Bradstreet’s “To My
Dear and Loving Husband”), “The Good Morrow” holds out an even more subversive
possibility: that all love is capable of producing religious epiphany, whether or not it takes a
form that the Church sanctions, like marriage.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Discussion of the Poem
The poem Batter My Heart is part of John Donne's Holy Sonnets sequence, which was
probably written during the years 1609-1611 and meditates on God, death, divine love, and
faith. "Holy Sonnet 14" comes later in the series and depicts a speaker's personal crisis of faith.
The poem also boldly compares God's divine love to a rough, erotic seduction. This intimate
and unconventional portrayal of a speaker's longing for faith has made the poem one of
Donne's most famous.
John Donne wrote the series of poems called the Holy Sonnets during a period of religious
conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism. In this particular poem, the speaker has lost
touch with God altogether and prays desperately for God to return. Furthermore, the speaker
believes that faith can only return through forceful means: God has to force his way back into
the speaker’s heart. The poem, then, is at once a witty and an achingly open portrait of a soul
desperate to overcome the torment of religious doubt.
A few lines in, the speaker states the poem’s central problem most clearly: “I […] labor to admit
you, but oh, to no end.” In other words, the speaker is trying to believe in God, to allow God
into the soul, but keeps failing. This is the crux of the poem: it’s not so much that the speaker
doesn’t believe in God but rather that the speaker cannot feel God in heart and soul, as the
speaker once did.
The word “admit” here, then, is a pun. It literally means to “let in,” as if God can be let in to
the speaker’s soul. But it also puns on the sense of admitting something is true—the speaker is
having a hard time admitting that God is real. “Reason,” the speaker’s ability to think logically,
has been no help in this matter, pushing the speaker to further desperation rather than
comfort; trying to proves God’s existence using logic isn’t necessarily convincing to one’s
emotions.
Furthermore, the speaker introduces this problem as a metaphor: “I, like an usurp’d town to
another due, / Labor to admit you.” The speaker’s soul is like a “usurp’d town,” a town that has
been conquered by an enemy. The identity of this enemy is unspecified, but it can be
interpreted as the devil, or atheism, or any other force that leads people away from God. The
implied solution, then, is that God must “break” into the “town” of the speaker’s soul, and set
the speaker free. Doubt, then, is cast as a kind of painful imprisonment.
In fact, the speaker seems to feel that faith is beyond the speaker’s control. Although the
speaker keeps trying to let God in, that won’t work. Instead, the speaker begs God to force his
way into the speaker’s soul. That’s why the poem begins, “Batter my heart.” It’s as if the
speaker’s heart is a fortress, and God must invade that fortress. Through divine force, God can
“make” the speaker “new,” transforming the speaker back into a devout Christian. The
speaker’s crisis of faith, then, is so extreme that only extreme measures on the part of God can
overcome it. The speaker sincerely wishes to return to God, but doesn’t have the strength to do
it alone.
The speaker makes a bold comparison between faith in God and erotic love. In fact, the erotic
desire expressed here is not simply metaphorical. Rather, it can be thought of as a heightened
form of sexuality, a desire for ecstasy on a spiritual, rather than simply physical, plane. The
speaker begs for a rough—and consensual—seduction, one that fills the speaker with such
passion that it eradicates all doubt in God. It is only through such passion, rather than logic or
reason, that the speaker can truly overcome this crisis of faith.
The speaker begins the poem by emphasizing the importance of the heart, which represents
passion and love: “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” By beginning with this line, the
speaker suggests that passion is central to faith. The speaker needs to feel passionate love for
God in order to believe in him. This description also emphasizes the “force” of divine love.
The speaker doesn’t ask God to gently slip into the speaker’s heart, but rather to break in. This
isn’t a gentle seduction, but a rough one.
In the middle of the poem, the speaker’s state is like that of someone who’s been separated
from the person they love and forced to marry someone else: “Yet dearly I love you, and
would be lov’d fain, / But am betroth’d unto your enemy.” The speaker wants to be with God,
but is “betroth’d,” or married, to God’s “enemy.” This enemy can be interpreted as the devil,
atheism, or anything else that causes one to lose faith. Whatever the case, the gist is clear. The
speaker is comparing the situation to something like Romeo and Juliet, or any number of
stories about ill-fated lovers.
The speaker believes faith can only be recovered through “my heart”—through passion—rather
than “Reason,” which is too easily led astray by powerful arguments. In lines 7-8, the speaker
says, “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captiv’d, and proves weak or
untrue.” Here, “Reason” means one’s ability to think logically about things. The speaker is
saying that Reason should be providing arguments for faith in God. Instead, though, Reason
falls for other arguments, “is captiv’d” by them. These arguments make it harder to let God
into the speaker’s heart. That’s why God instead has to use passionate force to reach the
speaker.
At the end of the poem, the speaker begs not only to be rescued, but in turn imprisoned and
“ravish[ed]” by God. More specifically, the speaker has a series of demands, including
“Divorce me,” “break that knot again,” “imprison me,” and “ravish me.” Here, “Divorce me”
means that the speaker wants God to divorce the speaker from the “enemy” the speaker has
been “betroth’d” to. Then, the speaker will be able to be married to God—a benevolent
“imprison[ment]” that is actually “free[dom],” because the speaker’s soul will now be at ease,
free from spiritual distress.
“Ravish” here means intense sexual pleasure, but it can also have forceful undertones. While
the speaker isn’t necessarily referring to sexual assault, the word is nevertheless startling,
especially in a religious poem. It captures the desire for a rough, forceful, spiritual seduction
that guides the poem. The arc of this poem, then, follows an increasingly passionate plea for
God to spiritually and forcefully return to the speaker.
Summing Up
Reading these three poems you have now a good understanding of the genre of metaphysical
poetry. As you can see the poetry of the metaphysical poets is marked by innovative and
erudite conceites, concentration of thoughts, and argumentative approach to the theme. The
metaphysical poets had a big impact on modern poetry. T S Eliot wrote two essays on
metaphysical poetry and John Donne which cemented the popularity of John Donne in the
twentieth century which continues unabated.
