AP English - John Donne ~ John Milton

a collection of different poets… *not a genre or a group that interacted!!.
• Coined by Samuel Johnson (after the fact)

“meta” – after “physical” – world
Questions that go beyond science
I.e. religion, predestination? free choice? God(s)?

*Conceits* – extended metaphors
Also used *wit & humor* to answer their questions… sometimes satirically- emphasis on intelligent humor

John Donne
George Herbert

*Chief metaphysical poet*
Born Catholic (but Era was Protestant England)
Converted to Church of England (b/c of persecution)
Wrote sonnets, poems, satires (5), elegies

Satires were highly critical of the way of life in England: Questions it (4) and quest for true religion (1)

Religion

Finds it easier to search than accept (i.

e. true religion)

far-fetched metaphor
Comparing two things that are drastically different

Concerned with whole experience of man -> profound experience learning with man (religion/art etc)

“The Flea”.
“The Good-Morrow”.
“Song”.
“The Undertaking”.
“The Indifferent”.
“A Valediction: Of Weeping”.
“Love’s Alchemy”.
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”.
“The Funeral”.
“The Relic”.
“Satire 3”

By John Donne
The poet uses a flea that had hopped from himself to a young lady as an argument that the two of them should make love…
– blood mixed by flea = “already made one in the flea”
– flea having pricked her without asking first…
– attempts to stop woman from killing flea.

. it would be “triple homicide”
– not convinced she “purples her nails”

By John Donne
Waking up next to his lover and starts dishing about love. They were either too young or too obsessed with sex, way different than what they are now: truly, maturely in love. Any previous fooling around was clearly only a prelude to this, a weaker version of the real deal.

The real deal means that this is not just about bodies; the souls are in on it too. This soulful love is so all-consuming that these lovebirds no longer need the rest of the world. Their bedroom contains the whole world.

Put another way, they are each a hemisphere and when combined in true love, they build the entire world. And since hemispheres are twins, or mirror-images of each other, that means that their love is so balanced and alike that it will never die. Looks like they won’t be getting out of bed anytime soon!

By John Donne
Quest for impossible things (catch a star, hear mermaids singing, keep off envy, etc.) = finding a true woman
Even if you find one in the end she’ll be false.

By John Donne
The “braver” thing = not bragging about the great thing done (loving someone)

By John Donne
Proposes: Loving any type of woman as long as she herself is not faithful/true
Says that such a thing would not content any woman (fidelity is a 2-way street)
Asks her to not ask him of things/bind him to her if she would not also be faithful..

By John Donne
the image of water
The poet is talking to his mistress expressing regret that he must leave her. He is presenting an argument, trying to persuade her to stop crying by conveying ideas in the form of logical reasoning.
Conceits:
tears as coins and fruit
tears as worlds or globes
tears as tides and seas

By John Donne
Love = Alchemy… both searching for impossible things (true love & turning objects into gold)

By John Donne
Conceit: 2 lovers = hands on a compass
– Can never be together (move in opposite directions)
Images: weather (flood/tempest, earthquakes)
– Separated but not broken/ joined!
– Being lost at sea
idea of death is not associated with fear, but with peaceful acceptance and mild sadness
pleading for an *unemotional parting*

By John Donne
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, while the poet’s 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*.

By John Donne
• Makes fun of the superstitions attached to the ‘purely’ platonic ideas of love;
• Satirize the society’s blind prohibition against the attachment between the sexes
• The persona addresses his beloved, with whom he has not yet been allowed to be intimate. They have only kissed out of the courtesy at meeting and parting, but not yet otherwise.
• tension between spiritual and physical love and the tension is not resolved.

By John Donne
Doubting Wisely – in ‘Seeking true religion’
– Mistress – religion
“Yet strive so that before age, death’s twilight, Thy soul rest, for none can work in that night.” – decide on religion before death..
“blinded age” paganism
Images: ‘mutinous Dutch,’ ‘statecloth’ (fine clothes) of Anglicanism and the ‘rags’ of Catholicism

Unofficial first poet laureate under James I

court life (under James I)

• Received honorary degrees from Cambridge & Oxford
• Son of clergyman (died before his birth)
• Stepdad was a brick worker – Jonson forced to follow but ran away to join the English army
• Returned to London to pursue the stage (playwright/actor)

killed a man in single combat

in 1597, for contributing to bad play

right after prison he killed a fellow actor in a duel

claimed clergy
While in prison (2nd time) he converted to Catholicism- but this was during Jacobian times so he came under suspicion because of the Gun Powder Plot

he agreed to be a spy for the privy council

John Donne, Shakespeare, Robert Herrick, Carew, Suckling (to name a few)

followed Ben Jonson’s philosophy and his style of poetry – Cavalier Poetry
Met in *Mermaid Tavern*
Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, Sir John Suckling, and Thomas Carew.

“To John Donne”
“On My First Son”
“Inviting a Friend to Supper”
“To Penshurst”
“To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us”

by Ben Jonson
10 line poem praising Donne’s poetry
that his intelligence outweighs that of everyone else combined and that even his earliest poems can serve as models. Jonson only regrets that he himself doesn’t have the ability to praise Donne as Donne deserves.
“Phoebus/Muse” – god-like ability to write / classical allusions

by Ben Jonson
Don’t love things too much… they’ll be gone in the end
Elegiac – child died
Biblica Conceits – Loan – 7 years
“right hand” – heir

by Ben Jonson
Confess that doesn’t have too much (poor) – pastry wrapped in reused paper (written on)
– But lists objects of extravagance/wealth (food, classical literature)
– Carpé Diem: party tonight/don’t worry about spies…

by Ben Jonson
Residence of Robert Sidney
Unlike other country houses it is not a new estate that’s keeping up with the latest fashion.. But is covered in “ancient piles” (overgrown vines, connected with nature)
– Tree – slowly grows as Sidney’s lineage grows (imagery of ‘fertility’ /ripeness etc)
– Place where animals are “willing to be killed” – commoners bring offerings but are not forced
– Cavalier: loyalty to the estate’s lorde- and partying (carpé diem)
• Sense of social criticism – “Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee With other edifices, when they see those proud, ambitious heaps, and nothing else, May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.”

by Ben Jonson
Shakespeare’s great in everything despite not having that same foundation of Latin/Greek or including many classical allusions
– Britain by association should ‘brag’ that he is from there
– His talent is innate – but also art
*Living after death through his writings*
– Now Shakespeare’s a “star” (elevates to a ‘demi-god’) who guides and shines about his stage

Metaphysical poet
Concerned with religion/ life/ truth
Uses *shapes* that speak for his argument

very religious – metaphysical
concrete poems (shapes)

“The Altar”
“Redemption”
“Easter Wings”
“The Collar”
“The Pulley”

By George Herbert
Broken altar that only God can fix… (allusions to the curtain ripping and stones crying out)
“ALTAR – HEART – SACRIFICE – ALTAR”
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross… broken altar like Aslan from Narnia…

By George Herbert
God = Landlord
Us = tenants
ALL on loan.. tenant can’t pay (lease), but Christ has paid it all “Your suit is all granted” – John 9:30 It is finished

By George Herbert
Shaped like a wing or one flapping
Man is “most poor” or “most thin” unless he is with the Lord (least words structurally)

By George Herbert
collar = like a leash? / binding
Image: Christ on the mountain (of olives), entreating God to take the cup~ but obeying till the very end
There might not be any good from it (“harvest but a thorn”) but will do it anyway

By George Herbert
God is shown as a God who knows everything and how everything will turn out.
When God created man, he wanted to give his new creation all possible blessings, such as beauty, wisdom, honour, and pleasure. God gives these blessings to man by pouring them out of a “glass of blessings.” The only blessing that God leaves in the bottle is “Rest.” This gift is so precious that God does not want to give it to man; if man would have it, he would worship “Nature, not the God of Nature.”
He wanted man to find true rest only in Him. He wants all of us to come to Him, for He alone can truly give us the rest we so desperately seek.

metaphysical and cavalier poet
– Early poems aligned with royalists… celebrates Cromwell
– dichotomies of nature/love/physical sex etc.
– classical allusions to Greek mythology

“semi-bridge” between metaphysical and cavalier poets

John Donne – b/c Andrew Marvell converted to Catholicism

The Restoration, but kept the belief of “mixed state” – altering views… but in 1659 became member of Parliament

John Milton
He helped Milton get out of execution
– Andrew Marvell wrote poems/criticism on Paradise Lost

posthumously (after death)- hard to organize

“To His Coy Mistress”
“The Mower’s Song”
“The Mower to the Glowworms”
“The Garden”

By Andrew Marvell
CAVALIER – Carpé Diem!!!
Sensual love vs Plutonic love
(1) the speaker tells the mistress that if they had more time and space, her “coyness” wouldn’t be a “crime.” – if he had all the time in the world he would focus on “each part” of her body until he got to the heart
(2)”BUT,” we don’t have the time… life is short, but death is forever… warns her that, when she’s in the coffin, worms will try to take her “virginity” if she doesn’t have sex with him before they die. If she refuses to have sex with him, there will be repercussions for him, too. All his sexual desire will burn up, “ashes” for all time.
(3) Accept the shortness of time… so seize the physical pleasure!

By Andrew Marvell
Conceit: Man = grass
Rejected lover = trodden grass

Mower who sings about his passion and the frustrations it causes.
– his mind was “once the true survey” of the meadows that he mows, and that his hope was once reflected by the “greenness of the grass.” Then Juliana came along, and just as the mower cuts down the grass, he says, she cuts down his “thoughts and me.” Juliana has distracted the Mower, who watches his fields grow “more luxuriant still and fine” to the point that flowers begin to spring up amongst the blades of grass.
The Mower addresses the meadows angrily, asking how they can grow so well when the Mower, their old faithful friend, lies “trodden under feet.” The Mower then threatens to take revenge on the meadows by cutting them all down so they “Will in one common ruin fall.” In the final stanza, after making this threat, the Mower tells the meadows that they shall now become the “heraldry…With which I shall adorn my tomb.”

By Andrew Marvell
Metaphysical – “will-o-the-wisps” “country comets”
Imagery: singing nightingale- different degrees of darkness/light
The speaker in the poem is a Mower addressing the glowworms surrounding him on a summer night. He begins by invoking the glowworms as “living lamps” who provide light to the nightingale while she sings. Then, the Mower compares the glowworms to *”country comets” whose appearance does not forecast an alarming event, such as war or the death of a prince.* Instead, the glowworms simply predict the fall of the grass that will come. The speaker then praises the glowworms for offering light that helps lost Mowers find their way. The poem concludes with the speaker lamenting that the glowworms actually “waste” their “courteous light,” because Juliana, the Mower’s beloved, has caused him to completely “displace” his mind and now he *can never again find his way home.*

By Andrew Marvell
*Eden*
reflecting upon the vanity and inferiority of man’s devotion to public life in politics, war, and civic service.
Speaker values a retreat to “Fair Quiet” and “Innocence” Garden as a space of “sacred plants,” removed from society and its “rude” demands- shade of “lovely green,” which he sees as superior to the white and red hues that commonly signify passionate love.
The speaker claims that when passion has run its course, love turns people towards a contemplative life surrounded by nature. He praises the abundance of fruits and plants in the garden, imagining himself tripping over melons and falling upon the grass. Meanwhile, his mind retreats into a state of inner happiness, allowing him to create and contemplate “other worlds and other seas.” The speaker then returns to addressing the garden, where he envisions his soul releasing itself from his body and perching in the trees like a bird. He compares the scene to the “happy garden-state” of Eden, the Biblical paradise in which God created Adam and Eve. The poem ends with the speaker imagining the garden as its own cosmos, with a sun running through a “fragrant zodiac” and an “industrious bee” whose work computes the passage of time.

– loyal to Charles I during the war- “brazen”/royalist
– poetry meant to praise Charles (b/c had direct communication to him/knew him)
– most were courtiers (wealthy, inner-circle)

– Central romantic love
– Carpé diem
– Life enjoyment > moral code ( libertine)
– Mostly reflective of court life/mindset
– Opposition of metaphysical poetry (conceits)
– More straightforward, refined/*ornate*
– Classical images = show higher education
– Very political / propaganda (greatness of Charles/English throne)

Born into wealth
Supported Charles; fought in Scotland
Cavalier but not a libertine!

In 1642
Supported the Kentish Petition (restore King’s ancient rights)

Cavalier

Lucy Sacheverell
“lux” = light
“casta” = pure / sacred

“To Lucasta, Going to the Wars”
“To Althea, from Prison”

by Howard Lovelace
Break-up poem
“don’t call me sweet ’cause I’m breaking up with you…”
Mistress = war / enemy
– reasons that he could not love her as much as he did if he didn’t love and value his honor more

was in fact imprisoned…
None can imprison the mind-
1. Feels freer than birds.. imagines his lover visiting him/tangled in her hair
2. Drinking bottomless cups (unlike fishes in oceans)- partying / celebration (carpe diem)
3. Free to sing (praise Charles)
4. only angels have as much freedom as he

Cavalier Poet
One of Sons of Ben
From mediocre means – trained as blacksmith but ended up going to Cambridge
Took up church orders as vicar in small village
Royalist
Expelled from being a vicar (1647) until the Restoration b/c he was a royalist

“Delight in Disorder”
“Corinna’s Going A-Maying”
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time”
“Upon Julia’s Clothes”

By Robert Herrick
Cavalier: detail in ornate/physical images/court life
Wantonness in dress – reflective of character
Uses words with bad connotations, but comes across as not bad (ie. chaos, careless)
“Wild civility”
The IMPERFECTIONS can enhance the appeal of a person

By Robert Herrick
Cavalier: CARPÉ DIEM
(1) Everyone’s UP!!! Nature (beauty/youth) Aurora (goddess of dawn)
(2) Be quick in getting ready! – beads in rosary/ prayer
(3) Religious indication/sacred.. if they don’t go it’s like sinning
(4) hearts are being stolen
(5) eminence of time (shade/vapor/morning dew)

By Robert Herrick
Cavalier: CARPÉ DIEM
Marry while young and at your prime
Time waits for no man

By Robert Herrick
Water imagery- flowing/glittering
External attraction
Seeing someone – taking your breath away

Polemic – wrote about controversial subjects
Arrested, almost hanged

“How Soon Hath Time”
“When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”
“Me thought I saw My Late Espousèd Saint”
“Paradise Lost”

By John Milton
Time Flies!
Time = a crafty thief
Nature = seasons/ripeness
Inevitability of growth – “Will of Heaven”
Doing God’s will
**Do good in the time you have

By John Milton
Light = lamp on stand
Biblical allusions: Day laborer / mild yolk
Don’t hide a talent!!
Use your God-given gifts to serve HIM

By John Milton
wife = Mary Powell
Jove = Jupiter “Roman God”
Wife dying at childbirth; seeing her ghost?
*Reunited in Heaven*

By John Milton
12 Books
accounting the Fall (of man and Satan)
6 sections
Epic poetry form

1. Invocation and introduction of poem’s themes
2. An account of Satan’s revolt and his expulsion
3. Dialogue between Satan and Beëlzebub
4. The devils’ rally
5. Satan’s speech
6. The building of Pandemonium

* Invocation and introduction of poem’s themes*
Milton says his purpose is to “assert Eternal Providence and justify the ways of God”

ambitious… “he’s” going to tell US God’s ways?! His plans for us?!
Ironic – goes to talk about prideful Satan… (right after claiming that he’ll talk about God- structure wise)
Prideful and blasphemous.

*An account of Satan’s revolt and his expulsion*
Satan wants to rule…
his motive? Ambition – desire to be above all

Begins with Satan’s rallying speech:
– Know now how strong God is (“all part of the plan”
– reflects his manipulative character
– refers to “potent victor” = Christ.. before even the events of fall/crucifixion
– Have support from fallen angels (but are no longer beautiful/hideous)
– ALL IS NOT LOSS!!!
– We ARE going to do something about it!

End of Satan’s speech –
Rumor of a new creation! “the gal!” – earth
anger! jealousy! – God will favor this new creation more than angels.. they’ll be better

answer? WAR/Destruction (opposite of creation)

Pandemonium is built

pan – all
demons
Chaos…
HOUSE OF ALL THE DEVILS
A rival to earth.. Satan creates his own creation.

Ireland & France

Edmund Spenser

Roanoke Colony

persecution of Mary queen of Scot… anti-Spain

“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd”

Henry, Prince of Whales

Sidney’s forbidden love

Sidney was opposed to Elizabeth’s marriage to him

encouraged Edmund Spenser

Sidney’s sister…
Wrote “Arcadia” for her
bonded

composed a song while dying – in the Dutch revolt

Queen Elizabeth I

against Mary Queen of Scots

Huguenots being slaughtered

attack against English stage… prompted to write “Defense of Poesy”

by Sidney (about him and Devereux)
Petrarchan
Sonnet sequence

Warwickshire

1442

escaping from prison
rape

War of the Roses

romantic hero

Sir Lancelot & Guienevere

Robert Herrick
“To Virgins, to Make Much of Time”

John Milton
“How Soon Hath Time”

John Milton
Paradise Lost

Ben Jonson
“To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and What he Hath Left Us”

Andrew Marvell
“To His Coy Mistress”

John Donne
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

Comparing love to a compass (at opposite places but still connected) – while he was at sea

Ben Jonson
“Still to be Neat”

Richard Lovelace
‘To Lucasta, Going to the Wars”

John Milton
Paradise Lost

Robert Herrick
“On Julia’s Clothes”

John Donne
“The Indifferent”

John Donne
“Love’s Alchemy”

John Donne
George Herbert
Andrew Marvell (bridge)

Ben Johnson
Richard Lovelace
Robert Herrick
Andrew Marvell (bridge)

James Stewart – son of Mary; nephew of Elizabeth I
where KJV Bible comes from..
Created a Parliament – English mixed govn’t
died in 1625 – succeeded by Charles I

James made a peace with Spain (destroyed Catholic hopes of liberation by Spanish invasion)
– a prerequisite for the colonization of the New World (made Atlantic safe for English ships)

proposed secular, contractual political theories
One of the most influential of the Enlightenment thinkers
“father of classical liberalism”
Challenged the Divine Rights of Kings theory” – no government under it

Mandated the form of the services
Made by Church of England
Deliberately avoided addressing abstruse theological controversies
Sought a middle ground b/w traditional and reformed views

Mother of King James
Catholic; cousin of Elizabeth I – executed b/c plotted to assassinate Elizabeth

“Virgin Queen”

1605
A small group of disaffected Catholics packed a cellar adjacent to the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder, intended to detonate on the day the King formally opened Parliament.. but were arrested
* Highlighted anti-Catholic paranoia in England

newly commissioned translation by James I – 1611
More graceful rendering than Geneva
Immediately became English standard

Attempted to reject Parliament- created civil dispute (Oliver Cromwell)
Became a Lord Protector; Civil War.. executed (“watershed event” in English History)
More prudent than James

line of rule failed… no natural selection
Leader of army- massacred the Catholic natives in a frenzy of religious hatred

Appointed after Cromwell died 1660 –
Recalled from exile after

Appointed after Charles II…Granddaughter of James I (stewart line)

Back to the Old Days
Period following Charles II’s induction into the Royal Court
Restoration of monarchy, courtly life, church of England, theatre

Choleric – Yellow Bile, fire
Phlegm cool
Blood – heart
Melancholy – spleen

1666
Bakery store
about 4/5 of london houses destroyed

1628
One of England’s most famous constitutional documents
Citizens say Charle’s overreach of authority as a major infringement on their civil rights.

They were both created by the hands of another without “permission.”
Kicked out of paradise (heaven)
Both driven to evil, but had a choice
Both are enraged by their dissertation- plans revenge/seeks justice

Both have ambitions to excel beyond natural means.. have “forbidden knowledge”
Be better than all
– Bad choices after another..

Presented as “type of hero”
Charismatic (manipulative) –
Leader – has fallen angels who followed him
Has twisted logic/ doing this because he sees “tyranny heaven” — seeks to liberating other angels