Enjoying the poetry of John Donne

[Gori the Grey]

Who's on board for Professor Grey's online seminar on The Poetry of John Donne?

Over in the "General Politics" thread, some observed that the first book parents might like to see banned from a high school library, based on inappropriate content, might well be the Bible. I mentioned that I had recently seen a list of books approved for retention in a library where other books were being banned, and I observed that Donne too would be the last person on earth parents should want their impressionable young children reading. He has a distinct bawdy strain (along with a lot else).

AmazonQueen reported having had Donne ruined for her in school, and I thought that a shame.

So my intent is two-fold. To make the case that conservative parents don't want their kids reading that (i.e. to introduce you all to the ribald Donne). But then to remedy AmazonQueen's miseducation and get you all to love Donne as a poet (which will involve introducing you all to all of Donne.

 

[Snowygerry]

I like - had to search for him - but this could work even here

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know’st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Clearly a romantic poet.

The Flea by John Donne | Poetry Foundation

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

www.poetryfoundation.org

 

[Gori the Grey]

We're going to make our way to the Flea, Snowgerry. But we'll start on a smaller scale (if I get some takers), for any who are uncertain about their abilities in poetry analysis, or who have been turned off Donne specifically (as AmazonQueen indicated in another thread).

 

[Farm Boy]

Poet, priest, lawyer?

Interesting opening move.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee
No man is an island

my education was not entirely wasted, I still remember a few quotes (if not the poems they came from) but I'll stick with the moderns

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'll make him modern for you, AmazonQueen. C'mon. The thread was designed at least in part with you in mind--could I bring you to enjoy a poet your previous education had ruined for you. It's part of the challenge for me here.

 

[JollyRoger]

Do I need a permission slip from my Congressman?

 

[AmazonQueen]

I'll make him modern for you, AmazonQueen. C'mon. The thread was designed at least in part with you in mind--could I bring you to enjoy a poet your previous education had ruined for you. It's part of the challenge for me here.

I'll allow you to try.
You might've had a better chance 40 years ago when the poison was recent but if you can overcome a lifetime of prejudice then you're a better teacher than I had back then!

 

[Gori the Grey]

Give me one of your favorite modern poems, and I'll try to think of a Donne poem that rivals it--that gives the same kind of enjoyment that you take from that poem.

Do I need a permission slip from my Congressman?

I'll have to track back. I think it might have been a Texas school board that listed the Poems of John Donne as a book that could stay in the school's library. (Part of the prompt for this thread over in the General Politics thread).

You're in, JR. You're going to like the snarky one-liner Donne. Oh, and wait til we get to the Relic. Oh, and you're going to love the Indifferent.

I'll be disappointed if you don't turn out to be both the class smart-alec and my star pupil.

Poet, priest, lawyer?

Interesting opening move.

Trained as a lawyer, yes. Didn't practice as one. Eventually took holy orders and served as Dean of St. Paul's cathedral. Not the bishop there, but the parish priest for the top church in England, so a pretty exalted post.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Give me one of your favorite modern poems, and I'll try to think of a Donne poem that rivals it--that gives the same kind of enjoyment that you take from that poem.

OK, I'm not sure if posting a complete poem risks copyright infringement but I've found a link to 2 favourite poems.

Assisi by Norman MacCaig

An ordinary day by Norman MacCaig

This was somebody I read at school and liked and still do.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Those are lovely poems. Depending upon what it is you like in them, you might be a prime candidate for liking Donne as well.

Let me start thinking about which poems might serve as a bridge.

Can I ask, about Assisi do you like the speaker's cynicism in pointing out the supposed devoutness of the tourists, who are yet overlooking the opportunity for true Christian charity standing right before them? Do you like the dwarf, in that context, being referred to as a temple? In An Ordinary Day, do you like the conceptual playfulness of the speaker wondering whether it is him taking his mind for a walk or it taking him?

To whatever extent you're willing to say what it is that you like in the poems that you like, the better I'll be able to do my job. There are certain delights specific to twentieth-century poetry that Donne does not afford, but certain others that he might.

To everyone: expanded opening post to indicate more clearly what I'm about in this thread.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I like the cynicism and I like the wordplay (the tourists as a clutch of chickens following the priest scattering words like grain) in Assisi.
I am fond of clever wordplay which An ordinary day also has but I also like the idea of finding beauty and wonder in the ordinary.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I also like the idea of finding beauty and wonder in the ordinary

Ok, this does tend to be more true of what 20th-c poets try to do than what poets of Donne's age tended to do, but I'll start you out with the opening two stanzas of the Ecstasy and see if you feel as though it's grounded in the same ordinary experience:

Where, like a pillow on a bed​

A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest​

The violet's reclining head,​

Sat we two, one another's best.​

​

Our hands were firmly cemented​

With a fast balm, which thence did spring;​

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread​

Our eyes upon one double string;​

Two lovers, sitting on a river bank, holding hands and gazing into one another's eyes. The poem's going to go in some crazy directions, but its starting point is just a relatively ordinary experience, no? Can you find some of the same delight in this as in MacCaig's Ordinary Day?

 

[AmazonQueen]

Ok, this does tend to be more true of what 20th-c poets try to do than what poets of Donne's age tended to do, but I'll start you out with the opening two stanzas of the Ecstasy and see if you feel as though it's grounded in the same ordinary experience:

Where, like a pillow on a bed​

A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest​

The violet's reclining head,​

Sat we two, one another's best.​

​

Our hands were firmly cemented​

With a fast balm, which thence did spring;​

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread​

Our eyes upon one double string;​

Two lovers, sitting on a river bank, holding hands and gazing into one another's eyes. The poem's going to go in some crazy directions, but its starting point is just a relatively ordinary experience, no? Can you find some of the same delight in this as in MacCaig's Ordinary Day?

Probably but I don't find the language easy so the poem doesn't flow for me. I don't think I'd have known they were sitting on a riverbank if you hadn't said.

 

[Gori the Grey]

How would you have interpreted "bank"?

But oh, yeah, Donne won't "flow." He won't ever flow. He won't flow metrically (though he writes in metered verse, he writes in a rough version of it). He won't flow conceptually (because he'll bring discordant images in out of the blue). And he won't be "easy," ever.

But MacCaig actually has some of that same verbal roughness in the opening of Assisi: "The dwarf with his hands on backwards / sat, slumped like a half-filled sack," the verbal staccato of "backwards sat slumped" and "half-filled sack." And how do you work with "charabancs" in An Ordinary Day? That's not an "easy" word, is it? (I had to look it up any way).

 

[AmazonQueen]

How would you have interpreted "bank"?

But oh, yeah, Donne won't "flow." He won't ever flow. He won't flow metrically (though he writes in metered verse, he writes in a rough version of it). He won't flow conceptually (because he'll bring discordant images in out of the blue). And he won't be "easy," ever.

But MacCaig actually has some of that same verbal roughness in the opening of Assisi: "The dwarf with his hands on backwards / sat, slumped like a half-filled sack," the verbal staccato of "backwards sat slumped" and "half-filled sack." And how do you work with "charabancs" in An Ordinary Day? That's not an "easy" word, is it? (I had to look it up any way).

I just wouldn't've got bank.
Hiring a charabanc for the works outing to Blackpool or Aintree would probably be as unfamiliar to a young person in Britain today as it was to you but its a cultural reference I understood. I'm sure MacCaig will be as difficult to students of future generations as Donne was for me. Not all "hard" poets or authors put me off. I like Burns and my favourite author, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, writes in English with a lot of Scots words mixed in (the glossary at the back of the book was essential for me first time), but Donne never clicked for me. Assisi reads out loud really well

 

[Gori the Grey]

Regarding how a poem sounds when read, can you let me know what you think of this? We're shifting to a different poem, "Song: Sweetest love." Here the speaker is going on a journey, and trying to persuade his beloved not to cry overly. Donne often composes "rough" verse, but when he writes songs, he tries to be mellifluous.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Regarding how a poem sounds when read, can you let me know what you think of this? We're shifting to a different poem, "Song: Sweetest love." Here the speaker is going on a journey, and trying to persuade his beloved not to cry overly. Donne often composes "rough" verse, but when he writes songs, he tries to be mellifluous.

I like it better to listen to than read (which is not a bad thing in poetry).

 

[Valka D'Ur]

OK, I'm not sure if posting a complete poem risks copyright infringement but I've found a link to 2 favourite poems.

Assisi by Norman MacCaig

An ordinary day by Norman MacCaig

This was somebody I read at school and liked and still do.

I might get interested if this were an A&E thread.

As for infringement, you're not claiming that anyone but the legitimate author wrote it, and you're not trying to profit from it. I don't see a problem.

 

[Farm Boy]

Is there a next reading suggestion?