Courtney Ruffner teaches Literature at Manatee Community College, is co-editor and founder of Florida English and has published articles for Chelsea House and the MLA. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Italian American Studies and Post-Colonialism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania summers only residency program.
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Paradise Within
Perhaps the finest mark in 17th century literature occurs when John Donne’s writing changes from the drab, meaningless love poetry found in his secular poetry to the strong, philosophical statements on the inner depths of human kind found in his later, more religious poetry. Donne, a metaphysical poet, has provided his readers a way to enter into his idealistic paradise, his inner philosophical mindset, by carbon copying his own format for poetry. According to Louis Martz, this inner spatial relationship that Donne has created for himself can be termed the “paradise within”, or the microcosm. By providing a secure place within himself and within the poem that his readers can identify with, Donne manages to continue writing according to the metaphysical criteria, but is able to explore his own identity and insecurities without having to conform to other classes of poetics like Cavalier poetry. Having the ability to write his poetry in a format that his readers can follow, identify with, and find comfort in has placed Donne at the top of the metaphysical canon. Martz states that this secure metaphysical, meditative style of writing follows a specific ordering referred to by Martz as the three fold method, meaning “three powers of the soul” (34). The three fold method was set forth by Jesuit Puente and is evident in Donne’s work, which opens with a firm, dramatic composition followed by the analysis and the affections / contemplation or colloquy as seen in the sonnets (Martz 31). This type of poetry probes the minds of its readers allowing Donne to work through his own immediate problems by way of intellectualizing through his poetry. While providing entertainment and intellectual stimuli for his readers, Donne manages to create a way for himself to work through his thoughts on paper and utilize the three-fold cycle in order to attempt reconciliation with his problems. Using his microcosm as a safe place to ponder the world’s more sophisticated dilemmas, Donne places himself in the center of the paradise to act as surveyor of all mankind. Martz discusses Donne’s idea of this inner microcosm in his book The Poetry of Meditation. The subject of The Poetry of Meditation is profound meditation, which Martz defines as an “intense imaginative meditation that brings together the senses, the emotions, and the intellectual faculties of man; […] in a moment of dramatic, creative experience” (1). Martz refers to “metaphysical poetry” in this study as “poetry of meditation” because he feels the latter term is historically and critically more suitable since it is less debatable for his discussion. The major premise of Martz’s work is reliant on a variety of devotional practices that constitute the art of meditation, particularly in Donne’s work, and more specifically in the Anniversaries because of the poems’ precise divisions into formal sections. Furthering Martz’s discussion, the book explores the idea of 17th century religion as a means of meditation called potential poetry. Emphasis is placed on the idea of meditation as an inner spiritual “union of the powers of the soul” (Martz 321). The essence of Martz’s study is the idea of reaching a microcosm within the poet’s mind as well as in the poet’s writings. Through analysis of Donne’s poetry, one can see clearly how Martz’s profound meditation and the traditional classification of metaphysical poetry are closely linked by definition. Because the definitions of these terms in Donne’s time are so similar, we must consider how Donne, himself, affected the future of the metaphysical poets and what the metaphysical poets as a group represented. Donne’s earlier poetry lacks the substance that his later religious poetry has been able to fulfill. Donne went through a transformation in order to claim his place as a true metaphysical poet. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the following definition for metaphysical in Donne’s Time: “1550 Nicolis Thucyd v b, the sciences that he calleth speculatiue, be the metaphisicals; Based on abstract general reasoning; determined on theoretical or priori principles” (1781). We can clearly see that metaphysical poetry is intellectual poetry. Donne fits this classification as well as any metaphysical poet; however, the definition of meditation in Donne’s time – “1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 233 Meditacyo, is a profounde or studyous cogitacyon about any certeyn thynge. 1588 Fraunce Lawiers Log. I.i.I Reasoning maybe … in solitary meditations and deliberations with a mans selfe” (1759) – allows for a dichotomy of philosophy when referring to Donne as a metaphysical poet. Thus, there remains a debate whether his poetry is metaphysical or meditative. According to these definitions, Martz’s idea of profound meditation fits the 17th century definition of metaphysical, the profound awareness of man’s theoretical meditative deliberations. In order to achieve a meditative poetic standpoint, one must be at a comfortable place within him/her self. Martz agrees that this microcosm or spiritual center, the one “essential personality that is every man’s unique possession” (323) is the necessary element for achieving a meditative style of poetry. It is important to note here that the microcosm of which Martz writes is, indeed, a place from which the poet is completely comfortable and for which he/she has previously created personal and religious discipline in all portions of the poet’s life. This is a place of individuality, a paradise. As Thomas Carlyle states in his meditative book titled Sartor Resartus, “[…] our Whole Duty, […] is to Move, to Work, - in the right direction” (99). Carlyle implies that by moving in the right direction (God’s direction) and by working as we move, we will obtain our inner paradise, our personal microcosm by fulfilling our duty to God. Donne ascribed to this idealism of work and duty for the life he would receive after death. We see this evidence in his personal life as he went from writer to preacher, and with his place in society, a place where he could be “the godly man he prepared himself for” (Cummings 35). Metaphysical poets differ from other poet groups in that they have been characterized by records of their own time period as private, egotistical, and intellectual writers. Metaphysical poets are even more private, egotistical, and intellectual than other poets. They were, indeed, theoretical private poets. The idea of personal privacy in Donne’s world simply meant that poetry was written for the poet instead of for the audience. Social poetry was indeed shared but only with specific members of Donne’s poetry group. For the most part, Donne wrote for himself. He needed to intellectualize his thoughts through poetry. Intellectualizing his thoughts was his way of coming to terms with that which he could not explain. In a time of change and uncertainty, Donne began to examine what was possible and what could be by purging his ideas onto paper. An example of changed uncertainty occurs when Galileo, using a telescope, introduced the notions of spots on the moon and sun, the world as Donne knew it was called into question. In 1574 and 1604 new stars were discovered adding to Donne’s internalization of questions. He soon realized that this new philosophy would call all natural things into question for others as well. The chain of being was disturbed and the new philosophy was prevailing. Donne internalized his fears and began to search for the answers to newly posed questions. This marks the beginning of Donne’s transformation. Donne’s social poetry like “The Flea” and “The Canonization” turned to more private, theoretical poetry like “The Good-Morrow”. “The Good-Morrow” is one representation of Donne’s ideal microcosm and his journey through intellectual awakening ultimately leading to his inner happiness. Although classified as one of Donne’s secular pieces, this poem deals almost explicitly with the idea of the paradise within from which Donne’s profound meditation is rooted. Structurally, “The Good-Morrow” is divided into the traditional three-fold process of Donne’s meditative pondering: the firm dramatic composition (stanza one), the analysis (stanza two), and the contemplation or meditation (stanza three). The opening of the poem is evident in lines 6 and 7 of “The Good-Morrow”: “If ever any beauty I did see, / Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.” Donne uses this language as sincerity to dramatize the idea of the all-encompassing love his speaker (or Donne himself) feels the morning after a night of love making with his current lover. His language in lines 6 and 7 contradicts the bawdy and sexually connotative “country pleasures” found in line 3. It is important to note that “beauty” in line 6 is representative of the physical beauty the speaker has seen in many other lovers and is only that vision of beauty he now finds in his current lover’s physical being. In addition, we see Donne’s egotism in line 7 which he “desired, and got” as the speaker admittedly tells his current lover he not only saw beautiful women but he desired them as well. The speaker goes on to say that he “got” these women. Essentially, the speaker is inflating his ego by boasting about the number of women he has seen, wanted, and as a result, “had,” while proclaiming his love for his current lover. Stanza two begins the analysis portion of the three-fold method discussed in Martz’s book:
Here Donne analyzes his love affair by placing emphasis on the newness of the love in comparison to the new philosophies of his time period. The speaker begins his analysis by inadvertently positioning love and jealousy as polar opposites yet yoking the two emotions together with an ambiguous statement that, once again, implies egotism. According to the footnote translated by Cummings in Seventeenth-Century Poetry, when lines 9 and 10 state “Which watch not one another out of fear; / For love, all love of other sights controls,” they really mean “Which do not not watch each other out of jealousy, for love checks all love for anything else we look at”(qtd. in Cummings 43). Donne uses the idea of each lover watching the other as a way to control feelings of insecurity within his new relationship. By taking control of the feelings of insecurity from the beginning of the relationship, Donne then can use this reasoning as a venue for his egocentrism to play out in his aubade. If, in fact, these lines read in this fashion, then tangled between Donne’s analysis is a justification for him to continue his promiscuity without having to worry about his new lover questioning his loyalty. By stating that “’love checks all love for anything else we look at’” (qtd. in Cummings 43), Donne has created a vow between the speaker and his lover. If the lover should question the speaker’s loyalty, then she does not believe in their love. Conversely, in line 11, “And makes one little room, an everywhere,” the speaker brings his lover to a personal paradise as Donne goes into “extra private mode” by identifying the room of the love affair as his everything, his microcosm. By creating a space to encompass all that matters (here, the lovers), Donne uses the microcosm as a center from which to intellectualize his ideas concerning the new philosophies of the times (and his speaker uses the microcosm as a center from which to intellectualize his love for his new lover). As the speaker compares his recent love to the greater things in America “sea-discoverers to new worlds” (line 12) and ”maps to others” (line 13), Donne ponders the effectiveness and the validity of the New World discoveries. By using hemispheres to symbolize the lovers in line 14 “Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one,” Donne redirects his readers to the microcosm, thus causing the readers to analyze for themselves what he means by “one world.” The idea of each lover representing one hemisphere equaling “one world” tricks the reader into feeling sincerity for the love that the speaker of the poem proclaims he has; however, the egotism that radiates from a more sophisticated analysis warns the reader of Donne’s rustic ideas of love. In addition, this ambiguous reasoning that Donne provides can be used to look past the speaker of the poem into the poet himself to analyze Donne’s intellectual turmoil from which he initially wrote the poem. Stanza three serves as the colloquy by reiterating that the microcosm the speaker has built to embody his love for “this” lover is the ultimate place of being. Because this microcosm is all that represents connection and unity, Donne’s speaker convinces his lover that their love is “untouchable” by all that taints nature, the outside world. When Donne writes “My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears” (line 15), he creates the private world which his speaker uses to contemplate the depths of his new love affair. Donne initiates a place of meditation for his speaker and his lover to ponder their relationship. Interestingly, Donne uses a mirror effect, his speaker’s eye reflecting the lover’s eye, to represent this inner paradise. This paradise is something that can be held only in the smallest, most intricate place in the body, the eyes, the tunnels to the soul. The remaining portion of stanza three acts as a metaphysical contemplation vacillating between casual and this “soul” love:
While the speaker here contemplates the roles he and his lover play in their newly found paradise, Donne contemplates his role in his new technological society. When the speaker professes “What ever dies, was not mixed equally” (line 19), the reader assumes that the speaker is referring to this new love he has acquired; however, this is Donne’s way of phasing out his three-fold process of writing in that he begins to intellectualize the ideals of his time. He considers Galileo and the telescope “[…] two better hemispheres / Without sharp north, without declining west?” (lines 17-18) and discards the idea that his love is mortal. Donne believes his love is immortal because it is pure. It will live on because it is not tainted by the elements of the outside world (technology and astronomy). The final two lines bring Donne’s mediation to an end with the idea that love is completeness: “If our two loves be one, or, thou and I / Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die” (lines 20-21). Here is where Donne contemplates the realism of love and the idealism of the outer world around him. Safe in their microcosms, Donne and the speaker both can waver in and out of finalization of thought. The speaker says that the love he shares with his lover will last forever, but only if it is pure. By placing a stronger emphasis on archetypes like “sharp north”, “declining west”, and “hemispheres,” Donne, himself, implies that by him as poet acknowledging these new ideas of astronomy, there could be mortality for his speaker’s love after all. The speaker concludes his love affair as Donne merges the love affair in the poem with his personal ideology of the outer world. This merging of ideas brings love and astronomy together by placing the two concepts on a parallel level of understanding. Donne’s speaker can not promise that his love will remain alive forever because he is not sure that what he feels is indeed love: “If out two loves be one” (line 20). Likewise, Donne does not reveal his final thoughts on the New World even after he goes through his meditative stage because he simply can not make up his mind as to what he believes about love or about the New World. Perhaps,
John Donne was simply uncertain of anything in his life aside from
his spiritualism. Having traced Donne’s personal history from a
young poet bidding the world farewell before entering into a
spiritual world, from Catholicism to elected Dean of St. Paul’s,
and from a political life to a religious life, we can clearly see
that Donne, although calculating in his life’s ambitions, was not
someone we would describe as being personally sure of anything going
on in his life. However, according to Izaak Walton, “[Donne’s]
great and most blessed change was from a temporal to a spiritual
employment, in which he was so happy, that he accounted the former
part of his life to be lost” (qtd. in Cummings 36). This change
brought along a much needed and prosperous transformation in his
poetry. The transformation from secular poetry to philosophical
poetry set Donne aside from the other poets of the 17th
century. Donne’s use of inner theoretical philosophies as a means
by which his poetry could explore the intellectual side of current
events happening at his time created a new way to view the
metaphysical era, Donne’s poetry, and Donne himself. |
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Works
Cited Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Cummings, Robert, editor. Seventeenth-Century Poetry an Annotated Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000. Martz, Louis. The Poetry of Meditation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954. “Meditation.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1973. “Metaphysical.” The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1973. |
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COURTNEY J. RUFFNER