john donne poetry test

the bait

• explores idea of temptation of love and desire

• central image: beautiful, radiant bait on fishing hook covering the sun and moon with multiple fishes surrounding it

• tone: flirtatious, desperate hope

• topic: desire and love

• preliminary: material items can be used to lure and trick people into falling in love with a corrupt individual, causing them to be manipulated by their deceitfulness

• figurative language:

  • metaphor

    • "Of golden sands and crystal brooks, / With silken lines and silver hooks.”

    • “I need not their light, having thee.”

    • “With strangling snare, or windowy net.”

  • personification

    • '“There will the river whispering run”

    • “Each fish, which every channel hath, / Will amorously to thee swim, / Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.”

    • “Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies, / Bewitch poor fishes’ wandering eyes.”

  • hyperbole

    • “Warmed by thine eyes, more than the sun.”

    • “If thou, to be so seen, beest loath, / By sun or moon, thou darkenest both,”

    • “Let others freeze with angling reeds, / And cut their legs with shells and weeds,"

    • “That fish, that is not catched thereby, / Alas, is wiser far than I.”

• musical device: rhyming couplets (AABBCC), some lines have spondaic syllable/stress where it emphasizes how the fish swim towards the bait and highlights how radiant and desirable the bait truly is

• organization: 7 stanzas, divided into quatrains, iambic tetrameter

• final: when in the presence of a beautiful and radiant individual, one is willing to use all means to flatter and gain said individual’s love. however, by doing so, they blind themselves from seeing the person’s true nature

a valediction: forbidding mourning

• John Donne’s last message to his wife before he leaves for Europe where he is comforting his wife and celebrating how special their love is

• central image: couple walking away from each other

• topic: their love can withstand long distance; the physical separation only strengthens their love

• tone: despondent yet hopeful

• preliminary: despite being a long distance relationship, true love prevails

• figurative language

  • metaphor

    • “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:”

    • “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.”

    • “As stiff twin compasses are two; / Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if th' other do.”

    • “And though it in the center sit, / Yet when the other far doth roam,”

    • Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun.”

• musical device

  • alliteration

    • “We can die by it if not live by love” repeating “l” and “v” sounds

  • assonance

    • “Breath to endure, or covet a snake’s smart” repeating “e” and “a” sounds

  • enjambment

    • “If they be two, they are two so

      As stiff twin compasses are two;”

• organization: 9 stanzas, quatrain, every other line rhyming, iambic pentameter with irregularities

• final: amidst physical separation, true love flourishes by unifying souls and bridging lovers and relieving the need to mourn

sun rising

• Donne is irked at the sun for rising because he and his lover must separate and condemns it; morning after sex

• central image: phallic imagery from the title since the sun isn’t the only thing rising, deep spiritual love trumps the power of the sun, sees the whole world in his lover’s eyes and considers him and his lover as the center of the universe

• topic: the sun breaks the lovers apart in the bedroom

• tone: scornfully condescending, eventual pity for its futile existence

• preliminary: love is an all-conquering force that can overcome even the laws governing the sun

• figurative language:

  • personification

    • “busy old fool, unruly son”

    • “go chide”

    • “look”

    • all describe sun = weak feeble being

  • metaphor

    • “ask for those kings, whom thou saw’st yesterday, / And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay”

    • “This bed thy center is”

  • hyperbole

    • “I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink”

    • “If her eyes have not blinded thine”

    • “She is all states, and all princes”

• musical device:

  • ABBACDCEE

  • enjambment

    • “Thy beams so reverend,
      and strong
      Why shouldst thou
      think?”

  • assonance

    • “Love, all alike, nO season knOws nOr clime”

  • alliteration

    • “I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink”

  • consonance

    • “In THat THe worlds contracted THus”

• organization: 3 stanzas with 10 lines each, does not adhere to one strict metric rhythm: iambic tetrameter → dimeter → pentameter

• final: profound love is capable of transcending even the forces of nature, giving it a sense of eternity. such deep and strong love can be so expansive that it perhaps displaces lovers’ physical world

batter my heart

• also known as holy sonnet 14 (XIV)

• Donne asks for help to overcome religious uncertainty and to accept divine grace

• central image: captured town, unhappy engagement, battering ram, imprisoned

• topic: religious crisis

• tone: intentionally directive, passionate and desperate, speaker is striving to go back to the path of God

• preliminary: people fear that if they have doubt within their religion, then God will as well

• figurative language

  • metaphor

    • “Batter my Heart” speaker’s heart is a fortress that needs to be transformed by God

  • personification

    • “Reason, your viceroy in me” reason is a viceroy to protect the speaker

  • imagery

    • “Break, blow, burn” conveys the speaker’s desires for divine for divine experience

  • symbolism

    • “the heart” symbolizes desire for spiritual renewal

• musical device

  • ABBA-ABBA-CDCD-EE

  • assonance

    • “Knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend”

  • alliteration

    • “Batter my heart, three-person’d God”

  • consonance

    • “Reason, your viceroy in me”

• organization: octave followed by a sestet

• final: society is desperate to overcome the torment of religious doubt, in fear that if they doubt then God has to force his way back into their heart

song

• Donne likens women to mermaids and sirens who are symbols of promiscuity and sin that lure men to their deaths with their sweet songs and innate appearances

• central image: sirens, the Devil, and Marilyn Monroe

• tone: lighthearted and smug and exasperated

• preliminary: the speaker is a passionate lover, confident that there is no woman in the world as fair as his partner OR the speaker is an experienced/mature man who encourages readers to see the world rather than waste their time chasing women

• figurative language

  • hyperbole

  • allusion

• musical device

  • ABABCCDDD

  • consonance

  • rhyme

  • alliteration

• organization: trochaic tetrameter, 9 line stanzas, iambic monometer

• final: the speaker is a frustrated, single man coaching his audience (men/brethen who seek love) on women’s unfaithful natures, complaining about how faithful, beautiful women are nonexistent wand women who are fair are not to be trusted

air and angel

death, be not proud

• also known as holy sonnet 10 (X)

• speaking directly to Death and claims that he does not scare him since it’s comparable to rest and sleep but also because he’s a servant/tool to Fate

• central image: man saying “I’m not scared of you" while Death is behind him

• topic: death and not being afraid

• tone: arrogant and proud and reverence for God

• preliminary: Death is inevitable, but it is neither scary nor permanent; it merely serves as the first step to eternal life

• figurative language

  • personification

    • Death

    • “Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men”

    • “Why swell’st thou then?”

    • constantly belitted

    • speaker is reassuring himself that he is stronger than death

  • simile

    • "From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,” makes Death seem peaceful and temporary

    • “And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well” belittles Death by making it seem like its job is useless

  • paradox

    • “For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me” purpose of Death is to kill but the people Death tries to take down will not actually die

    • “Death, thou shalt die” role reversal

• musical device: sonnet, iambic pentameter with many variations, spondaic rhythm reflects speaker’s fearlessness of Death, ending couplet, slant rhyme, alliteration, enjambment, ABBA-CDDC-EE

• organization: split into octave and sestet, three quatrains and couplet

• final: Death is not as terrifying as humans make it out to be; its power is limited to the physical being and cannot touch a soul’s unwavering faith in God and eternal afterlife

at the round earth

• also known as holy sonnet 7 (VII)

i am a little world made cunningly

• also known as holy sonnet 5 (V)

the good-morrow

love’s diet

canonization

hymn