John Donne, Songs and Sonnets

John Donne, Songs and Sonnets (1633)

This chapter discusses John Donne’s love poetry, focusing on the dichotomic principle characteristic of his work, manifesting as opposition, paradox, ambiguity, and ambivalence. These features belong not only to poetic style but also to the subjects represented, such as the need for choice in love and religion, and the contrast between love and death. A reading of “A Lecture upon the Shadow” shows Donne reflecting on these subjects by presenting fictional speakers, presenting love as an act of communication. The aesthetics involve poetic form interacting with the speakers’ arguments through wordplay, metaphor (metaphysical conceit), and varied metrical and stanza forms. A brief outline of important stages of reception concludes the chapter.

Context: Author, Œuvre, Moment

John Donne’s (1572–1631) Songs and Sonnets comprise about 54 love poems published posthumously in 1633. The title echoes Songes and Sonettes (1557), known as Tottel’s Miscellany. This is ironic because Donne’s poems are neither sonnets nor lyrical songs. The myth of a ‘double’ Donne emerged early: ‘Jack’ Donne, the witty love poet, and ‘John’ Donne, the philosopher and divine, Dean of St. Paul’s. Isaac Walton presented this as a conversion story, reminiscent of St. Paul and St. Augustine. Walton (1640) noted that Donne wished his earlier love poems had been short-lived after his conversion.

Modern critics insist that separating Donne into two selves is incorrect, though Walton acknowledged a connection through “heavenly Poetry”. Walton admired Donne’s poetic skill, noting his metaphors drawn from all arts and nature, a feature later termed the ‘metaphysical conceit.’ Walton's narrative, despite its qualifications, highlights doubleness in Donne's life and art, seen in dichotomies, contrasts, and ambiguities. This dichotomic principle distinguishes Donne from other early modern English poets.

The difficulty in dating Donne’s poems is exemplified by “Autumnal,” often grouped with love elegies modeled on Ovid’s Amores. The speaker praises love triggered by the “Golden Age”. The dating influences interpretation; an early date suggests a paradoxical encomium, while a later date aligns with verse letters. This ambiguity relates to the biographical reading of early modern poetry collections, like Shakespeare’s sonnets. The confessional identity of the time also plays a role. In 1593, Donne witnessed his brother Henry's death for harboring a Catholic priest. Donne, as a Catholic, was barred from a university degree, though he matriculated at Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1584. He participated in military expeditions against Spain in 1596 and 1597; his poems “The Storm” and “The Calm” reflect this experience. His political career ended when he married Anne More in 1601, leading to imprisonment and loss of his position. He was ordained a priest in 1615, after moving towards Protestantism, marked by Pseudo-Martyr (1610), arguing that Catholics could take the Oath of Allegiance. Inner debate and soliloquy characterize his search for truth, seen in verse satires and Holy Sonnets. Donne’s third satire emphasizes conversion as a search for faith, comparing true religion to a woman to be won.

The need for choice in religion and love marks Donne’s poetic production. He circulated his poems in manuscript, controlling reception and employing paradox and irony. This contradicts the notion of him carelessly scattering his poems, suggesting recklessness alongside restraint. Author-publication enhances paradox and irony in Songs and Sonnets.

Basic Coordinates: Central Topics and Concerns

The central topic of the Songs and Sonnets is love. Donne escapes Petrarchist discourses and presents love as a subject addressing all aspects of life. Instead of praise, he explores the relationship between lovers, from cynicism to transcendent union. Love exemplifies dichotomies, paradoxes, and ambiguities in Donne’s poetry. He highlights love as an object of language and communication. Love as an act is alluded to, but love as a feeling, attitude, and state of existence is what is discussed. In “A Lecture upon the Shadow,” the speaker presents himself as a communicator on love, but the reader is soon aware of the impossibility of the lecture, thus setting the stage for a deeper consideration of the topic. The imperative tone and scholastic genre evoke ambiguity. The command “stand still” could refer to the reader or an internal addressee, akin to epitaph inscriptions. Asking love to stand still is comically inappropriate; love never stands still. If loving and being wise is scarcely allowed to God, it is even less so for the God of Love. Alternatively, the addressee is a beloved person (“love”) to whom the nature of love is explained. The intended adressee is therefore unclear, or perhaps both, this ambiguity exemplifies a dichotomic principle.

The poem continues:

Those three hours which we’ve spent\nIn walking here, two shadows went\nAlong with us, which we ourselves produced;\nBut, now the sun is just above our head,\nWe do those shadows tread,\nAnd to brave clearness all things are reduced:\nSo, while our infant love did grow,\nDisguises did, and shadows, flow\nFrom us and our care; but now ’tis not so.

These lines begin the lecture in love’s philosophy. The expressions “read” and “lecture” are metaphorical; the speaker turns the positions of sun and shadows into an emblem of their love. Deictics support the inclusive reading, but the exclusive reading is still possible. The difference between internal and external communication is discussed. Love must be defined as internal communication to attain its least/highest degree. The central conceit likens love to the course of the sun, reaching its highest point. “Reduced” has a positive meaning, as love at this level no longer fears being observed. Elsewhere, exclusivity is stressed, but “A Lecture upon the Shadow” presents love as a private sphere or paradigm, defining itself by opposition to the social world. Examples include “The Sun Rising” and “The Canonization”. The first half of “A Lecture upon the Shadow” interprets the past and present, while the second half projects the future. The shadows cast behind the lovers represent their blindness and deceit, equivalent to the sun’s position. The lesson is radical: time must stop at its zenith for love to continue. The opening injunction “Stand still” is addressed to love itself, represented by the sun. Only if it stands still does the lecture not end in despair. Riveting the listeners attention with rhetoric, makes the impossible, come to pass. In this way, Donne has his speaker implicitly prove that love is a matter of discourse, never confined by any biographical reference. All biographical allusions such as punning his name becomes mill for the poet’s rhetorical purposes. The identity of the speaker is variable and contributes to the pragmatic meaning of the poetic utterance. In “Break of Day,” the (probably) female speaker asks “him”: “Must business thee from hence remove?”. The epigrammatic ending is supported by the speaker’s gender role. In “The Message,” the speaker could be male or female in their cynical attack on their significant other. But the cynicism frequently exposes the vulnerability of the speaker's attitude, or exposing him or her as ridiculous. The speaker casts his female addressee as murderess and himself as ghost revenging her rejection of his solicitations, but then admits that his own “love is spent,