Who loves John Donne?

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Donne’s verse is called metaphysical because in it he tries to unite poetry and philosophy. As with Shakespeare in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Donne seems to recognise the importance of imagination – as opposed to science, rationality and logic – as a way of making sense of the world from a fully human perspective. Donne is an intellectual, passionate and highly independent poet. To him, a thought was in itself an experience and he used his whole experience and senses to explore those thoughts that meant the most to him: thoughts that concerned women, love and spirituality.

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Donne’s poetry combines metaphorical and dramatised realism with wit and passion using what was then a new and exciting vibrant expressiveness. He uses dazzling wordplay, often explicitly sexual; paradox; subtle argumentation; surprising contrasts; intricate psychological analysis; and striking imagery selected from non-traditional poetic areas such as alchemy, law, physiology, scholastic philosophy, and mathematics.

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Donne used the vocabulary, rhythms and diction of the spoken voice to express his thoughts – a major change from the more formal dignity of earlier Elizabethan poetry, especially the vogue for ‘courtly’ love poetry.

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Donne’s poetic form seems a natural adaptation of that of the popular Elizabethan dramatists.

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Donne’s poetry was only much later termed ‘metaphysical’ because of its use of complex arguments and elaborate ‘conceits’ to explore the abstract ideas of love, sin, God and human existence.

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His use of metre, rhyme, alliteration and other effects of sound were made to serve an expressively dramatic and intellectual purpose rather than for purely melodious, mellifluous or harmonious effects.

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His poetry expresses the most refined level of feeling.

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He was a master of control of pause, stress and tempo; he used a wide reference of subject matter and allusion.

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Donne’s poems are commonly only superficially ‘love’ or ‘religious’ poems. In reality, they are a kind of personalised ‘internal discussion’ – an exploration of ideas about love, religion, doubt, etc.

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Donne’s poems always use their subject merely as a means to an end, e.g. the woman, as such, is rarely the true subject of the poem (as in most other contemporary poetry).

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The poems explore both the metaphysics as well as the practicalities of their subject matter, e.g. the idea of flesh as the way to a union of the soul.

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There are three main groupings of poems: love (which can be subdivided into cynical and true love) / miscellaneous and occasional verse / religious poetry.