TIME
POETRY
LOVE
LIFE IS ETERNAL
PERCEPTIONS OF TIME
The Triple Fool
"But not of such measures when 'tis read, both are increased lay such long"
Donne is confected between purely being an expression of emotion satisfy his grief, or increasing his grief through allowing his wounds to remain open as it lives in poetry throughout time
The Canonisation
"And by these hymns, ask shall approve us canonised for love"
It is holy hymns which are able to make thing timeless (the act of canonisation is a means to give people 'eternal life'
"Our legend be, it will be fit for verse"
Their story will live on through poetry
Erotic: 'Woman's Constancy'
"Now thou has loved me one whole day"
Sarcastic statement reflects the notion that the heat of passion creates the fleeting desire of love
"as true deaths, true marriages untie"
In Donne's time, marriage was only ended by death, the lesser binding "lovers contract" will be ended by sleep, which resembles death
Spiritual (Agapic)
With maturity and time, Donne's love of God develops and transforms.
He begins with the degradation of spiritual activity through metaphysical references to it in relation to sexual acts, following by proving his agape love is superior, and finally proving his love of God is of utmost importance
Holy Sonnet XIII
"In my idolatry" - Looks back with regret on post worship
"This beauteous form assures a piteous mind" - sees beauty in a spiritual love of God
Romantic
The Sun Rising
"love all alike" is not subject to "the rags of time"
The Good Morrow
Conditional "if our two loves be one" suggests that perfect live is not always eternal
"Thou and I love so alike, that none do shaken, none can die" Irregular metre suggests unsureness in the duration of love (iambic pentameter)
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
"Dull sublunary lovers" suggests romantic love may only exist in the physical realm of time
Woman's Constancy
"As true deaths, true marriages untie" romantic love ends at death
The Canonisation
The title itself acknowledges the process by which an individual becomes elevated by religious officials to the formal position of a saint, which gives a person eternal life (by having an effect on the physical world after death) "Us canonised for love"
The Relic
" A bracket of bright hair about the bone" reference to a practice of making something of the past an object of worship, allowing the thing to exist eternally
"Guardian Angels" in death, they become angels where they can live forevermore
Holy Sonnet VI
"As my soul to heaven her first seat, takes flight" a continual reference of body soul dualism in Donne's Holy Sonnet's explores Donne's assertion that although we may physically die, our soul exists eternally in the spiritual realm
Holy Sonnet X
"Death be not proud"
"One short sleep past, we wake eternally"
"Death, nor yet canst thou kill me"
Christian reference o death being only a means to eternal life. Death is only the rebirth of the soul into eternal life
Holy Sonnet XIII
"What if this present were the world's last night"
"adjudge thee unto hell"
"this beauteous form assures a piteous mind"
Although Donne questions whether in death he will be assigned to heaven or hell, he acknowledges either way there is an afterlife
Is Time Binding?
No: The Anniversary
Time does not begin until love is found: The Good Morrow
Yes: The Anniversary
"Only our love hath no decay"
Timelessness of relationships is addressed although marking an occasion of time
Title suggest love is founded to time by altering a timed measure of love
"I wonder by my troth, what thou and I did till we loved"
Comparing true gaps love, on recognises that all time before the lovers meet was unsubstantial and spent "childishly"
"And now good morrow to our waking souls"
Time begins in the preface of romantic love. Meeting a lover, this is seen as a physical awakening from sleep (all before is but a dream/ to real)
"We can die by it, if not live for love, and if unfit for tombs and hearse/ our legend be, it will be fit for verse"
Donne often agrees that only love and verse can live beyond the transience of a human life
Death lies somewhat in-between - as both a constant and temporal figure, assisting the faithful to move from transient form to permanence by God's side
Paradox: celebration of time passing while also elevating their love above time
"Two graves must hide thine" - if the lovers are not married then they cannot be buried together, doubt about the eternity of their love
Speaker believes that the perfection of their love will transcend beyond time and they will remain united "death were no divorce"