Life and Works
John Donne was born in Bread Street, London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman Catholic family, a precarious thing at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was rife in England. His father, John Donne, was a well-to-do ironmonger and citizen of London. Donne's father died suddenly in 1576 and left the three children to be raised by their mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of John Heywood, epigrammatist, and a relative of Sir Thomas Moore.
Donne's first teachers were Jesuits. At the age of 11, Donne and his younger brother Henry entered Hart Hall, University of Oxford, where Donne studied for three years. He spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge but took no degree at either university because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy required at graduation. He was admitted to study law as a member of Thavies Inn (1591) and Lincoln's Inn (1592), and it seemed natural that Donne should embark upon a legal or diplomatic career.
In 1593, Donne's brother Henry died of a fever in prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his faith. His first book of poems Satires, written during this period of residence in London, is considered one of Donne's most important literary efforts. Although not immediately published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through the private circulation of the manuscript. The same was the case with his love poems. Songs and Sonnets are assumed to be written at about the same time as the Satires.
Having inherited a considerable fortune, young "Jack Donne" spent his money on womanizing, on books, at the theatre, and on travels. He had also befriended Christopher Brooke, a poet and his chamber fellow at Lincoln's Inn, and Ben Jonson who was part of Brooke's circle of literary associates. In 1596, Donne joined the naval expedition that Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, led against Cadiz, Spain, and the following year joined an expedition to the Azores, where he wrote "The Calm". Upon his return to England in 1598, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and afterwards Lord Ellesmere, founder of the metaphysical school of poetry. It was a reaction and revolt against the conventional poetry of the Spenserians. It was Dr. Johnson who for the first time, ascribed the title of 'Metaphysical, poets' to Donne and his followers who included George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, Richard Crashaw, John Cleveland, Abraham Cowley and a few others. The main characteristics of the Metaphysical poetry of this age are: (i) It is chiefly lyrical, (ii) in theme it is religious and amatory, (iii) there is much metrical facility, (iv) the poetic style is, sometimes, almost startling in its sudden beauty of phrase and melody of diction, etc. Characteristically metaphysical poetry reveals a depth of philosophy, a subtlety of reasoning, and a mingling of the homely and the sublime, the light and the serious. Probably the most distinctive feature of the metaphysical is their imagery, which is almost invariably unusual, striking, and often breathtaking but sometimes far-fetched and fantastic. Generally, metaphysical poetry is marked by such characteristics as wit, conceit, ratiocination, blend of emotion and intellect, use of hyperboles, imagery, expressions in dramatic and colloquial tones, etc.
Conceit
A conceit is basically a simile or a comparison between two dissimilar things. In a conceit, the dissimilarity between the two things compared, is so great that the reader is always fully conscious of it, even while he agrees to the likeness, implied by the poet. According to Dr Johnson, in a conceit, the most heterogeneous ideas are ‘yoked by violence together". This kind of comparison is highly exaggerated, fantastic and far-fetched, and it gives rise to an image.
Generally, Donne is considered to be the innovator of conceits, but in fact, the Elizabethan poets and dramatists already used conceits in their writing. Shakespeare used conceits in abundance. But an Elizabethan conceit differs from a metaphysical conceit in several respects. A metaphysical conceit, for one thing, is learned but an Elizabethan is not. In drawing a conceit Donne makes ample use of his learning— his knowledge of scholastic philosophy, medieval astrology, contemporary art and science etc., often far-fetched and recondite. The most fundamental difference between a metaphysical conceit and an Elizabethan one is that the former is an organic part of the poem, while the latter is a mere decoration or ornament of the poem. The metaphysical conceits startle and amuse the readers. They are a part of the poet's technique of communication, amplification and persuasion. Donne makes use of highly intellectual conceits in his poems to illustrate feelings and, in this way, he achieves 'unification of sensibility'. A conceit of Donne is his instrument of argument and persuasion. The most famous and striking conceit of Donne is the comparison of a man who travels and his beloved who stays at home, to a pair of compasses in 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning':
"If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two,
Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do."
Wit
'Wit' literally means a clever and humorous expression of some ideas but in a metaphysical sense, it is more than this. Wit may be explained as the saying of fine sparkling things which startle and amuse. The wit is to be discovered in the clever and ingenuous use of words rather than in the content of a poem. It is an intellectual activity which consists of the poet's perception of similarity in dissimilarity and the ingenuity with which he brings together and combines opposites, whether in words or ideas. John Donne, in his poetic career, is always witty and the term 'wit' often applied to him, has created a history of its own through the successive generations. The distinctive features of Donne's wit are: (i) It surprises, (ii) It is not merely a clever use of words, because it fuses his emotion with thought, (iii) Its source is the most amazing and varied learning of the poet, (iv) His wits are often deliberately shocking and impudent in the discovery of comparisons and analogies but they are always argumentative, (v) There is a juxtaposition of ideas which seem at first sight unrelated and discordant, and by their reconciliation in the heat of the poet's imagination, a more coherent and organic body of truth is achieved than is attained by the use of familiar comparisons, (vi) His wit lies in the blend of feeling and thought and it is a union of opposite faculties and not merely of opposite concepts. For example,
"She's all states, and all princes I,
Nothing else is,”
In these two lines of 'The Sun Rising' the beloved is compared to all the states of the world and the poet to all the monarchs of the world. That is, there are no states and kings apart from the poet and his beloved, who have united into a world of perfect love. Donne's wit is of immense variety. It is found in his use of puns, wordplay, oxymoron, paradox, etc. Thus in 'The Canonization' Donne's wit is seen in his reference to the king's real and his stamped face:
"Observe his Honour, or his Grace,
Or the King's real or his stamped face."
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