All My Sons

           In All My Sons, Arthur Miller has depicted the American Dreams by exposing some fundamental tragedies in the lives of his protagonists. According to modern concept of tragedy, the protagonists should be accountable for their deeds while facing any kind of moral dilemma, they make some wrong decisions and choices for themselves which lead them on the verge of worst kind of tragedy. Such critical thinking is also observed in several TV programs, movies and other media sources where American dream is exaggerated to attract masses to move to America but they have to encounter bitter realities of life (All My Sons Summary, 2010).

        What are the American Dreams; these are to grow up with heaps of wealth and precious properties! There are different interpretations of the American Dreams but it is the common gist of it. But at the end of this play, All My Sons, the American Dreams are depicted contrarily where it is described how someone lives happily even after growing up, owing lots of property and becoming prosperous financially.  Joe Keller had become prosperous and auspicious in his life financially but his life turned into a tragic life as the story moves towards a conclusive end, Arthur Miller wants to convey two contradictory viewpoints in his play, All My Sons, the American dream is bogus dream which is depicted only in very few and certain people’s life but most of them suffer from some panic situations in life in spite of having money (All My Sons Summary, 2010).

           Arthur Miller has evoked some fundamental questions in his play, All My Sons what are the individualistic social obligation, personal responsibility and dissimilarity between personal and public matters.  In the play, All My Sons, Keller performs his specific actions during the war, he is depicted an individual who is accountable for himself and his family rather than for society. Miller evaluates Keller’s discriminatory worldview which affirms his belief; there is no value of crimes which are committed for sake of the family (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010). The main reason of conflicts which arises in the mind of Keller, who believes that Keller is not wrong in his proclaims, there is nothing more valuable than the family rather than whole world where Keller lives, “To cut yourself off from your relationships with society at large is to invite tragedy of a nature both public (regarding the pilots) and private (regarding the suicides)” (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010).

          Miller wants to show that it is not necessary to enhance some carefulness for others being a family member, it is most important to develop an individual’s responsibilities to the family versus society at large. The family is also depicted as unit within the society and it is distorted or damaged by the individualistic actions. Though All My Sons is related with the past but this past helps to shape present and future of the individuals. It is inescapable to ignore or forget crimes. The characters speak such words or dialogues in the pay which disclose the different secrets about the current history of the Keller family. Arthur Miller displays how such past secrets of life have influenced the lives of his characters in the play who keep themselves in past always (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010).  

          Arthur Miller has manipulated the flow of the story in the most technical manner that revelation of all secrets of the characters in play occurs on the same day. Such revelations are inevitable, causing the fatal consequences due to Denial and self-deception. The questions are raised how we deceive ourselves and others? We choose things to spotlight on life but we also need to refute some certain things for upgrading our living standards? What are impacts of denial upon the psyche of family and certain society? Keller family history displays what factors causes distortion and confrontation in the life. These factors include Larry’s death and Keller’s sense of liability for the consignment of defective parts. In the whole play, the mother denies first while she has to accept it and same case is with Keller himself. Such acts of denial and self-deception are rooted in both characters who live in a state of self-deception, avoiding one of the realities of life willingly in order to keep up the functional life-style of family (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010). 

           Chris is also characterized as an idealist who remains angry against the wartime profiteering. Some people views that he is a man of scruples setting apart from the social networks. Chris thinks to abandon all such scrupulous brooding who sends his father to jail. How idealism are not sustainable in the practical world which is very complex. Miller wants to stress upon the values of ideals or dreams by depicting such characters in his play how such ideals are sacrificed according to the current circumstances (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010). 

          Keller gives solid arguments during wartime how all his actions are so defensible in maintaining good business practice. He always asserts himself as an ill-mannered and uneducated person, boastfully taking pride in his financial success without any business education. But gradually his well-flourished business is victimized of downfalls. Here Miller takes this failure in comparison with loftiest politics and awkward system of capitalism which enhance the value of materialistic pursuits rather than the moral sense. The dramatist raises the question how rules of good business are exempted from moral and ethical norms & laws of the certain society (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010).   

             Every character is delineated with different kinds of self-blames, Joe Keller doesn’t miss any chance to blame anybody and everyone for crimes of wartime and the main cause of his partner’s imprisonment. When he has to encounter with truths of life, he finds faults in business practice and US army and everyone he may have contacts. When he admits such blames after self-recognition process, Larry had taken to his heart all such shameful blames and Keller commits suicide in fits of despairs (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010).

          Chris feels culpable himself for the ongoing of the war and materialistic pursuits but when the crimes are disclosed, he shifts his blame to his father side, blaming his father for his incapability to imprison his jails. You may observe such several instances of deflected blame in this play; very human impulse is reflected to demonstrate the actual relationships and powerful role of characters which maintains self-respect and family honor (All My Sons Study Guide, 2010).

           Miller reveals how such individualistic flaws can be interpreted with the economic progress and business success in terms of American dream. Keller has sacrifices all other parts of the American dream for just materialistic pursuits or financial growth only. He has given up the main role of his life as head of family, the basic human nature how he has made sacrifices of Steve and Larry. Miller points out the basic flaws of capitalist system which has no concerns with cultural as well as social morals. Miller criticizes such system of capitalism which encourages just greed for profiteering shares in the business stakes holders who may want to sacrifice the human life and happiness. So American dreams are so attractive apparently but there is too much hollowness inwardly which splits up the social networks in fits of despair and anger. But media and broadcasting sources have interpreted the American dreams in very attractive manner which shatter down the people so badly that they are forced to kill themselves (American Dream, 2010).  

            There is need to recover the full American dream of vigorous communities with prosperous families whether or not capitalism would lead economic system on right direction of progress and happiness. Only economic prosperity and mobility is very detrimental as man can’t enjoy life joyfully with just financial progress, there should be some social order which controls any kind of chaotic state of mind of individuals within the society to lead a peaceful and blissful life (American Dream, 2010).   Is the American Dream can be depicted as nightmare by Arthur miller who portrays the picture of a typical American family life after world war second. All characters are displayed with complacency and prosperity due to thriving business but at end of the play Keller shoots himself to complete the nightmare! The Americans are suffering from such tragic and panic situations which come on their way in the pursuit of the financial progress and prosperity. The people have become so materialistic and morally vacant that they don’t have any scruples in their hearts while committing crimes with the self-deception and denial approaches how they think that they are doing rightfully rather than confessing their crimes (American Dream, 2010).  

The media plays vital role in idealizing America via different attractive advertisements on TV channels and heroes of movies how American is shining so brightly and everyone is entangled by such attractive commercial ads which invite the people to come to America. In All my Sons , Arthur Miller has delineated an ideal family characters which seems externally very good and complacent but inwardly there is nothing good, having many dark aspects of American life which seems very charming in media portrayals. The American dream idealizes the particular life-style of people in America which relates with potential and rights rather than morals or means (American Dream, 2010).  

           In different TV dramas and shows, we observe how people are living an idealized life-style without knowing how it has been achieved via fair or unfair means. For instance the main character of Dr. Huxtable in Cosby Show is depicted how he has good standard of living, apparently good relationships with his family and friends but he never seems to be a good and responsible doctor, he always tries to take advantage of his patients via his deceitful nature. Media disseminate the ideals of American life-style and happiness to indulge the masses to work hard for achieving successful status as publicized by big multinational corporations (American Dream, 2010).  

        You may observe American dream as depicted by some TV shows and plays like the Cosby Show, Married with Children and Family Ties, all these depicts the same attitudes, hollow aptitudes and confused state of minds, full of despair and despondency as it is shown by all characters of All My Sons. “Real people with real feelings are potentially harmful to the American Dream which, really, encourages selfishness because of the emphasis on individual achievement. It does not explicitly say that one should not trample on others while striving for happiness” (American Dream, 2010).

           In nutshell, media depicts the American Dream externally without discussing the main sources of happiness and prosperity. But reality is entirely different; most of people has to use such unfair means which remains them more unscrupulous to attain successful and luxurious status of life. This may result into panic situations for the people how they are suffering, it is not portrayed in media, “Other vision’s and goals not in line with the mainstream American Dream are potentially troublesome to economic progress” (American Dream, 2010).

Works Cited

[1]. American Dream, 2010, retrieved from: http://www.sacredswans.com/AmericanDream.pdf

[2].Miller,2010,  All my Sons by Arther Miller, retrieved from: http://pdfdatabase.com/download/all-my-sons-pdf-1438948-html

[3]. All My Sons Summary, 2010, retrieved from: http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/2/13/211719/251

[4].All My Sons Study Guide, 2010, written by Arthur Miller, retrieved from http://www.gradesaver.com/all-my-sons/study-guide/major-themes/

Universality in Literature

Literature is great because of its universality. It is powerful enough to supersede the narrow interests of a class in favor of humanity as a whole. lt does not deal with the specific society of a specific community, but with the society of man as a whole. For this reason literature that appealed to the people through the spoken word has a greater appeal than which appeals through the written word—which may not reach all men. “The recited epics of

Homer, the acted plays of Shakespeare, the chanted songs of Chandidas have a more universal appeal than our modern poets and novelists who express only segments of social life and direct their appeal to particular social classes. Poetry that expresses intensely individual standpoints, novels that depict manners of a class or community, and deal with highly specialized problems cannot surely be of the same level as are Tulsidas’s or Krittidas‘s Ramayana which had and still have a mass appeal.”

Universality in literature connotes the appeal to the widest human interests and the simplest emotions. Though we speak of national and race literatures, like the Greek or Teutonic, and each has certain superficial marks arising out of the peculiarities of its own people. It is nevertheless true that good literature knows no nationality, nor any bounds save those of humanity. It is occupied chiefly with elementary passions and emotions,——love and hate, joy and sorrow, fear and Faith which are an essential part of our human nature; and the more it reflects these emotions, the surely does it awaken response in men of every race.  Every father must respond to the parable the prodigal son; wherever men are heroic, they will acknowledge the mastery of Homer: wherever man thinks on the strange phenomenon of evil in the world, he will find his own thoughts in the Book of Job whatever place men love their children; their hearts must be stirred by the tragic sorrow of Oedipus and King Lear. All these are but shining examples of the law that only as a book or little song appeals to universal human interest does it become permanent. The restricted appeal of modern literature resulted from the dependence of writers on the patronage of great men. Necessarily such writers had to produce work that would appeal to their patrons primarily. As a result became limited.

But compensation was offered by the delicacy and refinement of their work. The contrast between these writers and the popular writers may be seen in the contrast between Chaucer and balladists. Chaucer is the perfect artist; his insight into life is also profound; but he lacks spontaneity, the range, the popular appeal of the ballad-writers. “Such also is the difference between Bharatchandra of Bengal and the anonymous poets of the Mymensingh ballads. Modern writers depending on the patronage of an educated and well-to-do public, have developed a flair for expressing feelings and situations that are subtle and complex in language that verges on the idiosyncratic. Wordsworth realized this when he made the revolutionary statement that poetry, should use language of common speech. The more literature is freed from its class limitations and becomes the expression of the thoughts and feelings of the common man, the community of working people, the more it will tend to conform to the Wordsworthian doctrine.

lt must be noted that literature contains the universal and the particular which are combined together. According to Aristotle, literature indicates the universal element, i.e., what is true for all times and ages and the particular, i.e. what is true of the men, events, customs, culture, and manners of an age. To quote John Bailey: “lt must be at once individual life and universal. If Homer contained nothing but what was abstractedly or universally true, he would be dull. He must have, as he has many things which surprise, amuse, even perhaps, disgust us who live in so different an age and country. He must have things which are peculiar to the Greeks of his day, and even things peculiar to himself alone among the Greeks.

Without that, he would not have individuality or even nationality; and without individuality and nationality there is no life in literature …. But if he were only Homer or only Greek, he would be something worse than dull he would be dead for us, because there would be link between us; dead, because the life of poetry needs an immortal and universal element without which its lease of life is a very short one. A poet cannot carry himself and his own age and their idiosyncrasies and peculiarities unless he provides them with the elixir of immortality which is universal truth.” In other words, literature is manifestation of life as handled by the writer’s personality. His distinctive imagination, his slant of outlook, his feelings, and the character of his experience constitute the medium through which his reading of life is communicated to the reader.

But his feelings and thoughts and fusion of elements extracted from the chaos of life have deeper and paramount significance for all. According to Middleton Murry, “the highest style is . . . a combination of the maximum of personality with the minimum of impersonality 1 on the one hand, it is a concentration of peculiar and personal emotion, on the other, it is a complete projection of this personal emotion into the created thing …. ‘There is no antithesis between personal and impersonal art.” That is why Aristotle said; “Poetry is more philosophical than history.” What he meant was that literature is the mixture of the personal and universal. The whole effort of a sincere man is to build his personal impression into universal pattern.

Chief Qualities of Literature

How literature can be evaluated? In other words, literature has main characteristics which can be differentiated by science. Science uses words as the mere vehicles of things. Scientific words are not concerned with human feelings and emotions. These words are dry and cold as reason. Science deals with things which exist independently of the mind. In other

Words, science has the objective outlook. Metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy; chemistry, physics have an objective approach to truth. Thus they are distinct from literature. In other words, science has to do with things and literature with thoughts.  According to William J. Long, literature is based upon three qualities———artistic, suggestive and permanent. Without these characteristics literature cannot exist. Literature has aesthetic and moral values. Literature does not please by moralizing us; it moralizes us because it pleases. The main qualities of literature are enumerated below which are adapted from English Literature: William J. long.

Artistic Quality: The first significant thing is the essentially artistic quality of all literature. All art is the expression of life in forms of truth and beauty; or rather, it is the reflection of some truth and beauty which are in the world, but which remain unnoticed until brought to our attention by some sensitive human soul, just as the delicate curves of the shell reflect sound and harmonics too faint to be otherwise noticed. A hundred men may pass a hayfield and see only the sweaty toil and the stocks of dried grass; but here is one who pauses by a Roumanian meadow, where girls are making hay and singing as they work, He looks deeper, sees truth and beauty where we see only dead grass, and he reflects what he sees in a little poem in which the hay tells its own story:

Yesterday’s flowers am l,

And I have drunk my last sweet draught of dew,

Young maidens came and sang me to my death;

The sun looks down and sees me in my shroud,

The shroud of my last dew.

One who reads only that first exquisite line, ‘Yesterday`s flowers am l,’can never again see hay without recalling the beauty that was hidden from his eyes until the poet found it.

ln the same pleasing, surprising way, all artistic work must be a kind of revelation. Thus architecture is probably the oldest of the arts; yet we still have many builders but few architects, that is, men whose work in wood or stone suggests some hidden truth and beauty to the human senses. So in literature, which is the art that expresses life in words that appeal to our own sense of the beautiful, we have many writers but few artists. ln the broadest sense, perhaps, literature means simply the written records of the race, including all its history and sciences, as well as its poems and novels, in the narrower sense, literature is the artistic record of life, and most of our writing is excluded from it, just as the mass of our buildings, mere shelters from storm and from cold, are excluded from architecture. A history or a work of science may be and sometimes is literature, but only as we forge the subject-matter and the presentation of facts in the simple beauty of its expression.

Suggestiveness: The second quality of literature is its suggestiveness, its appeal to our emotions and imagination rather than to our intellect. lt is not so much what it says at what it awakens in us that constitutes its charm. When Milton makes Satan say, ‘Myself am Hell,` he does not state any fact but rather opens up in these three tremendous words a whole world of speculation and imagination. When Faustus in the presence of Helen asks, `Was this the face that launched a thousand ships`?` he does not state a fact or expect an answer. He opens a door through which our imagination enters a new world, a world of music, love, beauty, heroism-—the whole splendid world of Greek literature. Such magic is in words when Shakespeare describes the young Biron as speaking

 ln such apt and gracious words

That aged ears play truant at his tales,

He has unconsciously given not only an excellent description of himself, but the measure of all Literature, which makes us play truant with the present world and run away to live awhile in the pleasant realm of fancy. The province of all art is not to instruct but to delight; and only as literature delights us, causing each reader to build in his own soul that ‘lordly pleasure house` of which Tennyson dreamed in his ‘Palace of Art`, is it worthy of its name.

Permanence: The third characteristic of literature, arising directly from the other two, is its permanence. The world does not live by bread alone. Notwithstanding its hurry and bustle and apparent absorption in material things, it does not willingly let any beautiful thing perish. This is even more true of its songs than of its painting and sculpture; though permanence is a quality we should badly expect in the present deluge of books and magazines pouring day and night from our presses in the name of literature. But this problem of too many books is not modern, as we suppose. lt has been a problem ever since Caxton brought the first printing press from Flanders. four hundred years ago and in the shadow of Westminster Abbey opened his little shop and advertised his wares as ‘good and chepe.’ Even earlier, a thousand years before Caxton and his printing press, the busy scholars of the great library of Alexandria found that the number of parchments was much too great for them to handle; and now, when we print more in a week than all the Alexandrian scholars could copy in a century, it would seem impossible that any production could be permanent; that any song or story could live to give delight in future ages. But literature is like a river in flood, which gradually purifies itself two ways,—the mud settles to the bottom, and the scum rises to the top. When we examine the writings than by common consent constitute our literature, the clear stream purified of its dross, we find at least two more qualities, which we call the tests of literature, and which determine its permanence.

Important Questions……..John Donne’s Imagery Or Conceits

Q: Discuss the main characteristics of John Donne’s imagery or conceits?

Q: “John Donne’s imagery has always impressed readers by its range and variety and its avoidance of the conventionality ornamental.” Discuss this statement?

Q: “In metaphysical peots, a conceit is not empty stroke-play, but a serious means of persuasion or illustration. Discuss with arguments?

Q: What is meant by a conceit? Write a note on the use of conceits in John Donne’s poetry?

           John Donne is one of those great poets who have left deep marks on the history of English poetry. He is a pioneer of metaphysical poetry because he introduces new orientation and tradition in English literature. He paves a way for adapting new modes and trends of poetic style in literary circle. He creates an essence of originality, novelty and peculiarity in English versification. As Legouis remarks, “John Donne is perhaps the most singular of English poets.”

          Poets create beautiful sound-effect by the magic of their words, used and arranged in measured, rhythmic and rhyming words. Very often they create beautiful sight-effects as well as sound-effect through the agency of words. In their rich and sensitive imagination, they conjure up vivid  and very effective pictures of objects and situations which as a matter of fact, may or may not exist in the real life. Such use of words is called imagery. A conceit  (far-fetched witty though which is the result of very complicated ratiocination) which literally means “a fanciful notion, far-fetched comparison, or other euphuism is in connection with poetry, used in the sense of witty thought, far-fetched, ingenious or even over-genious.” In the words of Helen Gardner, “In metaphysical poem, the conceits are instruments of definition in an argument or instrument to persuade. The poem has something to say which the conceit explicate or something to urge which the conceit helps to forward.”

            In metaphysical poetry, conceit helps to bring together emotion, sense impression and thought and Joan Bennet has rightly pointed out that “metaphysical at its most complete is a focal point at which emotion, sense impression and thought are perceived as one.” Much Elizabethan verse, from Wyatt and Surrey to Shakespeare and Drummand is decorative and flowery in its quality. Its images adorn its metre is mellifluous. Image harmonize with image, and line swells almost predictably into line. The poetry of John Donne represents a sharp break with that written by his predecessors and most of his contemporaries. As Jane Bennet says, “J. Donne had a different conception of the function of imagery from that of the other poets. The purpose of an image in his poetry is to define the emotional experience by an intellectual parallel.”

           Here we examine how John Donne uses conceits in his poetry to convey his feelings and thoughts to us by using his intellectual power. Because his images are the manifestations of the fantastic operations of wit to which feelings and passion are eventually subject. John Donne’s conceits indeed are original and startling, but ultimately just. However, fantastic they appear to be at first sight, they are in fact just. The poet often proves their truth. The ability to elaborate a conceit to its farthest possibility without losing the sense of its appropriateness speaks for a high intellectual caliber. As The Good Marrow is a brief and well-woven poem in which John Donne using his intelligence, develops the theme without digression that the poet and his beloved are passionately in love. What did the lovers do before they loved? Did they feel themselves on country pleasures or did they snort in the seven sleepers’ den? All the women whom the poet has loved before were merely anticipation of his present beloved. Each of lovers is a whole world to the other and their little room is a kind of everywhere. Not only is that, the lovers the best possible hemispheres who make up a complete world. Those lovers can never die because they love each other with an equal intensity.

WHERE CAN WE FIND TWO BETTER HEMISPHERES

WITHOUT SHARP NORTH, WITHOUT DECLINING WEST?

WHATEVER DYES, WAS NOT MIXT EQUALITY;

IF OUR TWO LOVERS BE ONE, THOU AND I

LOVE SO ALIKE, THAT NONE DOE SLACKEN, NONE CAN DIE.

           In this poem, although there are a number of ideas, yet these are concentrated and connected only with one main idea in a very suitable manner that the poet and his beloved are passionately in love. As Helen Gardner says, “the first characteristic of metaphysical poetry is its concentration. The reader is held to an idea or a lien of argument. He is not invite to pause a passage, wander with it and muse upon and dream upon it.” In this poem, he draws upon several spheres of knowledge——-geography, medieval philosophy, sea-discoveries, etc. all to prove that the world of love is more important than geographical world. Here the conceits are used to illustrate his argument and to persuade. Step by step, point by point, the poet succeeds in establishing his point of view.

         In addition to ingenious, fanciful, hyperbolic, fantastic and ridiculous conceits which are a striking feature of John Donne’s metaphysical poetry, we find plenty of paradoxical statements in almost all his poems as in The Sunne Rising, the poet argues that the poet and his beloved have no reason to feel afraid of the sun which has risen because love does not recognize any season or clime. The poet wants to prove that the sun has no power over the lovers. The poet can eclipse and cloud the beams of sun, while dazzling light of the beloved’s eyes can blind the sun. both the west and east Indies lie with the poet in the shape of his beloved. Then after terribly chiding the sun, John Donne intelligently convinces to warn the whole world by remaining stationary before the windows because he and his beloved constitutes the whole world and by warming their room, the sun will perform its assigned duty of warming the whole world.

SHE IS ALL STATES, AND ALL PRINCES, I

NOTHING ELSE IS;

          In this poem, John Donne’s ratiocinative style, reasoning step by step towards his conclusion, which in this case is that love is self-sufficient and unaffected by any outside force, expose his intellectual power, with full concentration, conceits and paradoxes. R. G. Cox says, “No doubt there is a crowding of thoughts and images in John Donne’s mind which his powerful intellect and ratiocination can control and bring into another.”

      John Donne deliberately rejected the conventional conceits and images such as flowers, sky,  moon, river, and stream etc. he coined new images which were an outcome of popular belief of scientific discoveries. The conceits employed by John Donne are learned——-they display the poet’s thorough knowledge of a wide range of subjects such as science, chemistry, exploration, medieval philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, cartography, geography and several others. The conceits thus give the poetry an intellectual tone. However, the intellectual conceits are not in disharmony with the feeling in the poem’ they actually add weight and illustrate that feeling giving rise to the impression of what T .S. Eliot called “the unification of sensibility.”

        There are fantastic comparisons in A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, here the soul of the beloved is like the fixed foot of compasses as by her inborn nature stays at home whereas the soul of lover is like other foot of compasses which moves beyond the centre to complete a circle of journey.

IF THEY BE TWO, THEY ARE TWO SO

AS STIFF TWIN COMPASSES ARE TWO,

THY SOUL THE FIX FOOT MAKES NO SHOW

TO MOVE, BUT (DOTH) IF THE OTHER DOE.

           In this poem, he also compares his and his beloved’s separation with the expression of a piece of gold beaten to thinness for the sake of production of gold leaf. So this separation is rather an extension of love.

THOUGH I MUST GOE, ENDURE NOT YET

A BREACH BUT AN EXPANSION,

LIKE GOLD TO AYERY THINNES BEATE,

The comparisons extracting from the principles of geometry and chemistry are so valid in the argumentation of this poem, showing his intellect at his full zenith i.e. he thus wants to persuade his beloved not to mourn.

          In A Valediction Weeping, the note of passion is intense, concentrated and bursts forth in such fanciful and intellectual conceits. This poem employs images from variety of sources. The lover’s tears are like precious coins because they bear the stamp of beloved (image drawn from mintage). Next, the beloved’s tears are compared to the moon which draws up seas to drown the up seas to drown the lover in her sphere (image drawn from geography).

WHEN A TEAR FALLS, THAT THOU FALL’ST WHICH IT BORE

O MORE THAN MOON DRAW UP SEAS TO DRAWN ME IN THE SPHERE;

WEEP ME NOT DEAD IN THINE ARMS;

SINCE THOU AND I SIGH ONE ANOTHER’S BREATH.

In this poem, the passion is conveyed in images which are erudite, logical and of an intellectual nature. As R.G. Cox says, “Donne’s imagery has always impressed readers by its range and variety and its audience of the conventionally ornamental.”

           There is an exceedingly hyperbolic and complex conceit in The Relique, Donne imagines himself lying in a grave as a skeleton with the undeniable token of spiritual love in the shape of his beloved’s bright lock of hair, forming a bracelet about his wrist-bone and because of their great love, he and his beloved will be honored like saints.

ALL WOMEN SHALL ADORE US, AND SOME MEN

           John Donne’s images stimulate one to thin. They bring one to an awareness of the new angles from which an experience can be viewed in The Anniversary. John Donne exposes his emotional experience with full intellect, lying on same string. This poem celebrates the first anniversary of Donne’s marriage with Anne More. In the start of the poem, the poet says in a very intellectual and philosophical tone that everything is drawing nearer to its destruction (by growing old that it was last year) only our mutual love knows no decay. Though it is growing old, yet it never loses its freshness or charm, being truly eternal and everlasting.

ALL OTHER THINGS, TO THEIR DESTRUCTION DRAW,

ONLY OUR LOVE HATH NO DECAY;

              Furthermore, Donne says, he and his beloved are like kings and subjects of each other, neither needing to fear any treason.

HERE UPON EARTH, WE ARE KINGS, AND NONE BUT WE

CAN BE SUCH KINGS, NOR OF SUBJECTS BEE.

          John Donne uses conceits not only in his love poems but also in his religious poems. In his holy sonnet, Batter My Heart, he compares himself to a usurped town. At the same time, there is an image drawn from the purification of metals by knocking, blowing and shining it. Later on, imagery usually associated with love is drawn upon to illustrate his spiritual prayer…he wants God to ravish him in order that he may be chaste.

BATTER MY HEART, THREE PERSON’D GOD; FOR, YOU

AS YET BUT KNOCKE, BREATH, SHINE AND SEEK TO MEND;

THAT I MAY RISE AND STAND OVERTHROW MEE, AND BEND

YOUR FORCE, TO BREAKE, BLOWE, BURN AND MAKE ME NEW.

           So John Donne’s rich imagery and conceits indicate his agility and vigilance of fertile mind which have deep-rooted association with his feelings and experience. They indicate his sharp, all-inclusive and all comprehensive with. As Bennet aptly sums up, “Donne’s images are drawn from his own interests, so that he is always illustrating one facet of his experience by another. Everything that played an important part in his life or left its marks upon his mind, occurs in his poetry, not as subject-matter but as imagery. His subject-matter was confined almost entirely to various aspects of love and religion, but his imagery reveals the width of intellectual explorations.

Important Questions……Donne As A Metaphysical Poet

What is meant by metaphysical poetry? In what sense is John Donne known as a “metaphysical poet”? Illustrate his use of metaphysical poetry from his poems you have read?

OR

How far are justified in using Dr. Johnson’s label “metaphysical” for John Donne?

OR

Bring out clearly those characteristics of John Donne’s poetry because of which he is generally described as a metaphysical poet?

OR

In what way, John Donne is a “metaphysical Poet”? Illustrate your answer with reference to the poems in your course?

         John Donne is the name in English Literature who gave new direction to the literary activities of his age. He is in a sense founded the metaphysical lyric, which was practiced by scare of writers. As Dowden says, “We are told that in the decline of the greater poetry of the Elizabethan period, a metaphysical school arose and that John Donne was the founder or the first eminent member of this school.” John Donne set up a new tradition in versification by and large Donne must be regarded as an original poet, “a poet who gave much more than what he borrowed from his age.”

         The word “metaphysical” has been defined by various writers differently. The learned critics feels that “metaphysical poetry” is inspired by a philosophy, philosophical conception of the universe and the role assigned to human spirit in the great drama of universe. However in very simple tone, we can interpret the term metaphysical as meta (beyond) and physical (physical nature). “There is a harmonious blend of passion and argument which is an essential characteristic of metaphysical lyric.”

           In brief, the term, “metaphysical poetry” implies the characteristics of complexity, intellectual tone, abundance of subtle wit, fusion of intellect and emotion, colloquial argumentative tone, conceits which are always witty and sometimes fantastic, scholarly allusions, dramatic tone and philosophic or reflective element. These metaphysical poets have specific characteristics as ‘Dr. Johnson’ points out that “The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor. They neither copied nature nor life neither painted the forms of matter nor represented the operations of intellect. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural.”

          As we find all these characteristics and features in John Donne’s poetry, therefore it is easy to say that John Donne is the metaphysical poet. However it is Dryden who first of all used this term for John Donne by sayi8ng that “he affects the metaphysics.”  Concentration is an important quality of metaphysical poetry in general and John Donne’s poetry in particular. As Helen Gardner says, “The first characteristic of metaphysical poetry is its concentration. The reader is held to an idea or a line of argument. He is not invited to pause upon a passage, wander with it and muse upon and dream upon it.”

          The Good Marrow, the poem is one long argument to prove that the poet and his beloved are passionately in love. What did the lovers do before they loved? Did they feed themselves on country pleasures or did they snort in the seven sleepers’ den? All the women when the poet has loved before were merely anticipations of his present beloved. Each of lovers is a whole world to the other and their little room is a kind of everywhere. Not only is that, the lovers the best possible hemispheres who make up a complete world. These lovers can never die because they love each other with an equal intensity.

WHERE CAN WE FINDE TWO BETTER HEMISPHERES

WITHOUT SHARP NORTH, WITHOUT DECLINING WEST?

WHATEVER DYES, WAS NOT MIXT EQUALITY;

IF OUR TWO LOVES BE ONE, OR, THOU AND I

LOVE SO ALIKE, THAT NONE DOE SLACKEN, NONE CAN DIE.

      Furthermore as fondness for conceits is a major characteristic of metaphysical poetry and John Donne employs fantastic comparisons. As in the words of Helen Gardner, “In metaphysical poem, the conceits are instruments of definition in an argument or instrument to persuade. The poem has something to say which the conceit explicates or something to urge which the conceit helps to forward.”

The Sunne Rising is another passionate poem. But here too the poet argues and reasons. The poet and his beloved have no reader to feel afraid of the sun which has risen, because love does not recognize season or clime. A sense of fanciful and fantastic conceits follows to prove that the sun has no power over the lovers. The poet can eclipse and closed the beams of the sun, while dazzling light of the beloved’s eyes can blind the sun. Both, the West and the East Indias lie with the poet in the shape of his beloved. Then comes a conceit which also expresses the passion of the lovers:

SHE’S ALL STATES, AND ALL PRINCES I;

NOTHING ELSE IS.

     The most striking and famous one is the comparison of man who travels and his beloved who stays at home to a pair of compasses in ‘A Valediction Of Forbidding Mourning’. Here soul of the beloved is like the fixed foot of compasses as by her inborn nature she stays at home whereas the soul of the lover is like the other foot of compasses which moves beyond the center to complete a circle of journey.

IF THEY BE TWO, THEY ARE TWO SO

AS STIFF TWIN COMPASSES ARE TWO,

THY SOUL THE FIX FOOT, MAKES NO SHOW

TO MOVE, BUT (DOTH) IF THE OTHER DOE.

In The Relique, John Donne imagines himself lying in a grave as a skeleton with the undeniable token of spiritual love in the sphere of his beloved’s bright lock of hair forming a bracelet about his wriste borne and because of their great love, he and his beloved will be honored like saints,

ALL WOMEN SHALL ADORE US, AND SOME MEN.

          Another feature is the use of colloquial speech which marks the metaphysical poetry. In John Donne’s poems, the vigor of colloquialism is especially apparent in the abrupt, conversational opening of many of his poems. He selected colloquial diction which has vigor, freshness and originality. He discarded literary words and phrases which became rusty because of repetition. Another characteristic of metaphysical poetry is a rejection of what is known as poetic diction and the use of colloquial speech.

I WONDER BY MAN TROTH, WHAT THOU AND I

DID TILL WE LOV’D (Good Marrow)

BUSIE OLD FOOLE, UNRULY SUNNE,

WHY DOST THOU THUS. (Sunne Rising)

 DEATH BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME HAVE CALLED THEE

MIGHTY AND DREADFUL,

           Furthermore it is enough to prove John Donne as a metaphysical that he speaks of the soul and of the spiritual love but not of the body and physical love. In A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, love is so refined that the lovers do not much miss each others’ eyes, lips and hands which are normally the demands of the lovers.

BUT WE BY A LOVE, SO MUCH REFINED,

THAT OURSELVES KNOW NOT WHAT IT IS,

INTER-ASSURED OF THE MIND,

CARELESS, EYES, LIPS, AND HANDS TO MISSE.

In The Relique the lovers do not even know the difference of sex and kiss each other sparingly.

FIRST WE LOV’D WELL AND FAITHFULLY,

YET KNEW NOT WHAT WEE LOV’D, NOR WHY,

DIFFERENCE OF SEX NO MORE WEE KNEW,

THEN OUR GUARDIAN ANGELS DOE;

          But the most famous poem in this connection is The Ecstasy in which the souls of the two lovers come out of their bodies and negotiate with each other, though finally they return to the bodies. John Donne’s muse loves these sudden flights from the material to the spiritual sphere. He often relates those phenomenons which lie beyond normal physical experience with those which can be physically experienced.

          Intellect and with blending with emotions and feelings marks the metaphysical poetry, especially that of John Donne. John Donne is the classic representative of metaphysical poetry. His instinct compelled him to bring the whole of experience into his verse and to choose the most direct and natural form of expression by his learned and fantastic mind. Grierson aptly sums up, “Donne is metaphysical not only by virtue of his scholasticism but by his deep reflective interest in the experience of which his poetry is the expression, the new psychological curiosity with which he wrote of love and religion.” According to Grierson, “The finer psychology of which their conceits are often the expression; their learned imaginary; the argumentative, subtle evolution of their lyrics; above all the peculiar blend of passion and thought, feeling and ratiocination which is their greatest achievement. Passionate thinking is always apt to become metaphysical probing and investigating the experience from which it takes its rise. All these qualities are in the poetry of John Donne and Donne is the greatest master of English poetry in the seventeenth century.

TRANSLATED OUT OF GAZÆUS, “VOTA AMICO
FACTA,” FOL. 160.

GOD grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine,
Thou who dost, best friend, in best things outshine ;
May thy soul, ever cheerful, ne’er know cares,
Nor thy life, ever lively, know grey hairs,
Nor thy hand, ever open, know base holds,
Nor thy purse, ever plump, know pleats, or folds,
Nor thy tongue, ever true, know a false thing,
Nor thy words, ever mild, know quarrelling,
Nor thy works, ever equal, know disguise,
Nor thy fame, ever pure, know contumelies,
Nor thy prayers know low objects, still divine ;
God grant thee thine own wish, and grant thee mine.

A SHEAF OF SNAKES USED HERETOFORE TO BE
MY SEAL, THE CREST OF OUR POOR FAMILY.

ADOPTED in God’s family and so
Our old coat lost, unto new arms I go.
The Cross—my seal at baptism—spread below
Does, by that form, into an Anchor grow.
Crosses grow Anchors ; bear, as thou shouldest do
Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too.
But He that makes our Crosses Anchors thus,
Is Christ, who there is crucified for us.
Yet may I, with this, my first serpents hold ;
God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old.
The serpent may, as wise, my pattern be ;
My poison, as he feeds on dust, that’s me.
And, as he rounds the earth to murder sure,
My death he is, but on the Cross, my cure.
Crucify nature then, and then implore
All grace from Him, crucified there before ;
Then all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown ;
This seal’s a catechism, not a seal alone.
Under that little seal great gifts I send,
Works, and prayers, pawns, and fruits of a friend.
And may that saint which rides in our great seal,
To you who bear his name,* great bounties deal !

TO GEORGE HERBERT,

SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE
ANCHOR AND CHRIST.

QUI prius assuetus serpentum fasce tabellas
    Signare, hæc nostræ symbola parva domus,
Adscitus domui Domini, patrioque relicto
    Stemmate, nanciscor stemmata jure nova.
Hinc mihi Crux primo quæ fronti impressa lavacro,
    Finibus extensis, anchora facta patet.
Anchoræ in effigiem Crux tandem desinit ipsam,
    Anchora fit tandem Crux tolerata diu.
Hoc tamen ut fiat, Christo vegetatur ab ipso
    Crux, et ab affixo est Anchora facta Jesu.
Nec natalitiis penitus serpentibus orbor,
    Non ita dat Deus, ut auferat ante data.
Qua sapiens, dos est, qua terram lambit et ambit,
    Pestis, at in nostra sit medicina Cruce
Serpens fixa Cruci si sit natura, Crucique
    A fixo nobis gratia tota fluat.
Omnia cum Crux sint, Crux Anchora fixa, sigillum
    Non tam dicendum hoc, quam catechismus erit.
Mitto, nec exigua, exigua sub imagine, dona,
    Pignora amicitiæ, et munera vota preces.
Plura tibi accumulet sanctus cognominis, Ille
    Regia qui flavo dona sigillat equo.

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER
by John Donne

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
    And do run still, though still I do deplore?
        When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                    For I have more.
II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
        When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                    For I have more.
III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
    Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
        And having done that, Thou hast done ;
                    I fear no more.

HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS.

SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,
    Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music ; as I come
    I tune the instrument here at the door,
    And what I must do then, think here before ;

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
    Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
    That this is my south-west discovery,
    Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ;

I joy, that in these straits I see my west ;
    For, though those currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me ?  As west and east
    In all flat maps—and I am one—are one,
    So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific sea my home ?  Or are
    The eastern riches ?  Is Jerusalem ?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar ?
    All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them
    Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
    Christ’s cross and Adam’s tree, stood in one place ;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;
    As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,
    May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.

So, in His purple wrapp’d, receive me, Lord ;
    By these His thorns, give me His other crown ;
And as to others’ souls I preach’d Thy word,
    Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,
    “Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.”