For Monday, let's continue our practice at analyzing poems by tackling a rather complicated example, "The Canonization," by John Donne. We can start by recognizing that the poem is a little dramatic monologue, with the speaker of the poem addressing an imaginary listener. Let's let the the first commenter analyze the first stanza. The second person to make a comment can agree or disagree with something the first student said, then comment on stanza two. We can continue this for three more people, the third person explaining the third stanza, the fourth explaining the fourth, and the fifth the fifth. Subsequent students can choose any stanza and add to the remarks already made. Remember that you can define words, locate the main subjects and verbs so as to understand what is being said, and try your hand at explaining the metaphysical conceits.
The first thing I did for the first stanza of this poem is look up words. I used Dictionary.com to define the. Chide is scold. Palsy is a muscular condition and can also mean paralysis. Gout is an illness that causes pain in the joints from a buildup of uric acid. All of these words can be found on line two of the poem. I also looked up flout which occurs in the next line. Flout means to mock. The first three lines are, “For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love/or chide my palsy, or my gout/My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout.” When I read this, I think Donne is saying hold your tongue or mock my illnesses or his gray hairs, but let him love. When I read the first stanza, he is pleading to be allowed to love. Not only is he pleading to love, but to love in his own way. He wants those that are mocking him to find a career, find a place at court, or seek out fortune. I imagine Donne’s poetry was so different from the Petrachan poets that he faced mockery and opposition. This to me seems to be his reply to this mockery—his request to be allowed to love and write his poetry in his own way. “Contemplate, what you will, approve,/so you will let me love” (8-9). He wants those scorning his writing to think on things that they’ll approve of so that they will let him love in his own way. I am sure he had to fight for the worth of his poetry to be seen. His work is no less worthy because it is different, and he expresses himself differently. One last thing is the rhyme scheme is: a, b, b, a, c, c, c, a, a.
ReplyDeleteLike Hiro Protagonist, I started off by looking at the definitions of words, plaguy means troublesome or annoying, and litigious means concerned with lawsuits. I agree with what “Hiro” says in their analysis, and think that the stanza that I have to analysis is more or less a continuation on those same ideas. “Hiro” says that Donne is asking for people to let him love how he wishes and whomever he wants, and for people to just leave him be. I think that my stanza mirrors that thought when Donne writes, “Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still litigious men” (lines 16-17). He is asking for soldiers to go find wars, and for lawyers to go find lawsuits, but to just let him and his lover be in love. However, my stanza seems to go a little further by asking what his love has ever done to anyone. Donne writes, “who's injured by my love?” (Line 10). He flat out asks who is hurt by his love. His love is not the cause of sinking ships, or drowning people, his love has never ruined a spring, so ultimately he is asking what is the harm of his love. I think that also the lines about the lawyers and soldiers could be taken as despite the love that he has, lawyers days still go on, and there are still wars for soldiers to fight. Peoples daily lives are not affected by him, even though him and his lover still love.
ReplyDeleteIn the third stanza, Donne continues to defend his love. I agree with Watts Davidson’s analysis by how Donne is defending his love to an unknown entity by making comparisons to the modern world. One example being that wars are not affected by his love. In the first line, Donne is saying that him and his lover are made to love and made of love. This comparison is dramatic and shows that Donne’s only mission in life is to fulfill his need to love. In line 20 Donne makes a comparison of, “Call her one, me another fly.” It is odd comparison to make concerning a loved one. Donne then says that they are also tapers, meaning candles. Flies are attracted to light and therefore Donne is making a metaphor that him and his lover are attracted to each other. However if Donne and his lover are both flies and tapers, if they fly into each other it would cause them to die as Donne says in line 21. Donne could be saying that him and his lover could be the death of each other because their love is so passionate and ultimately hurts them. Donne continues to make metaphors about his lover by comparing them to birds. Donne then stops the comparisons and says that him and his lover are the same and therefore they both rise and fall and become to be and die. Donne says that the love is mysterious. He could be referring to how other people think that his love is mysterious and different because it is so strong. Donne could also be saying that he finds his love mysterious because him and his lover can work so harmoniously together by rising and dying at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Watts Davidson when he asks what his love has ever done to anyone, and how his sights did not cause ships to sink, his tears have not caused floods, and his colds have not ruined spring. This mockery turns into metaphors, which are used to explain his love. The first thing I did to analysis the third stanza was to look up the rhyme scheme, and I agree with Hiro that it is A,B,B,A,C,C,C,A,A. Next, I looked up the word “Tapers” which means candles. In line 21 he uses candles to embody the intensity of their love by relating them to months that are drawn to a candle, “We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die” Next I analyzed line 22 “And we in us find the eagle and the dove.” In this line, Donne is again symbolizing their love as the fundamentals of an eagle and a dove. These fundamentals include strong, masculine like the eagle, and peaceful like a dove. After, I looked up the definition of a phoenix, which is a mythical bird of great beauty and lived a very long time, and it died by fire but rose from its ashes. He relates that experience as their own in that “We die and rise the same, and prove mysterious by this love” (Lines 26-27). This means that they die and rise by their own love, and shows how their love is VERY powerful and strong.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth verse begins "We can die by it, if not live by love,And if unfit for tomb or hearse Our legend be" The speaker is stating that his love will live on past their death in a legend. He says that their love is fit for verse, and even if it does little to add to history, it will build "a room" with words. He then describes ferns grown in human ashes, half acre tombs. HE says that his love with his maiden will be canonized by the verses. This means that the love will reach a holy level. Canonization is often associated with eternal reverence.
ReplyDeleteEveryone who has commented thus far seems to have gotten a good grasp of the poem. Hiro Protaganist summarizes the first verse when he said, "I think Donne is saying hold your tongue or mock my illnesses or his gray hairs, but let him love."
This poem is about some guy who just wants to be able to enjoy his love. He sees no harm that comes from his loving. I do not really know what makes him think other people will revere his love in legend, unless he is intending it to be ironic that he is telling the tale of his love in the present poem. He does not actually describe the lover on a personal level, but only the love.
The Fifth stanza is in Iambic form for each line and the rhyme scheme is ABBACCCDD. The overall tone of this stanza is mysterious, dark, but also passionate as shown by diction such as: love, peace, rage, soul, spies. I think John Donne creates this kind of tone to purposely display his love for whoever he is writing about, but to also bring out the religious and historical reference to their love. In the first line of the fifth stanza John makes another reference to their love being holy and "reverend". In lines 2 and 3 John talks about how their love was each other's peace. He goes on to say that the world extracted their souls and the love they had for one another and projected it back down upon the eyes of the people in the,"Countries, towns, courts:..." for example of all future lovers to follow. The last line," A pattern of your love!" reaffirms this meaning in that their love is so strong and powerful that it should be the example for lovers to follow for the rest of eternity.
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(Call us what you will, we are made such by love;)
ReplyDeleteWith “we are made such by love”, Donne is implying that their love is what makes them who they are.
(Call her one, me another fly;)
Flies, at this time, were emblems of transience and lustfulness. Emblems are something symbolically important. Transience means to prevent the end or death of something and flies were characterized by lustfulness because they were constantly drawn to the look of something.
(We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die,)
A taper is a candle, and in this case, the light of the candle is what draws the fly in. Donne uses a metaphor here by comparing him and his lover to the fly and the tapers. The fly is so drawn into the light, that eventually it run’s into the candle’s flame and killing itself. Because their love is so problematic, “at our own cost die,” implies that the lovers will die for their love.
(And we in us find the eagle and the dove.)
An eagle represents anything from strength, vision, and masculinity and a dove represents meekness, mercy, peace, and feminism. “We in us find the eagle and the dove” means that they both find these qualities.
(The phoenix riddle hath more wit)
The phoenix is an Arabian bird that was burned by fire and its ashes rose to a new bird. Donne implies that their love/him and his lover combined may cause death, but it can also form something amazing (their love).
(By us: we two being one, are it.)
With “we two being one, are it”, Donne is implying that them together, forming love, are the phoenix.
(So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.)
Both sexes are accommodating to one neutral thing with their love.
(We die and rise the same, and prove)
Donne believes that their love may kill them both, but they will rise due to the strength of their love.
(Mysterious by this love.)
He concludes this stanza by supporting everything by saying their love is very unique and intense.
This stanza is a pentameter with the rhyme scheme of: ABBACCCDD.
I agree with Someone Like You when they said that Donne is defending his love to an unknown entity by making comparisons to the modern world, but I don’t think it’s just the comparisons that will defend it. I think the intensity of the relationship is how he is trying to get his point across. Overall, this is beautifully written! My favorite thus far.
Line 37 begins the fifth and final stanza of Donne’s “The Canonization”. The first observation I made was the rhyme scheme is ABBACCCDD. Donne begins the stanza with “And thus invoke us: You whom reverend love, Made one another’s hermitage”. The definition of Hermitage is a religious retreat. So he may be saying that with love two people can find a retreat from the world within each other. As long as they have the love for each other nothing else in the world can get to them. He then goes on to say “You, to whom love was peace, that is now rage; Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove into the glasses of your eyes”. In this statement the word “contract” is meaning extract. This means for a person, who has had love and then lost it, can now see the whole world as if it was “drove” into their eyes. So to see the world for everything it is, one must have once felt what love is, and how great it is, but if that love gets taken away then someone will also know the feeling of all the bad in the world. Therefore that person can see everything. This view is creditable because the side note in the book states, “The notion is that eyes both see and reflect the outside world, and so can contain all of it.”
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