MAE602_British Poetry till 17th Century

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 143 the first thirty years of the seventeenth century. This age stands midway between the age of Shakespeare-and the age of Milton. There is, however, some over-lapping which cannot be avoided because literary periods or ages cannot be separated chronologically. It was a period of remarkable literary activity, a sort of prolongation of the Elizabethan age. The revival of learning had influenced not only Italy and Germany but also England. The classics were studied minutely and from a new angle. The re-discovery of the literature and culture of the past-known as humanism-gave the writers a new outlook on life. Life was a gay game and not a sorry penance. The new ideal man was to be a perfect courtier, a perfect soldier, a perfect writer and, above all, a perfect gentleman. For this, he had to undergo comprehensive training and a rigorous discipline. The age of Donne was a period of transition. Many changes in the political, social and economic domains were being affected. Colonial expansion and increase in industry and trade made people materialistic. The study of medieval literature developed the minds of the readers. Though education was not so widespread, the common man spared no opportunity of obtaining knowledge from any source. Medieval beliefs held their ground both in Donne and his contemporaries. The Reformation was a direct challenge to Rome. Why should Pope be supreme in the matters of religion? Religion, after all, is a personal matter and no dictation should be tolerated from outside. Nationalism, in its wider, connotation was responsible not only for a new literature, but also a new faith. The abuses and weaknesses of the Catholic religion were laid bare. The new Church of England came into being. Donne, like some of his contemporaries, felt within himself the conflict of faith. His scepticism, his humanism and his learning made him challenge the faith of his ancestors. The result was that after a good deal of heart-searching and vacillation, Donne embraced the Established Church of England by 1598. But it was not until he was ordained in 1615 that he became a confirmed Anglican. The seventeenth century was fundamentally an age of transition and revolution. The old medieval world of ideas was undergoing rapid transformation. But there was an element of underlying continuity of tradition. So, one of the basic features of this age is the presence of a CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

144 British Poetry Till 17th Century tension between the old and the new. The medieval thinker was religious. His outlook on science was theological and metaphysical. He was interested in the origin and the final end of man. The approach of the new science was quite different The scientific thinker was interested in the world itself. He expressed a concern with the sequence of phenomena. He, therefore, appealed to observation and experiment. Thus, there was far-reaching repercussion on the creative minds of the age. For example, John Donne indicated the scepticism of the conflict between the old and the new. In his poem, The First Anniversary, he indicated that the earth was shaking under his feet. His central problem was the relation of man to God. Previous explanations of this problem had already been displaced by the new trend in scientific thinking. The dichotomy between religion and science, reason and faith, in no small measure affected the intellectual altitude of the seventeenth century. Jacobean pessimism had its origin in this dichotomy. If we consider the representative minds of the seventeenth century, we might say that “normality consists in incongruity”. Every great writer is both a creature and creator of the age. In certain aspects, he is influenced by his times; in certain ways, he gives a new ideal to the age in which, he is born. Donne reflects in his poetry the aspiration, the adventure and the conflict of the age. He reacts to the humanism and the religious fervour of his time. He also gives a new direction to the literary activity of his age. He, in a sense, founded—the “metaphysical lyric” which was practised by a score of writers. He also set up new traditions in versification. Early Life John Donne was born on 22 January 1573 in London. His father, also named John Donne, was a warden of the Ironmongers Company and a practicing Roman Catholic at a time, when adherence to the religion was a punishable offence. His mother, Elizabeth Heywood, also from a recusant Roman Catholic family, was the daughter of the reputed playwright and poet John Heywood. He had several siblings including a brother named Henry and two sisters named Mary and Catherine. In 1576, when John was not even four years old, his father died. His mother remarried Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, within a few months of her first husband’s death. Thus young John Donne was raised by his mother and stepfather. Although there is no proof, it is generally believed that Donne began his education at home under a Jesuit. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 145 His maternal uncle, Jasper Heywood, was a Jesuit priest and that might have given rise to such ideas. In 1583, as John Donne entered his eleventh year, he was admitted to Hart Hall, now Hertford College, University of Oxford. He studied there for three years and then shifted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for three more years. However, at that time, to receive their degrees, graduates were required to take the Oath of Supremacy. As a Roman Catholic, he refused take any such oath and so he did not get his degrees. Thereafter in 1591, he entered Thavie’s Inn to be trained as a barrister. Later on 6 May 1592, he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court in London, the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. By that time, he had inherited considerable fortune and so instead of practicing, he spent his wealth on women, literature and travel. Marriage and Family Life During the next four years Donne fell in love with Egerton’s niece Anne More, and they were secretly married just before Christmas in 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and George More, who was Lieutenant of the Tower and Anne’s father. Upon discovery, this wedding ruined Donne’s career, getting him dismissed and put in Fleet Prison, along with the Church of England priest Samuel Brooke, who married them , and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released shortly thereafter when the marriage was proved to be valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when Donne wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife’s dowry. Anne gave birth to 12 children in 16 years of marriage. Indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. His three children died before the age of 10. In a state of despair that almost drove him to kill himself, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one mouth fewer to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time, Donne wrote but did not publish Biathanatos, his defence of suicide. His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby. Donne mourned her deeply, and wrote of his love and loss in his 17th Holy Sonnet. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

146 British Poetry Till 17th Century Career and Later Life In 1602 John Donne was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Brackley, but membership was not a paid position. Queen Elizabeth-I died in 1603, being succeeded by King James VI of Scotland as King James I of England. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave Donne a means to seek patronage, and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially MP Sir Robert Drury of Hawsted, whom he met in 1610 and became Donne’s chief patron, furnishing him and his family an apartment in his large house in Drury Lane. In 1610 and 1611 Donne wrote two anti Catholic polemics: Pseudo Martyr and Ignatius His Conclave for Morton. He then wrote two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World in 1611. In 1615 Donne was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Cambridge University, and became a Royal Chaplain in the same year, and a Reader of Divinity at Lincoln’s Inn in 1616, where he served in the chapel as minister until 1622. During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher and 160 of his sermons have survived, including Death’s Duel, his famous sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles- I in February 1631. Death Donne died on 31 March 1631 and was buried in old St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him by Nicholas Stone was erected with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself. The memorial was one of the few to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666 and is now in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The statue was said by Izaac Walton in his biography to have been modelled from the life by Donne in order to suggest his appearance at the resurrection; it was to start a vogue in such monuments during the course of the 17th century. In 2012 a bust of the poet by Nigel Boonham was unveiled outside in the cathedral churchyard. Writings Donne’s earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 147 corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets, and pompous courtiers. Donne’s early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventionall metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex. Donne did not publish these poems, although they circulated widely in manuscript form. Some have speculated that Donne’s numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more somber and pious tone in his later poems. Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, “Death Be not Proud”. Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death’s Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death’s Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death; death becomes merely another process of life, in which the ‘winding sheet’ of the womb is the same as that of the grave. Style Donne is considered a master of the metaphysical conceit, and an extended metaphor that combines two vastly different ideas into a single idea, often using imagery. An example of this is his equation of lovers with saints in “The Canonization”. Donne’s works are also witty, employing paradoxes, puns, and subtle yet remarkable analogies. His pieces are often ironic and cynical, especially regarding love and human motives. Common subjects of Donne’s poems are love (especially in his early life), death (especially after his wife’s death), and religion. John Donne’s poetry represented a shift from classical forms to more personal poetry. Donne is noted for his poetic metre, which was structured with changing and jagged rhythms that closely resemble casual speech (it was for this that the more classical-minded Ben Jonson commented that “Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging”). Some scholars believe that Donne’s literary works reflect the changing trends of his life, with love poetry and satires from his youth and religious sermons during his later years. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

148 British Poetry Till 17th Century In Literature After Donne’s death, a number of poetical tributes were paid to him, of which one of the principal (and most difficult to follow) was his friend Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s “Elegy for Doctor Donne”. Posthumous editions of Donne’s poems were accompanied by several “Elegies upon the Author” over the course of the next two centuries. Six of these were written by fellow churchmen, others by such courtly writers as Thomas Carew, Sidney Godolphin and Endymion Porter. In 1963 came Joseph Brodsky’s “The Great Elegy for John Donne”. Beginning in the 20th century, several historical novels appeared taking as their subject various episodes in Donne’s life. His courtship of Anne More is the subject of Elizabeth Gray Vining’s Take Heed of Loving Me: A novel about John Donne (1963) and Maeve Haran’s The Lady and the Poet (2010). Finally there is Bryan Crockett’s Love’s Alchemy: A John Donne Mystery (2015), in which the poet, blackmailed into service in Robert Cecil’s network of spies, attempts to avert political disaster and at the same time outwit Cecil. There were musical settings of Donne’s lyrics even during his lifetime and in the century following his death. Works  Biathanatos (1608)  Pseudo-Martyr (1610)  Ignatius His Conclave(1611)  Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624)  Poems (1623) 6.2 “The Good Morrow” by John Donne The Good Morrow is a metaphysical love poem by John Donne, originally published in his 1633 collection of Songs and Sonnets. This three stanza poem revolves around two main metaphors, a couple of lovers waking into a new life, and a new world created by their love. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 149 Summary As the poem opens the speaker, after being woken up together from the night spent together, tells his beloved before they met each other what they had done was all childish play. They were merely babies nursing from the mother’s breast and indulging in country pleasures. He reflects that those parts of their lives to be as worthless as the ones spent in slumber by the seven sleepers of Ephensus. He compares their true love with the past pleasures and finds all the past pleasures as fancies. He moreover, asserts that he had only dreamt of the true beauty, that is, his beloved whom he has got now. A glorious and happy greeting to their soul opens the second stanza. They are now awaken in the true world of love and they do not have to be fearful and jealous in terms of losing each other. here, the speaker and his beloved have moved to the spiritual world of love. They are now complete and other beauties of the materialistic world do not distract them. Their small room where they make love is the whole world for them now. He does not consider the new discoveries of the sea an important thing now because for him his beloved is the pure world of love and discoveries. The speaker in the third stanza praises the strong bond of love they share. He can see his image in her eyes and she is in his eyes. Their mutual love reflects their image so well that their hearts are clearly seen in their eyes. When the world is divided into hemispheres, their love is united and crosses all the boundaries of the physical world. At the end of the poem, the speaker applauses the immortality of their love. He says that when two things mixes the purity of the matter loses and it becomes weak. But, their love is not like any mixture, but the mixture of platonic love. So, their bondage cannot be slackened, and their love cannot be killed as it is immortal and pure love. Poem I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

150 British Poetry Till 17th Century Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear; For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. Theme Love as an Awakening CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 151 “The Good Morrow” is a celebration of love, which it presents as an intense and unparalleled pleasure. All the joys that the two lovers experienced before they found each other pale in comparison to the joy they experience together. Indeed, love is so powerful that the speaker describes it as an awakening of the soul: it is almost a religious experience. And like a religious experience, it reshapes the lovers’ attitude to the world at large. Like monks or nuns who dedicate themselves to religious practice, the two lovers dedicate themselves to love above adventure and career success. “The Good Morrow” thus translates romantic — and erotic — love into a religious, even holy, experience. Love itself, the speaker suggests, is capable of producing the same insights as religion. “The Good Morrow” separates the lives of the lovers into two parts: before they found each other, and after. The speaker describes the first part of their lives with disdain: the pleasures they enjoyed were “childish.” Indeed, they were not even “weaned”: they were like babies. Like children, they had a limited understanding of life. They were aware of only some of its “country” (or lowly) pleasures, going through the motions of life without knowing there could be something more. But once they find each other, it feels as though their eyes have been opened. The speaker realizes that any “beauty” experienced before this love was really nothing more than a “dream”— a pale imitation — of the joy and pleasure the speaker has now. “Good-morrow to our waking souls,” the speaker announces at the start of stanza 2, as though the lovers had been asleep and are just now glimpsing the light of day for the first time. Since the sun is often associated with Jesus Christ in Christian religious traditions and light is often associated with enlightenment, the speaker’s description of this experience is implicitly cast in religious terms. That is, the speaker makes waking up alongside a lover sound like a religious epiphany or a conversion experience. The consequences of this epiphany are also implicitly religious. Having tasted the intense pleasures of love, the lovers give up on adventure and exploration: instead they treat their “one little room” as “an everywhere.” In this way, they become like monks or nuns: people who separate themselves from the world to dedicate themselves to their faith. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

152 British Poetry Till 17th Century Further, the lovers’ devotion to each other wins them immortality: “none can die,” the speaker announces in the poem’s final line. Immortality is more commonly taken to be the reward for dedicated religious faith, not earthly pleasures like romantic love. In describing this relationship in religious terms, the speaker breaks down the traditional distinctions between love and religion. Where many religious traditions treat erotic love as something potentially harmful to religious devotion, the speaker of “The Good Morrow” suggests that erotic love leads to the same devotion, insight, and immortality that religion promises. However, the speaker doesn’t specify the nature of the love in question. If the lovers are married, for instance, the reader doesn’t hear anything about it. Instead, the speaker focuses on the perfection of their love, noting the way the two lovers complement each other. Exploration and Adventure “The Good Morrow” was written during the Age of Discovery, the period of intense European sea exploration lasting roughly from the 15th to 17th centuries. This context informs the poem’s second and third stanzas, with their focus on “sea-discoverers,” “new worlds,” “maps,” and “hemispheres.” The poem compares the desire to chart new lands with the pleasures of love itself, and finds the latter to be more powerful and exciting. Indeed, the speaker finds love so pleasurable that he or she proposes to withdraw from the world in order to dedicate him or herself entirely to that love. Instead of seeking adventure, the speaker proposes that the lovers “make one little room an everywhere.” For the speaker, then, love creates its own world to explore. In the poem’s second stanza, the speaker proposes that the lovers renounce their worldly ambitions. The speaker says that instead of crossing the oceans or mapping foreign countries, they should stay in bed and gaze into each other’s eyes. Indeed, the speaker argues in stanza 3, they will not find better “hemispheres” out in the world than each others’ eyes. This means that, for the speaker, giving up the outside world is not a sacrifice. Indeed, the speaker finds a better world in bed with this lover. Poetic devices and figurative language: “The Good-Morrow” contains few moments of enjambment. When the poem does use enjambment, it does not employ any strict pattern: the enjambments are scattered irregularly CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 153 throughout the poem, with one in the opening line and two more in lines 6 and 20 (recall that enjambment need not always align with punctuation, and is more concerned with the grammatical unit of one line spilling over onto the next — which is why line 6 is enjambed). Notably, however, two of the poem’s three enjambments fall in the second-to-last line of a stanza. This is potentially significant since the poem’s meter switches after those lines (line 6 and line 20): where the first six lines of each stanza are in iambic pentameter, the final line is in iambic hexameter. The final lines (line 7 and line 21) of these two stanzas stretch out across the added syllables, and the speaker’s thoughts stretch out with them, breaking the pattern of keeping each thought in its own line — a boundary the speaker otherwise largely respects. (However, the speaker is careful to avoid using this strategy too often: the penultimate line of stanza two is not enjambed). The poem’s first enjambment is its most suggestive and interesting. Line 1 is a grammatically incomplete unit: its verb is the first word of line 2, “Did.” “Thou and I” stands by itself, cut off from the verb — and the activities that verb describes. This enjambment allows the speaker to separate the lovers from what they did before they knew each other; it’s as if the speaker is building a kind of quarantine that cuts them off from the past and highlights how insignificant it was. The speaker again highlights the words “thou and I” with the enjambment at the end of line 20, echoing the end of line 1 and reinforcing that the two lovers are the true core of the poem (and perhaps the world).Enjambment thus does not have a broad, global significance in the poem, but it is often suggestive and meaningful in its individual instances. Questions 1. What is the relationship between sex and love in this poem? What parts lead you to your answer? 2. What if the speaker was a woman? Would the conclusions of the poem be different? Why or why not? 3. Find out the symbols and the poetic devices from the poem. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

154 British Poetry Till 17th Century 6.3 “Satyre: Of Religion” by John Donne Satires Donne wrote a number of satires in his youth. This poem probably dates from around 1594-5, a period when Donne was trying to make a life-changing decision – whether to remain a Catholic, in accordance with his upbringing and family loyalties, or to move (as he eventually did) to become a member of the Church of England. He read widely as he sought to understand the passionately held but widely differing beliefs current at the time and tried to decide between them. Like elegies and epigrams satires have their origin in classical literature. Literally, satires are poems which ridicule certain people or human attitudes, often trying to reform them at the same time. Religious choices could be life or death choices in Donne’s time. Though he became the revered, if at times abstruse, Dean of St. Paul’s, Donne seems to have been on dangerous ground at times in his life. In the poem Donne further sees the choice of faith as having implications beyond the grave. Fool and wretch, wilt thou let thy soul be tied To man’s laws, by which she shall not be tried At the last day? Oh, will it then boot thee To say a Philip, or a Gregory, A Harry, or a Martin, taught thee this? Is not this excuse for mere contraries Equally strong? Cannot both sides say so? That thou mayest rightly obey power, her bounds know; Those past, her nature and name is chang’d; to be Then humble to her is idolatry. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 155 As streams are, power is; those blest flowers that dwell At the rough stream’s calm head, thrive and do well, But having left their roots, and themselves given To the stream’s tyrannous rage, alas, are driven Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost Consum’d in going, in the sea are lost. So perish souls, which more choose men’s unjust Power from God claim’d, than God himself to trust. An Age of Religious Controversy In this, the third satire, On Religion, Donne addresses the search for religious truth in an age of religious conflict. In Donne’s day, people were frequently imprisoned and even killed for their religious beliefs. Donne’s uncle and brother had suffered directly for their Catholic faith. Finding and holding to spiritual truth mattered desperately to Donne, and the intensity of his personal struggle and turmoil gives this poem an edge and force not often seen in his earlier work. Key Themes of the Poem  A warning to those who fail to see the importance of spiritual truth  The challenge to ‘seek true religion’  The need to follow one’s conscience at all costs or risk damnation A Warning to Those Who Fail to Prioritise Spiritual Truth The poem begins with anguish and anger as Donne states the need to be devoted to ‘faire religion’. He looks back to the pagan philosophers of the classical age (before the coming of Christianity) who greatly valued and pursued virtue. Donne states that human beings should fear to be judged by God for being worse than the pagan philosophers were, despite possessing spiritual knowledge which they lacked. Donne may be speaking of his own father, a Catholic who died when Donne was young. He is, perhaps, envisaging him, safe in heaven, hearing of his son’s CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

156 British Poetry Till 17th Century damnation even though he had passed on to him the ‘easier’ and familiar ways of his own religion. The fear of damnation (spiritual condemnation by God) is, says Donne, an appropriate response which needs true courage to face it. To avoid such a fate, men and women must know their spiritual foes: the world flesh and devil, which will destroy the soul. The challenge to Seek true Religion The problem is where to look. Donne examines the options on offer under the guise of a series of names. Mirreus is a Roman Catholic; Crantz (a German-sounding name because the Reformation began in Germany) is a Calvinist or Presbyterian; Graius is Anglican; and Phrygius is a sceptic or agnostic. He satirises all these people and their reasons for belief. Donne therefore sets out the best way to search for truth, a task which will require both care and determination. The reader is urged to ‘doubt wisely’ and to consider carefully, yet to get on with the job: In strange way To stand inquiring right is not to stray; To sleepe, or runne wrong, is. Discernment and courage are needed. It won’t be easy and the journey may be long and arduous. Donne uses an image that has often been quoted: On a huge hill, Cragged and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will Reach her, about must, and about must goe; And what the hills suddeness resists, winne so. By ‘suddeness’, he means steepness. For Donne it isn’t ‘travelling hopefully’ that matters, it is essential to arrive. ‘Therefore now doe’ he says, while there is still light. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: Poet and the Age Satyre: of Religion The Good Morrow 157 The Need to Follow One’s Conscience at All Costs or Risk Damnation Donne gives some further guidance: don’t blindly follow the authority of human rulers and leaders; it is better to suffer persecution (as Donne’s own family had done so harshly) than to risk losing one’s eternal soul, by obeying human authorities rather than God. Donne’s search for religious truth, therefore, demands an independence of mind and heart, and a refusal to give up. Allegorical Figures Donne uses several allegorical figures personifying various religions or indeed, irreligion. Mirreus, the Roman Catholic, seeing that what he considers true religion cannot be found in England anymore, seeks her at Rome because he knows she used to live there. He loves her rags like silly people who worship the canopy under which the prince used to sit. Crantz, the Calvinist, loves the religion that is “plain, simple, sullen, young/contemptuous yet unhandsome”. He is like guys who love only coarse country wenches. Graius, the Anglican, loves the religion of his country because his preachers and his tradition tell him to. He is like a young boy who has to marry the girl his guardian makes him to, or he will have to pay a fine. (You had to pay high fines in post-Reformation England for not attending Anglican services.) Phrygius, the atheist, is like the guy who hates all women because some happen to be whores. And Graccus, an agnostic, is like a guy who thinks that all women are the same, even if they wear different national costumes, so it makes no difference which one he chooses. Donne dares here to use an extreme form of enjambment, breaking off the word “blind/ness” in the middle for the sake of rhyme. I wonder if he does it to emphasize the fact that he is as indifferent to the traditional rules of rhyming as Graccus to all religions. Donne’s final point is that you have to choose one religion and you have to do your own thinking: inquiry is not a sin, but sleeping or being wrong is. You can’t put it off until you are old and infirm, and you can’t choose a religion because you are afraid of your rulers. Kings (contrary to what James I claimed) are not God’s representatives on earth but “hangmen to fate”. People who obey earthly power more than God are like flowers torn from their roots by a mountain stream and vanishing in the sea. On the whole it’s a very interesting poem, with quite strong medieval undertones (all these allegorical figures) but also I think it is very symptomatic of Donne that he compares various religious choices to the various men’s tastes in women. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

158 British Poetry Till 17th Century Questions on Religion 1. What factors might make someone feel they need to search out the truth about religion? 2. Pick out some of the main strands of imagery in the poem. 6.4 References 1. John Donne: The Reform Soul: A Biography by John Stubbs 2. Satires of Dr. John Donne by Mr. Pope 3. https://www.enotes.com CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Unit 4 CHAPTER 7 “JOHN DONNE: THE CANONIZATION”, “AT THE ROUND EARTH’S IMAGIN'D CORNERS” AND “BATTER MY HEART, THREE- PERSON'D GOD” John Donne (22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) Structure: 7.0 Learning Objectives 7.1 “The Canonization” 7.2 “At The Round Earth’s Imagin'd Corners” 7.3 “Batter My Heart, Three-person'd God” 7.4 Unit End Exercise (MCQs)

160 British Poetry till 17th Century 7.5 References 7.0 Learning Objectives After reading this lesson, students will be able to:  Study of metaphysical conceit  Paradoxical shadow in the poem.  Love and relationship. 7.1 “The Canonization” “The Canonization” is a poem by English metaphysical poet John Donne. First published in 1633, the poem is viewed as exemplifying Donne’s wit and irony. It is addressed to one friend from another, but concerns itself with the complexities of romantic love: the speaker presents love as so all-consuming that lovers forgo other pursuits to spend time together. In this sense, love is asceticism, a major conceit in the poem. The poem’s title serves a dual purpose: while the speaker argues that his love will canonize him into a kind of sainthood, the poem itself functions as a canonization of the pair of lovers. In this sense, love is asceticism, a major conceit in the poem. The poem’s title serves a dual purpose: while the speaker argues that his love will canonize him into a kind of sainthood, the poem itself functions as a canonization of the pair of lovers. New Critic Cleanth Brooks used the poem, along with Alexander Pope’s \"An Essay on Man\" and William Wordsworth’s “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802, to illustrate his argument for paradox as central to poetry. The Canonization: Text of the Poem For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love; Or chide my palsy, or my gout; My five grey hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout; With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve; CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 161 Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his Honour, or his Grace; Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love. Alas! alas! who's injured by my love? What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd? Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground? When did my colds a forward spring remove? When did the heats which my veins fill Add one more to the plaguy bill? Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still Litigious men, which quarrels move, Though she and I do love. Call's what you will, we are made such by love; Call her one, me another fly, We're tapers too, and at our own cost die, And we in us find th' eagle and the dove. The phœnix riddle hath more wit By us; we two being one, are it; So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

162 British Poetry till 17th Century We die and rise the same, and prove Mysterious by this love. We can die by it, if not live by love, And if unfit for tomb or hearse Our legend be, it will be fit for verse; And if no piece of chronicle we prove, We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms; As well a well-wrought urn becomes The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs, And by these hymns all shall approve Us canonized for love; And thus invoke us, \"You, whom reverend love Made one another's hermitage; You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage; Who did the whole world's soul contract, and drove Into the glasses of your eyes; So made such mirrors, and such spies, That they did all to you epitomize — Countries, towns, courts beg from above A pattern of your love.\" CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 163 Summary “The Canonization” starts with the poem’s speaker wanting to be left alone. The speaker asks his addressee to be quiet, and let him love. If the addressee cannot hold his tongue, the speaker tells him to criticize him for other shortcomings (other than his tendency to love): his palsy, his gout, his “five grey hairs,” or his ruined fortune. He admonishes the addressee to look to his own mind and his own wealth and to think of his position and copy the other nobles (“Observe his Honour, or his Grace,/Or the King’s real, or his stamped face/Contemplate.”) The speaker does not care what the addressee says or does, as long as he lets him love. The speaker asks rhetorically, “Who’s injured by my love?” He says that his sighs have not drowned ships, his tears have not flooded land, his colds have not chilled spring, and the heat of his veins has not added to the list of those killed by the plague. Soldiers still find wars and lawyers still find litigious men, regardless of the emotions of the speaker and his lover. The speaker tells his addressee to “Call us what you will,” for it is love that makes them so. He says that the addressee can “Call her one, me another fly,” and that they are also like candles (“tapers”), which burn by feeding upon their own selves (“and at our own cost die”). In each other, the lovers find the eagle and the dove, and together (“we two being one”) they illuminate the riddle of the phoenix, for they “die and rise the same,” just as the phoenix does — though unlike the phoenix, it is love that slays and resurrects them. He says that they can die by love if they are not able to live by it, and if their legend is not fit “for tombs and hearse,” it will be fit for poetry, and “We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms.” A well-wrought urn does as much justice to a dead man’s ashes as does a gigantic tomb; and by the same token, the poems about the speaker and his lover will cause them to be “canonized,” admitted to the sainthood of love. All those who hear their story will invoke the lovers, saying that countries, towns, and courts “beg from above/A pattern of your love!” This stanza picks up a thought that was left incomplete at the end of the last stanza. That’s called enjambment in the poetry biz, folks. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

164 British Poetry till 17th Century Form The five stanzas of “The Canonization” are metered in iambic lines ranging from trimester to pentameter; in each of the nine-line stanzas, the first, third, fourth, and seventh lines are in pentameter, the second, fifth, sixth, and eighth in tetrameter, and the ninth in trimeter. (The stress pattern in each stanza is 545544543.) The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABBACCCDD. Commentary This complicated poem, spoken ostensibly to someone who disapproves of the speaker’s love affair, is written in the voice of a world-wise, sardonic courtier who is nevertheless utterly caught up in his love. The poem simultaneously parodies old notions of love and coins elaborate new ones, eventually concluding that even if the love affair is impossible in the real world, it can become legendary through poetry, and the speaker and his lover will be like saints to later generations of lovers. (Hence the title: “The Canonization” refers to the process by which people are inducted into the canon of saints). In his analysis of \"The Canonization\", critic Leonard Unger focuses largely on the wit exemplified in the poem. In Unger’s reading, the exaggerated metaphors employed by the speaker serve as “the absurdity which makes for wit”. However, Unger points out that, during the course of the poem, its apparent wit points to the speaker’s actual message: that the lover is disconnected from the world by virtue of his contrasting values, seen in his willingness to forgo worldly pursuits to be with his lover. Unger’s analysis concludes by cataloguing the “devices of wit” found throughout the poem, as well as mentioning that a “complexity of attitudes,” fostered largely through the use of the canonisation conceit, perpetuates wit within the poem. \"The Canonization\" figures prominently in critic Cleanth Brooks’s arguments for the paradox as integral to poetry, a central tenet of New Criticism. In his collection of critical essays, The Well, The W Wrought Urn, Brooks writes that a poet “must work by contradiction and qualification,” and that paradox “is an extension of the normal language of poetry, not a perversion of it” Brooks analyses several poems to illustrate his argument but cites \"The Canonization\" as his main evidence. According to Brooks, there are superficially many ways to read “The Canonization,” but the most likely interpretation is that despite his witty tone and extravagant metaphors, Donne’s speaker takes both love and religion seriously. He neither intends CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 165 to mock religion by exalting love beside it nor aims to poke fun at love by comparing it to sainthood. Instead, Brooks argues, the apparent contradiction in taking both seriously translates into a truer account of both love and spirituality. The paradox is Donne’s “inevitable instrument”, allowing him with “dignity” and “precision” to express the idea that love may be all that is necessary for life. Without it, “the matter of Donne’s poem unravels into ‘facts’”. Brooks looks at the paradox in a larger sense: More direct methods may be tempting, but all of them enfeeble and distort what is to be said. ... Indeed, almost any insight important enough to warrant a great poem apparently has to be stated in such terms. For Brooks, \"The Canonization\" illustrates that paradox is not limited to use in logic. Instead, paradox enables poetry to escape the confines of logical and scientific language. However, Brooks’s analysis is not the definitive reading of \"The Canonization\". A critique by John Guillory points out the superficiality of his logic. On whether to regard the equation of profane love with the divine as parody or paradox, Guillory writes that “the easy translation of parody into paradox is occasioned by Brooks’s interest”. Guillory also questions Brooks’s decision to concentrate on the conflict between sacred and secular, rather than sacred and profane, as the central paradox: “the paradox overshoots its target”. Guillory also writes that “the truth of the paradoxes in question”, here the biblical quotations Brooks uses to support his claim that the language of religion is full of paradox, “beg[s] to be read otherwise”, with literary implications in keeping with Brooks’s agenda for a “resurgent literary culture”. Likewise, critic Jonathan Culler questions the New Critical emphasis on self-reference, the idea that by “enacting or performing what it asserts or describes, the poem becomes complete in itself, accounts for itself, and stands free as a self-contained fusion of being and doing”. For Brooks, \"The Canonization\" serves as a monument, a “well-wrought urn” to the lovers, just as the speaker describes his canonisation through love: the lovers’ “legend, their story, will gain them canonization”. To Culler, however, this self-referentiality reveals “an uncanny neatness that generates paradox, a self-reference that ultimately brings out the inability of any discourse to account for itself”, as well as the “failure” of being and doing to “coincide”. Instead of a tidy, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

166 British Poetry till 17th Century “self-contained urn”, the poem depicts a “chain of discourses and representations”, such as the legend about the lovers, poems about their love, praise from those who read these poems, the saintly invocations of the lovers, and their responses to these requests. In a larger sense, self- referentiality affords not closure but a long chain of references, such as Brooks’s naming his New Critical treatise The Well-Wrought Urn to parallel the urn in the poem. Questions 1. How would you characterize the relationship between the speaker and the person he’s addressing in this poem? 2. Is this speaker a fan of love, or just a fan of his own relationship? ... 3. What is the best way to love, according to the speaker? ... 4. What is the relationship between love and religion in this p 7.2 “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners” ‘At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow’ by John Donne is a sonnet that is contained within one block of text. John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 7 is a gutsy performance. The speaker calls for the Christian Judgment Day to take place, and then realizes that he’s still a sinner, and changes his mind. By the end of the poem, he’s ready to stick the proverbial bun back in the oven for a few more years, or maybe a few thousand, until he has cleansed his soul. Donne’s “Holy Sonnets” are famous both for their perfection of the sonnet form and for the way they mix heartfelt religious feelings with mischievous wit. Donne was an Englishman who lived in the first part of the 17th century, around the same time as poets like George Herbert and Andrew Marvell. These guys are frequently identified the “Metaphysical Poets,” that is, the poets who wrote about big topics like God, creation, and the afterlife. Of course, they didn’t get this name until many decades after they had all died, so they never knew how they were viewed by posterity. Donne’s Holy Sonnet 7 is a classic metaphysical poem. The speaker addresses himself to angels and to God. The “Holy Sonnets” were published in 1633, two years after Donne’s death, but they were probably written at least a decade before that. Donne and his metaphysical friends have always CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 167 been a big deal in English poetry, but they got a big boost from the 20th century poet T.S. Eliot. Eliot thought the “Holy Sonnets” were the bee’s knees. ‘At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow’ by John Donne contains a speaker’s description of Judgment Day and an appeal to God to forgive him his sins. The poem begins with the speaker directing angels at the corners of the earth to blow their trumpets and wake the dead. With this action all those who have passed away, in all their “numberless infinites” will return to earth and seek out their bodies. From the first lines it is clear this is a slightly altered description of the Christian apocalypse. The speaker describes how everyone will be able to take back their bodies. By the time a reader gets to the second half of the poem, lines nine through 12, a turn has occurred. Although the speaker seemed prepared for the end of the world in the first section, he changes his mind. He realizes he hasn’t adequately repented for his own sins and begs God to teach him how to do it. The speaker states that if he were able to confess everything he has done to God, then it would be like receiving a blood pardon. This is one of the Holy Sonnets. It shows us Donne in his mature years, no longer overtly concerned with the relationship between the sexes but with his relationship with God. The poem is not merely the outcome of a purely selfish preoccupation with the condition of his own soul, but, by putting in poetic form one of his own spiritual problems, the poet is preaching a sermon to all his readers. He is inviting them to look into their own souls and find something of the same problems. Analysis of At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scatter’d bodies go; CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

168 British Poetry till 17th Century In the first lines of this piece the speaker directs his words to the angels. He tells them that they should “blow” their “trumpets” at the “round earth’s imagin’d corners.” Or more clearly, they should blow their horns and make sure the sounds ring out over the great distances. It is unclear who this person is, or why he is able to give this order. The context on the other hand is easier to understand.. He is referring to four angels stationed on the imagined corners of the world. This brings to mind images of antique maps, perhaps from Donne’s own time (the mid 1800s) that were drawn with angels at the corners. These figures were often playing trumpets, therefore completing Donne’s speaker’s order. These lines also reference the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The connection to the Christian end times becomes clearer as the poem progresses. At this point a reader can refer to the line in Revelation 7 in which four angels are described at the corners of the earth. They hold back the “winds of earth.” There is even a later reference to angels playing trumpets in Revelation 8. In the next two lines the speaker describes how the trumpets are played in order to make the listeners “arise, and arise.” It is time for everyone who has died to return to the earth and find their bodies. It is Judgement Day and Donne’s speaker has crafted slightly different versions of events from the Biblical account. All whom the flood did, and fire shall o’erthrow, All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, Despair, law, chance hath slain, and you whose eyes Shall behold God and never taste death’s woe. In the next four lines the speaker goes on to describe what kind of people the angels wake up. There is no distinction between one person and another. Those who died in “the flood,” a reference to the Biblical flood, are included as well as those who died from every other cause. It doesn’t matter if you died from “Despair” or at the hand of the law, from old age or in war, everyone “Shall behold God.” CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 169 Donne chose to list out all these various possible deaths in order to include everyone. Those who have lived good and bad likes alike shall return to their bodies. In the last line the speaker references “you whose eyes,/Shall behold God, and never taste death’s woe.” These people are those who were too good to die at all. They never had to deal with the trauma of death but are still included in this return to their physical bodies. But let them sleep, Lord, and me mourn a space, For if above all these my sins abound, ‘Tis late to ask abundance of thy grace When we are there; here on this lowly ground Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good As if thou’hadst seal’d my pardon with thy blood. Between the first and second half of the poem there is a turn, or important change in the text. Often the turn represents a shift in topics, narrative perspectives, or tone. In this instance the speaker turns his words to God. He speaks directly yo the “Lord” and asks that the angels hold back from blowing their horns. He isn’t quite ready for everything he spoke on in the first stanza to happen. The speaker tells God the reason for his change of mind is that he needs “space” to “mourn” everyone who has died. He goes on to makes clear that in reality he is more worried about his own sins than the lives of the deceased. He isn’t ready for the end times yet because his “sins abound.” Perhaps, he is thinking, they are greater than any who have come before him. The speaker recognizes the fact that it is “late” for him to ask for God’s forgiveness, or even for more time. He asks God to teach him “here on this lowly ground,” in the present, how to “repent.” The speaker’s sins are not explained, nor is the reason why exactly he sees himself as so much worse than any other person. These feelings of self doubt are a perfect representation of the mind set needed to admit one’s sins. He is fearful and concerned that God will not have a place for him after Judgement Day. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

170 British Poetry till 17th Century To the speaker, a pardon from God would absolve him of everything he has done. If he can only receive God’s blessing then he will be able to confront the end of the world with a full heart and faith.The speaker will be good enough to stand amongst the other living dead. Donne’s poem is also structured with a consistent rhyme scheme that is common within Petrarchan sonnets. It follows a pattern of ABBA ABBA CDCD EE. Additionally, the text is written in iambic pentameter. This means that almost every line contains five sets of two beats. The first of these is unstressed and the second stressed. There are moments in which the pattern diverges though. Donne sometimes uses two stressed or unstressed beats in a row to vary the sounds and make them more interesting. Questions 1. What’s the best way to ask for forgiveness? 2. If the poem were a painting, what would it look like? 3. Is it possible to be both arrogant and humble at the same time? 4. Have you ever wanted to put off some kind of judgment of your behavior or work? (It doesn’t have to be the Last Judgment.) 5. Find out the poetic devices. How they metrically arranged? 7.3 “Batter My Heart, Three-person’d God” Batter My Heart, sonnet by John Donne, one of the 19 Holy Sonnets, or Divine Meditations, originally published in 1633 in the first edition of Songs and Sonnets. Written in direct address to God and employing violent and sexual imagery, it is one of Donne’s most dramatic devotional lyrics.“Batter My Heart, Three-person’d God” is one of nineteen sonnets that Donne wrote after taking orders in the Anglican Church. Earlier in his life, before his marriage and ordination, he wrote some fifty-five poems published in Songs and Sonnets, but none of these is technically a sonnet. The latter sonnets that he wrote as an Anglican priest, however, are true sonnets, and they display Donne’s continuing love of wit and paradoxes but also his deepening concern about his relationship to God. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 171 “Batter My Heart, Three-personed God” is a fairly typical sonnet. It has fourteen lines, and the metrical scheme is iambic pentameter, five feet to a line; each foot contains an unstressed and a stressed syllable. The rhyme scheme is abba, abba, cdcd, ee, not the only sonnet rhyme sequence but a common one. The poem, typical of many sonnets, is made up of an octet: The first eight lines have the same rhyme scheme and develop a single image, in this poem, the image of a city under siege. The last six lines form a sestet, the first four lines having a consistent rhyme scheme and their own image, that of a marital relationship. The last two lines of the sestet form a couplet; they rhyme with each other and bring together the thought of the octet and the sestet. ‘Batter My Heart, Three-person’d God’: a typically blunt and direct opening for a John Donne poem, from a poet who is renowned for his bluff, attention-grabbing opening lines. This poem, written using the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form, sees Donne calling upon God to take hold of him and consume him, in a collection of images that are at once deeply spiritual and physically arresting. Sonnet Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurp'd town to another due, Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end; Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain, But am betroth'd unto your enemy; Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

172 British Poetry till 17th Century Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me The speaker begins by asking God (along with Jesus and the Holy Ghost; together, they are the Trinity that makes up the Christian “three-person’d God”) to attack his heart as if it were the gates of a fortress town. The speaker asks the “three-person’d God” to “batter” his heart, for as yet God only knocks politely, breathes, shines, and seeks to mend. The speaker says that to rise and stand, he needs God to overthrow him and bend his force to break, blow, and burn him, and to make him new. Like a town that has been captured by the enemy, which seeks unsuccessfully to admit the army of its allies and friends, the speaker works to admit God into his heart, but Reason, like God’s viceroy, has been captured by the enemy and proves “weak or untrue.” The speaker wants God to enter his heart aggressively and violently, instead of gently. Then, in line 5, the speaker explicitly likens himself to a captured town. He tries to let God enter, but has trouble because the speaker’s rational side seems to be in control. At the “turn” of the poem, the speaker admits that he loves God, and wants to be loved, but is tied down to God’s unspecified “enemy” instead, whom we can think of as Satan, or possibly “reason.” The speaker asks God to break the speaker’s ties with the enemy, and to bring the speaker to Him, not letting him go free. He then explains why he wants all of this, reasoning with double meanings: he can’t really be free unless God enslaves and excites him, and he can’t refrain from sex unless God carries him away and delights him. Donne’s sonnet ends with a very daring declaration of desire that God ‘ravish’ him – much as he had longed for the women in his life to ravish him in his altogether more libertine youth. . The speaker asks God to “divorce, untie, or break that knot again,” to take him prisoner; for until he is God’s prisoner, he says, he will never be free, and he will never be chaste until God ravishes him. Commentary This poem is an appeal to God, pleading with Him not for mercy or clemency or benevolent aid but for a violent, almost brutal overmastering; thus, it implores God to perform actions that CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 173 would usually be considered extremely sinful — from battering the speaker to actually raping him, which, he says in the final line, is the only way he will ever be chaste. The poem’s metaphors (the speaker’s heart as a captured town, the speaker as a maiden betrothed to God’s enemy) work with its extraordinary series of violent and powerful verbs (batter, o’erthrow, bend, break, blow, burn, divorce, untie, break, take, imprison, enthrall, ravish) to create the image of God as an overwhelming, violent conqueror. The bizarre nature of the speaker’s plea finds its apotheosis in the paradoxical final couplet, in which the speaker claims that only if God takes him prisoner can he be free, and only if God ravishes him can he be chaste. As is amply illustrated by the contrast between Donne’s religious lyrics and his metaphysical love poems, Donne is a poet deeply divided between religious spirituality and a kind of carnal lust for life. Many of his best poems, including “Batter my heart, three-personed God,” mix the discourse of the spiritual and the physical or of the holy and the secular. In this case, the speaker achieves that mix by claiming that he can only overcome sin and achieve spiritual purity if he is forced by God in the most physical, violent, and carnal terms imaginable. Batter My Heart (Holy Sonnet 14) has the theme of Love. Complicating the speaker’s desire for salvation is the fact that he loves God in more than just the regular spiritual way. He seems interested in marital and sexual forms of love, as well. The witty imagery of this poem, like much of Donne’s work, is built upon paradox, not a surprising development when one couples Donne’s seemingly innate love of paradox with the emphasis on paradox in the Christian tradition to which Donne turned The seemingly impatient, boundless energy of Donne’s mind continues to erupt in his later poetry. Disdaining connectives and transition, it abruptly expresses itself in verb after strong verb. Thus, Donne complains in this poem that until now God has been content to “knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend,” but Donne desires God to “overthrow, and bend to breake, blowe, burn, and make me new.” These lines record a writer trying in his poetry to keep up with, to describe, somehow, the passionate, scintillating images that tumble from his mind. In the end, then, we might come to the conclusion that talking about God in human terms and metaphors actually doesn’t make sense. The kinds of rewards and interactions that God can CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

174 British Poetry till 17th Century provide simply can’t be described properly in human language, and that’s why the speaker gets so caught up in paradox and mixed metaphors. “Batter My Heart, Three-personed God” is a sonnet, a short lyric poem of fourteen lines. The poem is containing purely irregular iambic pentameter. This poem takes the form of a Petrarchan sonnet. We know this because the poem is composed of 14 lines, the three quatrains (groups of four lines) followed by a rhyming couplet (two lines) at the end, and the regular rhyme scheme. Form This simple sonnet follows an ABBAABBACDDCEE rhyme scheme and is written in a loose iambic pentameter. In its structural division, it is a Petrarchan sonnet rather than a Shakespearean one, with an octet followed by a sestet. What does the poet exhort God to do (line 1-4)? The poet begins by asking God to increase the strength of divine force to win over the poet’s soul. He requests, “Batter my heart” (line 1), metaphorically indicating that he wants God to use force to assault his heart, like battering down a door. Thus far, God has only knocked, following the scriptural idea that God knocks and each person must let him in, yet this has not worked sufficiently for the poet. Simply to “mend” or “shine” him up is not drastic enough; instead God should take him by “force, to break, blow, burn” in order to help him “stand” and be made “new” (lines 3-4). Questions 1. Why does Donne call upon all three persons within God to batter his heart, rather than direct his request to the 'One’ God? 2. Does the speaker think that God is omnipotent, or all-powerful? 3. Why does our speaker use other metaphors, like a wedding engagement, instead of just sticking with the fortress town? 4. Explain what you believe the term, “o’erthrow me” means within the context of this quatrain? CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

John Donne: “The Canonization”, “At the Round Earth’s Imagin’d Corners”… 175 5. Find three images that effectively represent this poem. 7.4 Unit End Exercise (MCQs) 1. John Donne married Anne More in: (a) 1601 (b) 1605 (c) 1891 (d) 1897 2. Which ‘Inns of Court’ did John Donne join in 1592? (a) Oxford Inn (b) Lincoln’s Inn (c) London Inn (d) Royal Inn 3. John Donne wrote his famous phrase ‘John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done’ in concern to: (a) Birth of a stillborn as his 12th child (b) Death of his daughter at the age of 18 (c) Loss of his position following his marriage (d) Being forced to change his religion 4. Who was Donne’s chief patron 1610 onwards? (a) Sir Robert Drury (b) Sir Henry Styron (c) Sir Walter Raleigh (d) William Harrington 5. ‘The Anatomy of the World” was published in: (a) 1601 (b) 1697 (c) 1615 (d) 1611 6. ‘The Anatomy of the World” was written in the memory of: (a) Mary, his daughter (b) Lucy, his patroness (c) Elizabeth Drury, his patron’s daughter (d) Anne More, his wife CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

176 British Poetry till 17th Century 7. Who said about Donne, “He affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in his amorous verses, where nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts, and entertain them with the softnesses of love”? (a) John Dryden (b) Ben Jonson (c) S. Eliot (d) Samuel Johnson 8. Who claimed, “Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging”? (a) Ben Jonson (b) S. Eliot (c) Samuel Johnson (d) John Dryden 9. Which of T.S. Eliot’s poems mentions John Donne? (a) Ash Wednesday (b) Aunt Helen (c) Whispers of Immortality (d) Gerontion 10. Which of these novels uses John Donne’s love story with Anne More as its subject? (a) The Lady and the Poet (b) Conceit (c) The Meaning of Night (d) Stardust Answers 1. (a), 2. (b), 3. (c), 4. (a), 5. (d), 6. (d), 7. (a), 8. (a), 9. (c), 10. (a). 7.5 References 1. https://www.poetryfoundation.org 2. https://www.sparknotes.com 3. Batter My Heart by John Donne CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Unit 5 CHAPTER 8 ALEXANDER POPE: POET AND THE AGE Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) Structure: 8.0 Learning Objectives 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Early Life 8.3 Relationship 8.4 Early Career 8.5 Later Life and Works 8.6 Major Works 8.7 Critics Views 8.8 The Age of Pope, 1700-1745

178 British Poetry till 17th Century 8.9 Unit End Questions 8.10 References 8.0 Learning Objectives After reading this lesson, students will be able to:  Identify Alexander Pope’s major works  Discuss the importance of each of the works  Discuss Pope’s writing style  Describe Pope’s biography and its influence on some of his works 8.1 Introduction Alexander Pope is regarded as one of the greatest English poet, and the foremost poet of the early eighteenth century. He is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry, including The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad and An Essay on Criticism as well as for his translation of Homer. After Shakespeare, Pope is the second most quoted writer in the English language. He is considered a master of the heroic couplet. Pope’s poetic career testifies to his indomitable spirit in the face of disadvantages, of health and of circumstance. The poet and his family were Catholics and thus fell subject to the Test Acts, prohibitive measures which severely hampered the prosperity of their co-religionists after the abdication of James II; one of these banned them from living within ten miles of London, and another from attending public school or university. For this reason, except for a few spurious Catholic schools, Pope was largely self-educated. He was taught to read by his aunt and became a lover of books. He learned French, Italian, Latin, and Greek by himself, and discovered Homer at the age of six. As a child Pope survived being once trampled by a cow, but when he was 12 began struggling with tuberculosis of the spine, along with fits of crippling headaches which troubled him throughout his life. In the year 1709, Pope showcased his precocious metrical skill with the publication of Pastorals, his first major poems. They earned him instant fame. By the time he was 23 he had written An Essay on Criticism, released in 1711. A kind of poetic manifesto in the vein of Horace’s Ars Poetica, the essay was CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: Poet And The Age 179 met with enthusiastic attention and won Pope a wider circle of prominent friends, most notably Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, who had recently started collaborating on the influential The Spectator. The critic John Dennis, having located an ironic and veiled portrait of himself, was outraged by what he considered the impudence of the younger author. Dennis hated Pope for the rest of his life, and, save for a temporary reconciliation, dedicated his efforts to insulting him in print, to which Pope retaliated in kind, making Dennis the butt of much satire. 8.2 Early Life Alexander Pope was born in London on 21 May 1688 — the year of the Glorious Revolution. His father was a successful linen merchant in the Strand. The poet’s mother, Edith, was the daughter of William Turner, Esquire, of York. Both parents were Catholics. Edith’s sister Christiana was the wife of famous miniature painter Samuel Cooper. Pope’s education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts, which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending a university, voting, and holding public office on penalty of perpetual imprisonment. Pope was taught to read by his aunt and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99. He then went on to two Roman Catholic schools in London. Such schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas. His regular schooling ended at age twelve. At about that age he became afflicted with Pott’s disease, a lifelong problem both because of frequent serious pain and because it left him a humpbacked dwarf. 8.3 Relationship In 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Papists from living within 10 miles of London or Westminster. Pope would later describe the countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest. Pope’s formal education ended at this time, and from then, he mostly educated himself by reading the works of classical writers such as the satirists Horace and Juvenal, the epic poets Homer and Virgil, as well as English authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and John Dryden. He studied many languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek poets. After five years of study, Pope CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

180 British Poetry till 17th Century came into contact with figures from London literary society such as William Congreve, Samuel Garth and William Trumbull. At Binfield he made many important friends. One of them, John Caryll (the future dedicatee of The Rape of the Lock), was twenty years older than the poet and had made many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the aging playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet, who helped Pope revise his first major work, The Pastorals. He also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha, both of whom remained lifelong friends. From the age of 12 he suffered numerous health problems, including Pott disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the spine), which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain. He grew to a height of only 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in). Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic, and his poor health alienated him further. Although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters, including Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. It has been alleged that his lifelong friend Martha Blount was his lover. His friend William Cheselden said, according to Joseph Spence, “I could give a more particular account of Mr. Pope’s health than perhaps any man. Cibber’s slander (of carnosity) is false. He had been gay, but left that way of life upon his acquaintance with Mrs. B.” 8.4 Early Career In May 1709, Pope’s Pastorals was published in the sixth part of bookseller Jacob Tonson’s Poetical Miscellanies. This earned Pope instant fame and was followed by An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, which was equally well received. Around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. The aim of the club was to satirise ignorance and pedantry in the form of the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus. He also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim. During Pope’s friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addison’s play Cato, as well as writing CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: Poet And The Age 181 for The Guardian and The Spectator. Around this time, he began the work of translating the Iliad, which was a painstaking process – publication began in 1715 and did not end until 1720. In 1714, the political situation worsened with the death of Queen Anne and the disputed succession between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites, leading to the Jacobite rising of 1715. Though Pope, as a Catholic, might have been expected to have supported the Jacobites because of his religious and political affiliations, according to Maynard Mack, “where Pope himself stood on these matters can probably never be confidently known”. These events led to an immediate downturn in the fortunes of the Tories, and Pope’s friend Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, fled to France. Pope lived in his parents’ house in Mawson Row, Chiswick, between 1716 and 1719; the red brick building is now the Mawson Arms, commemorating him with a blue plaque. The money made from his translation of Homer allowed Pope to move in 1719 to a villa at Twickenham, where he created his now famous grotto and gardens. The serendipitous discovery of a spring during the subterranean retreat’s excavations enabled it to be filled with the relaxing sound of trickling water, which would quietly echo around the chambers. Pope was said to have remarked that: “Were it to have nymphs as well – it would be complete in everything.” Although the house and gardens have long since been demolished, much of this grotto survives. The grotto now lies beneath Radnor House Independent Co-ed School, and is occasionally opened to the public. 8.5 Later Life and Works The death of Alexander Pope from Museus, a threnody by William Mason. Diana holds the dying Pope, and John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Geoffrey Chaucer prepare to welcome him to heaven. The Imitations of Horace followed (1733–38). These were written in the popular Augustan form of the “imitation” of a classical poet, not so much a translation of his works as an updating with contemporary references. Pope used the model of Horace to satirise life under George II, especially what he regarded as the widespread corruption tainting the country under Walpole’s influence and the poor quality of the court’s artistic taste. Pope also added a wholly original poem, Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot, as an introduction to the “Imitations”. It reviews his own literary career and includes the famous portraits of Lord Hervey (“Sporus”) and Addison (“Atticus”). In 1738, he wrote the Universal Prayer. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

182 British Poetry till 17th Century After 1738, Pope wrote little. He toyed with the idea of composing a patriotic epic in blank verse called Brutus, but only the opening lines survive. His major work in these years was revising and expanding his masterpiece The Dunciad. Book Four appeared in 1742, and a complete revision of the whole poem in the following year. In this version, Pope replaced the “hero” Lewis Theobald with the Poet Laureate, Colley Cibber, as “king of dunces”. However, the real focus of the revised poem is Walpole and all his works. By now Pope’s health, which had never been good, was failing. When told by his physician, on the morning of his death, that he was better, Pope replied: “Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.” He died in his villa surrounded by friends on 30 May 1744, about eleven o'clock at night. On the previous day, 29 May 1744, Pope had called for a priest and received the Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church. He was buried in the nave of St Mary’s Church, Twickenham. 8.6 Major Works Essay Criticism on An Essay on Criticism was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711. Pope began writing the poem early in his career and took about three years to finish it. At the time the poem was published, the heroic couplet style in which it was written was a moderately new poetic form, and Pope’s work was an ambitious attempt to identify and refine his own positions as a poet and critic. The poem was said to be a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past. The ‘essay’ begins with a discussion of the standard rules that govern poetry by which a critic passes judgment. Pope comments on the classical authors who dealt with such standards and the authority that he believed should be accredited to them. He discusses the laws to which a critic should adhere while critiquing poetry, and points out that critics serve an important function in aiding poets with their works, as opposed to the practice of attacking them. The final section of An Essay on Criticism discusses the moral qualities and virtues inherent in the ideal critic, who, Pope claims, is also the ideal man. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: Poet And The Age 183 The Rape of the Lock Pope’s most famous poem is The Rape of the Lock, first published in 1712, with a revised version published in 1714. A mock-epic, it satirises a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor (the “Belinda” of the poem) and Lord Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without her permission. The satirical style is tempered, however, by a genuine and almost voyeuristic interest in the “beau-monde” (fashionable world) of 18th-century English society. The revised and extended version of the poem brought more clearly into focus its true subject – the onset of acquisitive individualism and a society of conspicuous consumers. In the world of the poem, purchased artefacts displace human agency, and ‘trivial things’ assume dominance. Though The Dunciad was first published anonymously in Dublin, its authorship was not in doubt. Pope pilloried a host of other “hacks”, “scribblers” and “dunces” in addition to Theobald, and Maynard Mack has accordingly called its publication “in many ways the greatest act of folly in Pope’s life.” Though a masterpiece which would become “one of the most challenging and distinctive works in the history of English poetry”, writes Mack, “it bore bitter fruit. It brought the poet in his own time the hostility of its victims and their sympathizers, who pursued him implacably from then on with a few damaging truths and a host of slanders and lies.” In 1731, Pope published his “Epistle to Burlington,” on the subject of architecture, the first of four poems which would later be grouped under the title Moral Essays (1731-35). In the epistle, Pope ridiculed the bad taste of the aristocrat “Timon.” Pope’s enemies claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons. Though the charge was untrue, it did Pope a great deal of damage. Translation of the Iliad Pope had been fascinated by Homer since childhood. In 1713, he announced his plans to publish a translation of the Iliad. His translation of the Iliad appeared between 1715 and 1720. It was acclaimed by Samuel Johnson as “a performance which no age or nation could hope to equal” (although the classical scholar Richard Bentley wrote: “It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer”). CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

184 British Poetry till 17th Century Translation of the Odyssey Encouraged by the success of the Iliad, Pope published a translation of the Odyssey in 1726 with the help of William Broome and Elijah Fenton. Broome translated eight books (2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 18, 23), Fenton four (1, 4, 19, 20) and Pope the remaining 12; Broome provided the annotations. Pope attempted to conceal the extent of the collaboration but the secret leaked out. It did some damage to Pope’s reputation for a time, but not to his profits. Leslie Stephen considered Pope’s portion of the Odyssey inferior to his version of the Iliad, given that Pope had put more effort into the earlier work — to which, in any case, his style was better suited. An Essay on Man An Essay on Man is a philosophical poem, written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1734. Pope intended this poem to be the centerpiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. It was a piece of work that Pope intended to make into a larger work; however, he did not live to complete it. 8.7 Critics Views By the mid-eighteenth century, new fashions in poetry emerged. A decade after Pope’s death, Joseph Warton claimed that Pope’s style of poetry was not the most excellent form of the art. The Romantic Movement that rose to prominence in early 19th century England was more ambivalent towards his work. Though Lord Byron identified Pope as one of his chief influences (believing his scathing satire of contemporary English literature English Bards and Scotch Reviewers to be a continuance of Pope’s tradition), William Wordsworth found Pope’s style fundamentally too decadent to be a representation of the human condition. George Gilfillan in his study of 1856 described Pope’s talent as “a rose peering into the summer air, fine, rather than powerful”. In the 20th century, Pope’s reputation was revived. Pope’s work was, of course, full of references to the people and places of his time, and these aided people’s understanding of the past. The post-war period stressed the power of Pope’s poetry, recognising that Pope’s immersion in Christian and Biblical culture lent depth to his poetry. For example, Maynard Mack, a Pope scholar of the mid-to-late 20th century, argued that Pope’s moral vision demanded as much CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: Poet And The Age 185 respect as his technical excellence. Between 1953 and 1967 the definitive Twickenham edition of Pope’s poems was published in ten volumes, including an index volume. 8.8 The Age of Pope, 1700-1745 The Glorious Revolution of 1688 firmly established a Protestant monarchy together with effective rule by Parliament. The new science of the time, Newtonian physics, reinforced the belief that everything, including human conduct, is guided by a rational order. Moderation and common sense became intellectual values as well as standards of behavior. The 18th century was the age of town life with its coffeehouses and clubs. One of the most famous of the latter was the Scriblerus Club, whose members included Pope, Swift, and John Gay. Its purpose was to defend and uphold high literary standards against the rising tide of middle-class values and tastes. During this period people divided into hostile parties: the liberal Whigs. Whig – a member of a British political party in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, which supported political and social change. Tory (Conservative)- belonging to or supporting the British political party which opposes sudden social change, high taxation and government involvement in industry. Addison, Steele, Defoe, Swift –most of the great writers of the age were, on occasion, the willing servants of the Whigs or Tories. So the new politician replaced the old nobleman as a patron of letters. The War of the Spanish Succession (1711) prevented the union of the French and Spanish monarchies, and preserved the smaller states of Holland and Germany. Eighteenth- century writings were divided in three main divisions: the reign of so-called classicism, the revival of romantic poetry, and the beginnings of the modern novel. The word “classic” came to have a different meaning, a meaning now expressed by the word “formal.” The Eighteenth Century in England is called the Classical Age or the Augustan Age in literature. It is also called the Age of Good Sense or the Age of Reason. Dryden is also included in the Classical or Augustan Age. Other great literary figures of this age were Pope and Dr. Johnson. During this period the English writers rebelled against the exaggerated and fantastic style of writing prevalent during the Elizabethan and Puritan ages, and they demanded that poetry, drama and prose should follow exact rules. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

186 British Poetry till 17th Century Classical Age is divided into three distinct periods — the Ages of Dryden, Pope and Dr. Johnson. The Age of Dryden dealt as – “The Restoration Period.” In the first place, the term ‘classic’, refers in general, applies to writers of the highest rank in any nation, first applied to the works of the great Greek and Roman writers, like Homer and Virgil. This age writers followed – the simple and noble methods of the great ancient writers. In the second place, in every national literature there is a period when a large number of writers produce works of great merit. The reign of Augustus is called the Classical Age of Rome; and the Age of Dante is called the Classical Age of Italian literature. During this period the English writers rebelled against the exaggerated and fantastic style of writing prevalent during the Elizabethan and Puritan ages, and they demanded that poetry, drama and prose should follow exact rules. The writers followed the ‘classicism’. Their external performance, and lacked their sublimity and grandeur. Pope, Addison, Swift, Johnson and Burke the modern parallels to Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and other brilliant writers who made Roman literature famous during the reign of Emperor Augustus. During Pop’s period, Poetry became polished, witty and artificial, but it lacked fire, fine feelings, enthusiasm. Another important feature of this age was the origin and development of the novel. The Age of Pope, that the classical rules and ideals reigned supreme. The Age of Johnson — cracks began to appear in the edifice of classicism, in the form of revolts against its ideals, and a revival of the Romantic tendency. Pope’s landscape is copied out of the Greek & Latin poets rather than painted from first-hand knowledge of what he professes to describe. The Rape of The Lock is the Masterpiece of Pope. Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from the head of a young beauty named Arabella Fermor (The Belinda of the poem). This joke led to a quarrel between the two families and poppe appealed to by a common friend John Caryl to throw oil on troubled waters by turning the whole thing into jest. During this period, Pop wrote many poems, epics and essays. He got high reputation,name and fame during the period as a satirist. 8.9 Unit End Questions 1. What are the poetic achievements of Alexander Pope? Ans.: Pope extended and perfected the poetic technique of his great predecessor John Dryden. Ever since the Restoration in 1660, English poetry had taken a direction in which there was an CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: Poet And The Age 187 increasing attempt to re-create the ideals and the aesthetic orientation of the Greek and Roman poets of antiquity. The heroic couplet — rhymed iambic pentameter — became standard. Elegance, grace, and the classical ideals of balance and emotional restraint were present in Dryden’s work, as well as the use of satire as the most important and characteristic genre. Pope’s achievement was to create not so much what was new or original as the best poetry that conformed to this modern re-creation of the poetic achievements of antiquity — especially of the period when Emperor Augustus was in power (27 BC–AD 14). Pope’s era is thus often called the Augustan age of English poetry. Pope’s The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad are among the most important examples of satire in English poetry. 2. Identify the elements of Neoclassicism in “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope. Ans.: The term neoclassical is applied to the age of Dryden and Pope in English poetry for two principal reasons. First, there was a self-conscious effort by writers to pattern their work after that of classical (meaning ancient Greek and Latin) models. Second, the poetry of the period was based on the ideals of elegance, balance, and restraint which have come to be associated with classicism in all the arts, as opposed to the more emotional and unrestrained qualities we associate with Romanticism. Pope’s Essay on Man, like all of his work, conforms to the classical aesthetic in the elegance and, almost paradoxically, the purity and simplicity of its language. The heroic couplet, in rhymed iambic pentameter, was considered the ideal metrical form in which to convey ideas in conformance with that aesthetic. The ideas expressed by Pope in The Essay on Man are related to classicism because they are rooted in man’s limitations and his acceptance of his place in the universe as an imperfect being. 8.10 References 1. Portrait of Alexander Pope (1688-1744). Historical Portraits Image Library. Retrieved 1 January 2017. 2. Erskine-Hill, DNB. 3. “Alexander Pope”, Literature Online Biography (2000). 4. “National Portrait Gallery – Portrait – NPG 299; Alexander Pope”. npg.org.uk. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

188 British Poetry till 17th Century 5. “An Act to Prevent and Avoid Dangers Which May Grow by Popish Recusants” (3. Jac. 1, v). For details, see Catholic Encyclopedia, “Penal Laws”. 6. Pope, Alexander. Windsor-Forest. Eighteenth-century Poetry Archive (ECPA). 7. Gordon (2002). CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Unit 5 CHAPTER 9 ALEXANDER POPE: THE RAPE OF THE LOCK – I Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) Structure: 9.0 Learning Objectives 9.1 The Rape of the Lock (Canto - I): Poem with Explanation 9.2 Analysis 9.3 Summary of the Rape of the Lock (Shortly) 9.4 The Rape of the Lock – Overview 9.0 Learning |Objectives After reading this lesson, students will be able to:  Study of mock heroic style  Historical and political battle

190 British Poetry till 17th century  Satirical aspects The Rape of the Lock is a mock epic poem written in a form of heroic couplets by Alexander Pope. The first version, published in 1712, consisted of two cantos; the final version, published in 1714, was expanded to five cantos. In 1717, Clarissa’s speech was also included under cantos six. Alexander Pope is a New classical poet. Pope based the Rape of the Lock on an actual incident in which a British nobleman, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of hair dangling tantalizingly from the head of the beautiful Arabella Fermor. Petre’s daring theft of the lock set off a battle royal between the Petre and Fermor families. John Caryll – a friend of Pope and of the warring families persuaded the great writer to pen a literary work satirizing the absurdity and silliness of the dispute. The result was one of the greatest satirical poems in all of literature. In writing the poem pope also drew upon ancient classical sources- notably Homer’s great epics, The Iliad and the Odyssey- as models to imitate in style and tone. He also consulted the texts of medieval and Renaissance epics. In The Rape of the Lock, Supernatural machinery played very important role. Generally Sylph (air) and Gnome (earth) could be seen frequently. The role of female character is very strong. The plot is trivial and insignificant. Canto 1 begins with a traditional invoking of the muses as well as setting up the subject matter of the poem, \"The Rape of the Lock.\" This does not concern a sexual rape but rather, in the parlance of the time, refers to a lock of hair being unwillingly cut and taken. The poem is a mock heroic that concerns a lock of Belinda’s hair being taken. The poem is meant to juxtapose such an inconsequential occurrence with an epic tone to highlight the pettiness of feuding over such an occurrence. 9.1 The Rape of the Lock (Canto - I): Poem with Explanation Lines 1-12 WHAT dire Offence from am'rous Causes springs, What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, I sing — This Verse to Caryll, Muse! is due; This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Lock –I 191 Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, If She inspire, and He approve my Lays. Say what strange Motive, Goddess! cou'd compel A well-bred Lord t'assault a gentle Belle? Oh say what stranger Cause, yet unexplor'd, Cou'd make a gentle Belle reject a Lord? In Tasks so bold, can Little Men engage, and in soft Bosoms dwells such Mighty Rage? Do you ever say a quick prayer to some higher power before trying to do something really difficult, like nail a foul shot in a basketball game or take a hairy test in Algebra class? Ancient Greek and Roman poets like Homer (in the Iliad) and Virgil (in the Aeneid), and British heavyweights like John Milton (in Paradise Lost) would do the same thing as they began their epics, dedicating their poetic efforts to (and asking for inspirational help from) the Muses, the Greek gods, or (in Milton’s case) God himself. In the first six lines of Canto I, Pope is doing just that, but in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Instead of a divinity, he dedicates the poem to his and Arabella Fermor’s friend John Caryll, who originally asked him to write it, and to “Belinda” (i.e., Arabella, the woman the poem is ostensibly about). This is called an invocation. Here Pope sets the stage for the action that’s coming, and gives us a bit of a mystery to follow as we read. Why (as he asks the “Goddess” — probably a Muse) would a Lord assault a young Lady? Why would a young Lady get angry at a Lord? Why would a society man do such a thing? And are society women really capable of getting into a rage about it? Lines 13-26 Sol thro' white Curtains shot a tim'rous Ray, CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)

192 British Poetry till 17th century And op'd those Eyes that must eclipse the Day; Now Lapdogs give themselves the rowzing Shake, And sleepless Lovers, just at Twelve, awake: Thrice rung the Bell, the Slipper knock'd the Ground, And the press'd Watch return'd a silver Sound. Belinda still her downy Pillow prest, Her Guardian Sylph prolong'd the balmy Rest. 'Twas he had summon'd to her silent Bed The Morning-Dream that hover'd o'er her Head. A Youth more glitt'ring than a Birth-night Beau, (That ev'n in Slumber caus'd her Cheek to glow) Seem'd to her Ear his winning Lips to lay, And thus in Whispers said, or seem'd to say. Ah, the leisurely life of the rich and beautiful. Here we meet our heroine, Belinda, just waking up as the sun peeks through her window curtains. Barely awake, she rings the bell next to her bed to call her maid, and knocks her slipper against the floor for extra emphasis. She checks her watch to see what time it is, and then sinks back into a doze. We also meet Ariel, her “Guardian Sylph” (like a guardian angel but a lot smaller), who gives her an extra dream as she falls back to sleep. And what a dream it is. A very handsome, well-dressed young man — he makes her blush even in her sleep — is whispering in her ear. “Sol” in the very first line is a personification of the sun, and Pope makes him seem almost shy to be peeking in to Belinda’s window, as if he’s afraid to disturb her. And indeed he should CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)