(no subject)
While my donne paper is no porn paper (its in there somewhere and i believe it to be the best thing ive ever written [sad no?]) im going to share it with you. Its not every day that you get to argue that a high and mighty metaphysical is gay.
990 words of sweetness
Analisis of The Undertaking:
Is Donne Gay?
John Cristiano
Half a day late
HR: none
John Cristiano
John Donne’s The Undertaking speaks of love. The problem is that this is not conventional love. The poem uses some obtuse metaphors for the love and how it must be dealt with. It may just be platonic love involving intellectual discourse. There is also the possibility of this love being unconventional in that it is homosexual or with a woman who is extremely ugly, as the social worries take a large part of the poem.
The poem begins with mentioning how ‘brave’ a thing this love is and how it is even braver to keep it secret. The love is at first not mentioned as love, but as a brave thing. The bravery needed for the love is made a martial thing by the mention of the worthies. This does not correlate to a sexual or passionate love. The need to keep it secret makes the bravery of the thing even greater.
The next two stanzas deal with a metaphor for the love. It is compared to ‘spectacular stone’. This was transparent stone that was used for windows in antiquity. Donne compares the thing to somehow learning how to cut this stone (which was apparently a difficult art to master) and then having no stone to use it on (p. 604). This brave love would be considered like learning the art of cutting stone for window panes and considered ‘madness’ (line 5).
The third stanza works to explain the second. If this love were to be uttered, nothing would change because no one would understand. This suggests a very unconventional idea of love. Donne is very concerned with how this love would be considered by the general public. This suggests that the love is extreme in its oddness and that it would bring shame onto the poet and his lover.
Next is a stanza that expounds somewhat on the nature of this love. This is a love of what is inside and a complete dismissal of the physical. “But he who loveliness within// Hath found, all outward loathes,” (line 13). Outward beauty is completely rejected and loathed. It is only the inner beauty that is accepted. The next two lines state that loving color and skin, a term for outer beauty, is the same as loving someone’s oldest clothes. This helps to suggest a platonic relationship, or at the least a relationship that is not based on the physical. This can also be an excuse, and excuse for a relationship where the partners do not meet physical norms.
The next stanza tries to define this as a platonic love between a man and a woman. Donne explains how the relationship transcends he and she.
If, as I have, you also do,
Virtue attired in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too
And forget the He and She; (lines 17-20)
The love transcends male and female roles. This may mean that the lovers become one and are no longer separated by their sexes but united in virtue. This can also represent a love that does not care who is male or female, where the sex of the partner does not matter. Simply put, this can be taken to mean that despite the fact that the lovers are both male, their love is true and deep.
The next two stanzas return to the idea that the love would be misunderstood by society and cannot be revealed. Stanza 6 states that the love must be hidden from ‘profane men’ or it will be derided (line 22). The final is an almost exact copy of the opening stanza, bringing the poem to a circular close with an emphasis on the social incompatibility of the relationship.
The work as a whole has a circular quality to it. This is created by having the poem start with three stanzas
dealing with the need to hide the love, followed by two stanzas on the love, and finished with two more stanzas on the need for secrecy, with the last stanza being a repeat of the first. This puts a great deal of stress on the idea of the social impropriety of the relationship by having a good deal of the poem dedicated to it at both the beginning and the end, while having the middle of the poem as dealing with the meat of the love.
The forth stanza suggests that the relationship is centered on something other than traditional physical beauty. This suggests that the relationship is either abnormal in the female involved or that the lover is actually a man. As intimating that a man’s woman is unattractive is generally considered rude the reader is forced to conclude that it is not the physical limitations of the woman that must be kept secret. The level of secrecy that the poem alludes to suggests that something must be extremely unacceptable in the match. The one taboo that allows for this in a love relationship is homosexuality.
The fifth stanza continues describing the love but states in flat terms that the love is a woman. This could lead a reader to see the oddity as being finding a woman who is an intellectual equal and that the love is not based on a sexual attraction. This still does not explain the level of secrecy found in the poem. The idea of a female as more than just a maid and baby-maker is not so insane as to entice derision form all who see it or demand warning to stay hidden at both the beginning and end of the poem.
The warnings of secrecy at both the beginning and end of the poem show how the love described in the poem must be abnormal in the extreme. The only situation that allows for so abnormal a love is one in which both parties are male. Considering the example of James I this is not so odd a notion for a writer of John Donne’s time.
Works Cited
Donne, John “The Undertaking.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton and Co, 2001.
990 words of sweetness
Analisis of The Undertaking:
Is Donne Gay?
John Cristiano
Half a day late
HR: none
John Cristiano
John Donne’s The Undertaking speaks of love. The problem is that this is not conventional love. The poem uses some obtuse metaphors for the love and how it must be dealt with. It may just be platonic love involving intellectual discourse. There is also the possibility of this love being unconventional in that it is homosexual or with a woman who is extremely ugly, as the social worries take a large part of the poem.
The poem begins with mentioning how ‘brave’ a thing this love is and how it is even braver to keep it secret. The love is at first not mentioned as love, but as a brave thing. The bravery needed for the love is made a martial thing by the mention of the worthies. This does not correlate to a sexual or passionate love. The need to keep it secret makes the bravery of the thing even greater.
The next two stanzas deal with a metaphor for the love. It is compared to ‘spectacular stone’. This was transparent stone that was used for windows in antiquity. Donne compares the thing to somehow learning how to cut this stone (which was apparently a difficult art to master) and then having no stone to use it on (p. 604). This brave love would be considered like learning the art of cutting stone for window panes and considered ‘madness’ (line 5).
The third stanza works to explain the second. If this love were to be uttered, nothing would change because no one would understand. This suggests a very unconventional idea of love. Donne is very concerned with how this love would be considered by the general public. This suggests that the love is extreme in its oddness and that it would bring shame onto the poet and his lover.
Next is a stanza that expounds somewhat on the nature of this love. This is a love of what is inside and a complete dismissal of the physical. “But he who loveliness within// Hath found, all outward loathes,” (line 13). Outward beauty is completely rejected and loathed. It is only the inner beauty that is accepted. The next two lines state that loving color and skin, a term for outer beauty, is the same as loving someone’s oldest clothes. This helps to suggest a platonic relationship, or at the least a relationship that is not based on the physical. This can also be an excuse, and excuse for a relationship where the partners do not meet physical norms.
The next stanza tries to define this as a platonic love between a man and a woman. Donne explains how the relationship transcends he and she.
If, as I have, you also do,
Virtue attired in woman see,
And dare love that, and say so too
And forget the He and She; (lines 17-20)
The love transcends male and female roles. This may mean that the lovers become one and are no longer separated by their sexes but united in virtue. This can also represent a love that does not care who is male or female, where the sex of the partner does not matter. Simply put, this can be taken to mean that despite the fact that the lovers are both male, their love is true and deep.
The next two stanzas return to the idea that the love would be misunderstood by society and cannot be revealed. Stanza 6 states that the love must be hidden from ‘profane men’ or it will be derided (line 22). The final is an almost exact copy of the opening stanza, bringing the poem to a circular close with an emphasis on the social incompatibility of the relationship.
The work as a whole has a circular quality to it. This is created by having the poem start with three stanzas
dealing with the need to hide the love, followed by two stanzas on the love, and finished with two more stanzas on the need for secrecy, with the last stanza being a repeat of the first. This puts a great deal of stress on the idea of the social impropriety of the relationship by having a good deal of the poem dedicated to it at both the beginning and the end, while having the middle of the poem as dealing with the meat of the love.
The forth stanza suggests that the relationship is centered on something other than traditional physical beauty. This suggests that the relationship is either abnormal in the female involved or that the lover is actually a man. As intimating that a man’s woman is unattractive is generally considered rude the reader is forced to conclude that it is not the physical limitations of the woman that must be kept secret. The level of secrecy that the poem alludes to suggests that something must be extremely unacceptable in the match. The one taboo that allows for this in a love relationship is homosexuality.
The fifth stanza continues describing the love but states in flat terms that the love is a woman. This could lead a reader to see the oddity as being finding a woman who is an intellectual equal and that the love is not based on a sexual attraction. This still does not explain the level of secrecy found in the poem. The idea of a female as more than just a maid and baby-maker is not so insane as to entice derision form all who see it or demand warning to stay hidden at both the beginning and end of the poem.
The warnings of secrecy at both the beginning and end of the poem show how the love described in the poem must be abnormal in the extreme. The only situation that allows for so abnormal a love is one in which both parties are male. Considering the example of James I this is not so odd a notion for a writer of John Donne’s time.
Works Cited
Donne, John “The Undertaking.” Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M. H. Abrams. New York: W. W. Norton and Co, 2001.