John Donne’s Poetry Relate to the Culture Essay

John Donne was one of the most remarkable literary figures of the Elizabethan age. He remained different in the sense that he broke away from the great Elizabethan traditions and revolted against the easy, flexible style, stock imagery, and the pastoral conventions of the followers of Spenser. Donne’s poems, especially religious ones, reveal the struggle in the mind of English people during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, before taking orders in the Anglican Church. His poems often depicted their horror of death, terror of the rage of God and the desire for God’s love. His poems like Holy Sonnet 10 and The Sun Rising illustrate Donne’s dexterity in pasteurizing the peculiar blend of passion and rationalism or feelings and thought. Donne also expresses the religious conflicts between Elizabeth 1and Mary. Analyzing Donne’s poems The Sun Rising and Holy Sonnet 10,a reader can find cultural, historical, and religious elements of 16^th and 17^th century England.

By analyzing Donne’s poetry one can find that most of his works reflect the peculiar emotional, ethical and religious tension of 16^th and 17^th century England. Donne follows the medieval ideologies of men as a mortal presenting at different layers, and his love poems especially demonstrate the complex transformation of medievalism to modernity. In the earlier part of his literary career Donne has followed the religious principles of Catholicism. In his Holy Sonnet10 Donne pictures death as a blessing. Protestants believe that death is a curse and it is the punishment given by god. Poet addresses death; “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so” (Donne Holly Sonnets line 1-2). Here one can see Donne considers death as an easy way to escape from this earthly life.

In ‘The Sun Rising’ the poet constitutes the idea that love is not scheduled into time. The poem is often regarded as an intellectual practice in reversing the existing social and cultural systems of 16^th and 17^th centuries’ England. In ‘The Sun Rising’ poet addresses the sun through the following expressions: “Busy old fool, unruly sun//Why dost thou thus/Through the window and through curtains call on us?” (Donne The Sun Rising Line 1-3).

Here the reader can understand Donne overturns the various conventional concepts about suns such as the center of universe and the golden eye of heaven. YU Qiao-feng asserts: “In their eyes, the sun becomes ‘the busy old fool’ and the hours, days and months ‘the rags of time’, which seems inconceivable” (Qiao-feng 47).

Towards the end of 16^th century new scientific discoveries were being made in England and as a result of this, a new social system had begun to emerge in English society. Through his poems Donne pictured the poet’s confused mind about the new discoveries and changing social systems, besides providing allusions to the geographical explorations that occurred during this time. The people in 16^th and 17^th century England had searched for a final destination or specific beliefs about both personal and religious lives. The reader can find this ideology in Donne’s poem The Sun Rising, as can be evidenced in the lines. “Shine is to us and thou art everywhere;/ This bead thy entire is, these walls, thy sphere” (Donne The Sun Rising Line 29-30). References about both Indies would help the reader to understand Donne’s effort to express historic and cultural elements in his works. The poet also described the significance of natural resources in these regions.

As a follower of metaphysical ideology, Donne gave sense by connecting to philosophical conjecture and rational abstraction. Donne’s love poems reveal the change of attitude both the poet and the society had towards womenfolk. Even though he reveals a different style in conventional love poems one could find that the poet did not overcome the influences of 16^th century English community. The poet had compared his lady love as a kingdom and he ruled that kingdom. In the third stanza he had stated: “She’s all states, and all princes, I;”/ Nothing else is” (Donne The Sun Rising Line 21-22).

Donne’s love poems often demonstrated the conflict between physical passion and religious intensity. Scientific discoveries and other inventions greatly influence the social and religious life of 16^th and 17^th century people in England. Some of them had harbored doubts in their mind about the existence of God. In The Sun Rising, the poet ridiculed the sun which enhanced the concept of love as a supreme status. The book entitled Culture and values: a survey of the humanities by Lawrence Cunningham, and John Reich gives the authors commented that: “We might expect a similar progression from light to darkness in his work, yet throughout his life the two forces of physical passion and religious intensity seem to have been equally dominant.” (Cunningham and Reich 405).

Again, towards the end of Elizabethan period, people in European countries, especially English people have the tendency to break the conventional beliefs and customs as a result of colonization and geographical exploration and besides, they had changed traditional concepts about religion and love. In Holy sonnet 10, poet uses the word ‘pleasure’ which expresses the idea that death is not a fearful element. In the case of love one can see some notable changes in Donne’s poems. His affinity towards the concept that love is universal, became manifest when he wrote, “Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, / Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time” (Donne The Sun Rising Line 9-10). Here Donne explores that love is beyond earthly restrictions.

Donne’s poems explored the ideological conflict between religious intensity and bodily desires. A reader can easily find most of his works demonstrating the social and emotional crisis of his age. Donne’s ‘HolySonnet10’ and The Sun Rising reveal people’s tendency to break conventional concepts and ideologies about religion and love. The glimpses of existing patriarchal society could be seen in most of his love poems, especially in The Sun Rising. Elements of scientific inventions and geographical explorations in the 16^th and 17^th centuries played a vital role in Donne’s works. By analyzing his love poems, especially The Sun Rising, a reader could understand the elements of social and cultural life of 16^th and 17^th centuries England as the poems do reflect these characteristics in an impressive and convincing manner. His religious poems reveal Donne’s disagreement with the Protestant religion.

Works Cited

Cunningham, Lawrence, and Reich, John. Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities. Cengage Learning. 2005. Web.

Donne, John. Holly Sonnets. Anniina Jokinen. 2003. Web.

Donne, John. The Sun Rising. Anniina Jokinen. 1999. Web.

Qiao-feng, Yu. “Review on the Conceits used in “The Sun Rising”.” Sino-US English Teaching 4.7 (2007). Web.