Hi Emma,

I am also interested in the issue you brought up about how sexuality configures into the master/servant relationship. Based on the Holy Sonnets that we read and the ones you brought up, as well as some of the other texts we have read where this conceit is used, I believe that subordination is put into the language of the feminine and the domination into the language of the masculine. Even when the subordinated person is actually a man, the ideas used to describe the individual in their subordination seem particularly feminized.

Mueller talks about the power imbalance in heterosexual couples as shown through the perspectives of the male speakers, and I was interested in how the power differences translate to his religious works like the Holy Sonnets. In relation to God, the male speaker is no longer the dominant figure and instead becomes the subordinate. His subservient position seems more motivated by “fear rather than love of God” (148). Because at the time God was often thought of as a male being, I thought it would be interesting to look at the speaker-God relationship in light of other homosocial/erotic/sexual relationships that involve power dynamics, such as the pederastic master-servant relationship. In Holy Sonnet 14, for example, the speaker—who is, as a Christian, a servant of God—asks for God to “enthrall” (13) and “ravish” (14) him, which has a sexual connotation of domination. Donne’s use of sexual language in a religious context offers a slightly confusing understanding of sexuality and power in relation to Christianity.

I would argue that the poem itself is the ideal form for Donne to explore the concept between the micro and macro, the general and specific. A poem calls for its readers to pay close attention to an overall global message, but also to individual word choice and its impact upon the poem. In this way, the form of the poem itself reflects one of Donne’s main rhetorical techniques.

Hi Alexandra,

I agree with you that Donne’s poetry has a sort of opulence to it that is reminiscent of Catholicism and its remarkable art.  I wonder what to make of the fact that he makes a point to mock it in his poetry. His lovers become saint-like from decidedly unholy acts in “The Canonization”. He directly calls Catholicism a “mis-devotion” and fears that him and his lover will be dug up and brought to the “Bishop” and the “King” after their deaths. Formally, even, Donne continually blows up his central conceits and formal structures as he writes each new poem, essentially rejecting the Catholic emphasis on ritual. I wonder if part of this is an attempt to prove his renunciation of Catholicism as he joins the protestant church. Ultimately, however, it is fascinating just to see how he is able to play with, combine, and subvert so many different conventions (religious, social, literary) all at once.

I was interested in the forms of the two poems and the various ways in which they were connected. Formally, they are very similar. “The Funeral” is shorter than “The Canonization,” but their stanzas are set up very similarly as far as length and indentations. They also both seem to be very stern warnings towards others. They have a strong opinion on something, and they are each very direct in getting that point across. Do you think that the form of these poems contributes in any way to the version of a message they are trying to send? This seems to be especially true because none of the other Donne works we have read follow this exact form.

Donne personifies death in sonnet 10, which is common, but he claims that death has no real power. Death is inferior to “fate, chance, kings and desperate men.” Drugs (opium) are superior to death because it “makes us sleep as well.”In this instance, Donne takes something that is perceived as macro (death) and makes it micro. Donne mentions that death will die, which seems like he is equating death to humans. But he says death cannot kill him, thus also making humans superior to death. Ironically, this sonnet was published two years after Donne’s death, but we are still reading his work today.

There’s a really amazing one-act play called Wit by Margaret Edson about a Donne scholar dying of ovarian cancer. It won the Pulitzer prize for Drama in 1999, and was turned into an HBO movie in 2001. Here’s a link to the full movie on YouTube — warning: it’s super super sad.

In Wit, there’s a scene protagonist, Vivian Bearing, recalls an encounter she had with her mentor about the punctuation in the last line of Holy Sonnet 10. The problem is that Vivian wrote a paper using an edition of the poem that was “hysterically” punctuated (“And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!”, whereas the mentor prefers a poem with much less punctuation (“And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die”). Incidentally, our edition punctuates the line somewhere in between.

If you want to watch the scene, here’s a link to it directly. It starts at roughly 6:50 and goes on for 3 minutes.

I can’t speak to the scholarly validity of the play’s claim, although do I find the interpretation compelling. What I like about this scene is how concretely it illustrates how seemingly minor differences in manuscript, in editions can significantly alter the reading of a poem. We talked about this quite a lot when we were reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, and I’d forgotten about this scene’s existence until I made the mistake of rewatching Wit in the library.

When reading “The Flea,” I was interested in its seeming transformation of the carpe diem poem. While the theme is similar (encouraging someone to have sex), the style and metaphor used in the poem is so incredibly different. There is nothing pastoral about this poem, rather it is entirely based on the concept of the flea’s ability to suck blood.

Reading the introduction in the Norton, I was curious about how the “entry of Englishwomen into authorship and publication” changed the literary climate. Although the Norton describes specific women authors and their work, I wonder how the fact that women had begun to write changed the artistic culture in this time period as a whole. I also wonder how this new addition contributed to the conflict between new and old, between capitalist and feudal.