CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
Overview:
In this lesson, we study four poems by John Donne, a Catholic man
who converted to the Anglican Church in post-Reformation
England, a time when Catholics were not able to receive the same
education or professional opportunities that were offered to
Protestants. The four poems that we study beautifully illuminate
the ways in which Donne intertwines secular love and religious
devotion in his writing. We will examine how he does that and
why, as a deeply religious man, he conceived of human love as
inseparable from love of God and love of God as akin to human
love.
Objectives:



To study several love poems and Holy Sonnets by John Donne
To examine the relationship, in Donne’s mind, between human love and religious devotion
To consider the challenges faced by a Catholic poet and intellectual in Protestant, postReformation England
Readings:
Love Poems
“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
“The Flea”
Holy Sonnets
Sonnet 10
Sonnet 14
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebib.htm
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
6.1.1. Biography
John Donne (1572 – 1631) was a contemporary of
Shakespeare (eight years younger), but he distinguished himself as
a poet, not as a dramatist. Unlike Shakespeare, too, he grew up in a
devoutly Catholic family. That fact caused his family considerable
suffering in Protestant England, where they lived in fear of
martyrdom. Donne’s uncle, a priest, was executed and Donne’s
brother was arrested for protecting and hiding another priest. As
well, in this Protestant milieu, a Catholic could not expect to acquire
a public career or even a university degree. Donne, a man of great
intellect and professional aspirations, converted to Anglicanism, the
Church of England, so that he could attain public acceptance,
security, and a distinguished career. Choosing a vocation in the
church, he was ordained and, with time, appointed as Dean of St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London. He was respected as an extraordinary
preacher, delivering sermons with erudition, literary flourish, and
dramatic wit. As a poet, Donne treated two principal subjects: love
and religion. Very distinctively, he wrote love poems that are
infused with religious concepts and language; conversely, he
composed religious poems that are characterized by their striking
images of secular love. In this sense, his Catholic sensibilities are
evident in his writing: the sacramental conception that God’s
invisibility is present and visible in this world through signs,
symbols, rituals and the whole created order. Through Creation and
the Incarnation, God inserted His divinity into all of human
history—indeed, into every aspect of the world, including human
love, which must be considered holy. Donne’s poems reflect not
only the divine spirit that infuses secular human love but also the
resemblance that human love has to the love of God. This is a marble effigy of John Donne, who died
in 1631. It is located in the South Quire Aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Donne’s effigy is one
of the few in the church that survived the Great Fire of London. (http://www.stpauls.co.uk/)
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
6.1.2. Literary Analysis and Study Questions
Reading: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebib.htm
Love Poems
“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
“The Flea”
Holy Sonnets
Sonnet 10
Sonnet 14
6.1.3. Love Poems
Literary Term: Conceit
 Donne had a playful, even eccentric, mind. He used puns, startling images, oxymoron, and
elaborately sustained metaphors (conceits). He sought to throw out tired clichés used in
love and religious poems and to invigorate poetry in a way that would demand mental
alertness and engagement from the reader.

Above all, he is distinguished for his conceits.
o A conceit is a special kind of metaphor (a comparison between two things that are
unlike). First, while an ordinary metaphor is usually expressed in a single line or two
of poetry, or a short phrase, a conceit is extended across several stanzas or even the
whole poem. The idea is developed quite fully and elaborately. Second, the
comparison is typically striking, unusual, startling, highly ingenious, even outlandish.
It is a comparison that we would never think of. This unusualness shows off the wit
and intelligence of the poet. Donne, for example, often compared love to highly
scientific and mathematical concepts or to geography—unrelated (even strikingly
opposed) elements that do, nevertheless, express a truth about love.
1. “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning” (1633)

Overview:
o Valediction means to bid goodbye to someone. In this poem, the speaker is not dying
but going on a trip. He will return. He “forbids” his beloved to “mourn” their parting
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
because their love is not an earthly love based on physical intimacy, in which case it
would not withstand the separation; rather, it is a more “refined,” spiritual love of
their minds and souls, which is not altered by physical distance. To reinforce the
nature of their love, the speaker introduces a conceit, in which he compares their love
to a mathematical compass, used in geometry classes to make perfect circles. This
conceit is presented in the final three stanzas of the poem. Its presence is persuasive:
the speaker aims not only to calm the woman’s fears but also to distinguish the
highest form of (spiritual) love from a lower, more vulgar form of sensual earthly
attraction. Only the former endures the greatest challenges.

Stanzas 1 - 6
o Before the conceit is introduced, it is preceded by a series of other metaphors that
define their love.

It is very private and quiet: when they part, no “tear floods” or “tempests” of
sighs should be seen or heard. Their parting will be as unnoticeable as the
breath when it leaves a dying person, a moment that no one can even witness
because the last breath is so faint. Their love must be like that: loud, dramatic,
public expressions of love do not reflect the spirituality of their relationship.

Their love is also contrasted to “movements of the earth,” like earthquakes
and tsunamis, which are visible and witnessed by everybody. Instead, their
love is like the greater movements of planets in the universe, which, while
larger in extent, have no reverberations on earth and go unnoticed. Their love
is like that: very great in its extent but making no disturbing impressions in an
earthly realm.

Their love is further defined as not “sublunary” (below the moon) in earthly
terms: that is, dependent on the intimacy of eyes, lips and hands. In that kind
of love, when the physical features that “element” (or form the basis of) the
relationship are removed, it cannot survive “absence.”

Instead, their love is like gold. A gold nugget, when “beaten,” doesn’t break;
instead, it expands into a thin leaf-like flatness (used in Donne’s times to
decorate illuminated manuscripts and other forms of art). When apart, their
love (as precious and beautiful as gold) will expand into an “airy” (spiritual)
thinness but never break.
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)

Stanzas 7 – 9
o The conceit is developed. Read these stanzas carefully and ask yourself the following
questions.

What physical aspects of a mathematical compass are like their love, as the
speaker has already defined it through the series of metaphors?
 Think about the features of a compass: the two legs never separate;
they are joined at the top; one leg “leans” after the other when they are
pulled apart; the two legs are always at the same angle; together, they
trace a perfect circle. What do these features say about love?

Why is the woman designated as the stable foot that never moves? What
aspects of the female character does that express?
 Is the woman, especially in Donne’s time, rooted at home, upholding
domestic life, while the man would typically travel? Is she elevated
above him, as a stabilizing force?

Is the conceit effective? Should math (an objective enterprise) and love (and
emotional pursuit) be compared like this? Does it freshen our understanding
of love and express a truth? Or, is it just too outlandish to be taken seriously?
2. “The Flea” (1633)

This poem is an example of the unrequited love tradition in Renaissance poetry, in which a
male speaker seeks the attention and love of a female who, through shyness or disinterest,
does not return his affections. The male speakers in this tradition devise inventive and
sometimes desperate means of winning the attention of the woman. The flea was a popular
image in erotic poetry: it signified the freedom of the insect to attain intimacy with the
woman, which the male speaker was denied and which he envied. We might think of a flea
as a filthy insect, associated with decay and death, and therefore unfitting for a poem about
love, but Donne elevates the flea to a position of extraordinary significance. Thus, he
establishes another elaborate conceit.

Stanza 1
o The speaker addresses the woman, drawing her attention to the fly. She has denied
him her love, but the speaker has found an inventive way to overcome that obstacle.
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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


The flea (imagine a mosquito) has sucked blood from both of them; the blood
is now mingled inside its body. The flea’s body “swells” with their combined
blood.
For the speaker, their love has been consummated sexually, but without sin:
they are not married and, therefore, cannot have a physical relationship,
which the Church prohibits.
The speaker triumphs over the woman intellectually: he conceives (the root of
the word conceit) of a sexual love that is even better than what they could
achieve: their blood is mixed in the flea, but she remains a pure virgin, a
“maiden,” and no sin is committed. As he desired, the woman has fallen, so to
speak, under his force, all through the fly.

Stanza 2
o But the woman responds: she moves to kill the fly (and his conceit). The speaker
asks for her restraint: “Oh stay”: (Don’t kill it!)
o The argument that follows is even more elaborate and daring, and he incorporates
much religious imagery to support his case for keeping the flea (and their
consummated love) alive.
 How is the flea their “marriage bed”?
 How is it also their “marriage temple”?
 How does it “cloister” them?
 What is a cloister? Is it not the inner courtyard of a monastery or
convent, where religious men and women take vows of celibacy? What
is the speaker’s idea, here? Is he elevating their love—inside the flea—
to something holy, because no real sin between them, physically, has
taken place?
 What do you think of the speaker’s own “mingling” of sexual and
religious imagery to strengthen his argument?
 Now, the speaker can say this: if she kills the fly, she kills not only three
innocent beings (him, her, and the insect), which is a sin, but also commits
sacrilege by destroying the religious “temple” that the flea has become.

Stanza 3
o The woman does kill it: her nail is “purpled” with its blood. He asserts that she is
“cruel” and thoughtless for taking the life of the innocent flea: all it did was suck one
“drop” of her blood.
 What do you think? Why does she kill it? Is she justified in doing that?
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
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o
But he isn’t defeated; his argument continues:
 Killing the flea hasn’t “weakened” or changed them: they don’t feel a physical
alteration.
 Therefore, she will not be altered negatively by loving him: “then learn
how false, fears be.”
 He sets up a comparison: killing the flea didn’t take away her life (even though
her blood was inside it); likewise, in yielding to him in love, her honour will
not be lost.
 In effect, he has completely reversed his earlier statements: initially, the flea
encased their world (as a bed, temple, and holy cloister); now, its death has no
effect on their love.
o Who in this poem is triumphant: the woman or the man?
Think about the poem in relation to “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
o Is Donne effectively blending the subject of secular love with religious imagery and
ideas? Is he justified in doing that?
o How does he do that differently in the two poems?
6.1.4. Holy Sonnets
Literary Terms
o Personification: This device is used to give the attributes of a human being to an
animal, object, idea, or anything inanimate.
o Apostrophe: This device is often coupled with personification: it is an address to
something that is not human, as if it were alive and present and could respond.
 In the first sonnet, Donne personifies and speaks to Death. In the second
sonnet, he personifies and speaks to God.
 In both cases, why does he do that?
o Allusion: This device is a deliberate and specific reference to a previously existing
historical event, a literary work, mythology, or Scripture. It is a richly suggestive
device: a simple word or phrase means far more than it says because it refers to a
much larger historical context or an important pre-existing text. When using
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
allusions, authors expect readers to know what the reference is and to understand
why the author is making that connection.
 In both of these holy sonnets, Donne alludes to Scripture.
 What central biblical ideas do the poems refer to? Can you think of
specific passages that Donne has in mind?
 Why does he make allusions? Are they necessary? Do they strengthen
the poems? If so, how?
1. Holy Sonnet 10
o The content is familiar. It is firmly based on the tenets of the Christian story: God
entered the world and became incarnate (human) in Christ in order to redeem the
fallen world from sin; Christ was crucified (sacrificed for our sins); and Christ was
resurrected (he ascended to Heaven to live eternally with God). Therefore, we know
that death is not the end point of our existence.
o Think of the many allusions to Scripture that Donne makes to substantiate this
assertion. In fact, one might think that the poem does not say anything new,
especially for a Christian reader.
o However, the poem is fresh and original. What does Donne do to achieve that?
 He personifies and apostrophizes Death: doing that diminishes Death,
makes it human (and mortal), and lessens its fearfulness. As an abstract
concept, which is mysterious and terrifying, Death is incommensurable and
unmanageable; as a “human” being to whom one can speak, it is conceivable
and accessible and therefore less able to stir our dread.
 Look carefully at what the speaker says to Death.
 What are the speaker’s accusations? Why should death not be “proud”?
What are its weaknesses? What tools does it need?
 Why is sleep referred to as “death’s second self”? Is sleep the closest
experience to death that we know? We desire sleep (and know that it is
good); therefore, death—a deeper sleep—cannot make us afraid. Is sleep not
gentle and refreshing, too, and only a “short” duration? How is death like that,
too?
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
 The speaker addresses the pre-mature death of young people, but he
considers it in positive terms. Why do good people die before they should?
Think of this allusion:
Book of Wisdom
His soul pleased God; therefore he hastened to bring him out of the
midst of iniquities (4: 14).
 Notice the second half of the final line. It consists of four monosyllabic,
stressed syllables, which are very emphatic: “Death, Thou shalt die.” The
speaker is very confident by this point. The poem has built to this final
assertion. What does he mean: how can Death itself die? Look at the passages
from Scripture in the box below. Donne is clearly alluding to them but also
making the poem fresh and original.
o Why has Donne written this forceful poem? Do you think that he feared Death
himself, even though he was a Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral? The poem is not
expressing a new idea. However, Donne treats that idea more forcefully than we
might expect, perhaps in order to hold back his fears (and ours) as we inevitably face
death and its incomprehensible mystery.
1 Corinthians: 15: 26-27
The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.
1 Corinthians: 15: 51 – 55
I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, . . . at the last
trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable. . . .Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?
Revelations 21: 4
[D]eath shall be no more, neither crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed
away.
Isaiah 25:8
He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces[.]
2. Holy Sonnet 14 (1633)
 Overview: In this sonnet, Donne reverses the approach taken in his love poems: he
addresses a religious subject but situating it in a secular love context; in contrast, in the love
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
poems, he conceives of secular love in holy terms and describes it using religious imagery.
In Holy Sonnet 14, the speaker longs for a deep, loving relationship with God. He thinks of
that relationship as a marriage. The trouble is that he has married the wrong partner: sin.
He wants a “divorce” and a remarriage to God. More than just a new “betrothal,” he wants to
be “enthralled” and “ravished” by God, for “dearly I love you,” he says.


Again, we must ask why Donne is making this comparison. We might think that love for God
should be free of all sensuality, as a higher, more spiritual devotion that is removed from
earthly, sensual desires. Why does he use the language of physical love and human passion
to characterize love for God?
In fact, Donne is not unique. Almost contemporary with him, St. Teresa of Avila (15151582), a member of the Carmelite order in Spain, devoted her life to mystical prayer, in
which she acquired a deep union with God. In The Interior Castle, her fullest account of the
mystical journey towards union with God, she describes that relationship as passionate love
and marriage. She writes of the joy and ecstasy that one experiences when God enters the
soul. A physical transformation occurs, as in human love, but even more profound:
o “The soul will feel pierced by a fiery arrow. I don’t say that there is an arrow, but
whatever the experience, the soul realizes clearly that the feeling couldn’t come
about naturally. . . .[I]t causes a sharp wound. And, in my opinion, it isn’t felt where
earthly sufferings are felt, but in the very deep and intimate part of the soul, where
this sudden flash of lightning reduces to dust everything it finds in this earthly nature
of ours; for while this experience lasts nothing can be remembered about our being.
In an instant the experience so binds the faculties that they have no freedom for
anything except those things that will make this pain increase.”

Italian Baroque artist Giovani Lorenzo Bernini depicts precisely this moment in his
monumental work The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (1647-1652). Here, an arrow sent by an angel
from God, enters St. Teresa’s soul: the expression on her face is indicative of her absolute
submission, serenity, and joy.

Donne, of course, is not conveying in his poem this rare and extraordinary experience of
deep, mystical union with God, but he is using similar language in order to make clear that
one’s desire and love for God is as powerful and as passionate—even more so—than the
deepest human relationships. The metaphor—human love is like divine love—enables us to
draw on familiar experience to understand something more abstract and mysterious.
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
©Continuing & Distance Education, St. Francis Xavier University - 2012
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
The Ecstacy of St. Teresa (detail)
The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (1647-1652)
Cappella Cornaro, Santa Maria della
Vittoria, Rome
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)

Quatrain 1
o Why does the speaker ask to be battered by God? Why does he call on violence as the
only remedy for his situation? Has God been too gentle with him, as he succumbs to
sin?
o Think, too, about the oxymorons (paradoxes) in these lines. What do they mean? Do
these contradictions make sense?


overthrow: to make me rise and stand
break, blow, burn: to make me new

Quatrain 2
o What is the metaphor that underpins this quatrain?
 Why is the speaker like a “usurped” (captured) town?
 Who has taken him “captive”?
 Why is God’s “viceroy” not defending him?
 Is the battle imagery effective? Why or why not?

Quatrain 3
o Here, the metaphor is marriage: a bad marriage. He is betrothed to the wrong
“person” and he desires a divorce. He is pained by this captivity, but cannot free
himself through his own will. Why not?
o Do the two metaphors, in the second and third quatrains, work together and support
each other?

Couplet
o Look, again, at the oxymorons:
 enthrall (captivate, enslave) me: to set me free
 ravish (overwhelm, rape) me: to make me chaste (pure, virtuous)

o What does the speaker mean? Is this the speaker’s final, most powerful plea to God?
Do you think the speaker can, or perhaps already has (simply through the cry itself),
moved beyond his painful sense of sin?
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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6.1.5. Activity for Blackboard Discussion

Read again line 2 of Holy Sonnet 14: “for You / As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to
mend.” The speaker suggests that God is being too gentle with him; this is not what he
wants. He requests more from God; he needs God’s help. God’s soft knock (on his heart and
soul), His gentle breathe (words), His (seemingly dim) light, and his mere “seeking” to mend
and heal the speaker are ineffectual. In his neediness, the speaker insists that God must
“batter” him.

While the speaker is discontent with God’s gentleness, Donne is making an allusion to
Scripture. What is that allusion? Can you think of a particular passage from Scripture that is
Donne’s reference?
o Look at the visual images below. Christ is knocking at a door. Whose door? Where?
Why is he knocking? Why is he carrying a lantern? Why is he knocking gently? Why
is he inclining his head towards the door, as if to listen carefully for a very soft reply?
Will anyone on the other side hear his knock? If not, why not?
o What passage(s) from Scripture are the images based on? Is Donne overturning this
allusion to say something new? Is he reworking that well-known allusion?
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World (1853)
Keble College, Oxford
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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CATH 330.66 – Catholicism and the Arts
Module Six – The Renaissance and Reformation (1500 - 1700)
William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World (1853)
Keble College, Oxford
Lesson 6.1 – Love: Human and Divine: John Donne
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