John Donne
...ough use make you apt to kill me, let not to that, self-murder added be, and sacrilege, three sins in killing three.” In the Renaissance, sexual intercourse was often associated with killing. The act of sex was believed shorten a person’s lifespan. (Patrides, page 48). The “three sins in killing three” can also be interpreted as a killing of an offspring. Since the flea was carrying both of their bodily fluids, the woman, like the flea, may have also been carrying an offspring. If this were so, the woman’s killing of the flea would be a form of suicide. The woman goes on to kill the flea and by doing this she destroys all union of their blood. By killing the flea she also brings their sexual relationship to an end. “Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.” As John Donne grew older his poems gradually converted from sexual to amorous. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is one of his most celebrated love poems (Harmon, page 230-231). This poem was written to his wife just before he left on a trip to France (Gardner, page 42). While in France, Donne had a dream of his wife walking across a bedroom with a dead child in her arms, which was later proven true. He decides to write this poem using the simple reason that he and his wife’s souls are inseparable they are one. In order to strengthen the power of their love, he makes comparisons with similes and metaphors, using meteorology, theology, geology, and Ptolemaic astronomy (McDonnell, page 282). In Donne’s poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, he relates, in verse, his insights on the human condition of love and its relationship to the soul through the conceit of drawing compasses. Donne expresses to the reader in the first stanza about the separation of body and soul (McDonnell, page 282). It is understood that the soul is not a part of the body, and it is only combined with the body until death, when it "goes". His choices of words are very unique. He uses “whisper” to express how the body and soul communicate. He also uses "virtuous" to imply that "un-virtuous" men. The separation of body and soul is an essential concept to the poem as it progresses (www.luminarium.org). The concept must be accepted for his argument to work. Donne describes the two souls of the lovers being combined, and the bodies as separate. It is an image that is continuous throughout the poem. Death cannot even separate Donne’s lovers because the soul, which is separate from the body, is the holder of love, and it does not die. Donne makes use of the metaphor here to simplify his vision of "the soul" as something that can be melted. (www.luminarium.org). It is not clearly stated what it melts from but his choice of words help visualize a liquid, and he makes use of this. Also, he uses the word “silent” to suggest that unlike liquids, which make sound when moved, the soul makes no noise. The silence also indicates that the souls do not use speech to make their love known. This contradicts with the opening stanza where the soul can communicate with speech. However, Donne infers that while the body may speak to the soul, two souls do not need speech to demonstrate magnificent love (McDonnell, pages 280-282). As one can infer, Donne’s comparisons are the most powerful tools is his writing. The metaphors of earthquakes and celestial spheres add to the understanding of the lovers’ relationship by stating specific details about the magnitude of the love. These metaphors show great dimension and force of our extraordinary nature, almost beyond human understanding. Donne uses these metaphors to explain how two different events can either bring "harms and fears", and/or "innocence". If celestial spheres can shake with "innocence", then the souls may share their love in silence, without the tumultuous rumblings of earthquakes (Gardner, page 42). The contrast between the magnitude of earthquakes and celestial trepidation is compared to the love between two bodies and two souls. The conclusion of the poem is that the soul can never be separated like the bodies. While the lover’s bodies are separated by great distance, they will resemble a compass in that the points are wide, but the handle joins them (www.luminarium.org). Donne argues that the lovers’ bodies are physically separated, but the two are joined by the soul. The distance is insignificant since they are only spread out and not broken apart. There is still a firm connection between them. In Donne’s later years, he wrote religious poems and hymns such as “Hymn to God, my God, in My Sickness.” His religious hymns demonstrate a large span of knowledge that associates him as the Renaissance man. Throughout his hymns different verses illustrate that he was a man with theological knowledge, and he was not just any layman. Donne wrote, “Hymn to God, my God, in My Sickness” while recovering from a harsh illness (Gardner, page 59). In this hymn Donne see himself as a sick man with not much life left in him. In the first stanza there are many examples that point out that the sick man is preparing for death. In line three of the hymn “I shall be made thy music, as I come...