Even
Professor
Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
John Donne
seem to me to fall into two divisions.
There is one, marked by cynicism, ethical laxity and a somewhat
deliberate profession of inconstancy. This I believe to be his
earliest style, and ascribe the poems marked by it to the period
before 1596. About that date he became acquainted with Anne More, whom
he evidently loved devotedly and sincerely ever after. And therefore
from 1596 onwards I place the second division, with its emphasis of
the spiritual, and deep insight into the real things of love. ' This is
a little too early. Anne More was only twelve years old in 1596, and
it is unlikely that she and Donne were known to each other before
1598. Their affection probably ripened later. It almost seems from
Donne's letters to his friends as though about 1599 he was proffering
at least courtly adoration to some other lady.
Moreover, it is to conceive somewhat inadequately of Donne's complex
nature to make too sharp a temporal division between his gayer, more
cynical effusions and his graver, even religious pieces. The truth
about Donne is well stated by Professor Norton: 'Donne's "better
angel" and his "worser spirit" seem to have kept up a continual
contest, now the one, now the other, gaining the mastery in his
Poor soul, the centre of his sinful earth. '
The 'evaporations' which he allowed his wit from time to time till he
took orders showed always a certain 'ethical laxity' and 'cynicism' of
outlook on men and women. The _Elegie XIV_ (if it be Donne's, and
Mr. Chambers does not question its authenticity), the lines _Upon Mr.
Thomas Coryats Crudities_, the two frankly pagan _Epithalamia_ on the
Princess Elizabeth and the Countess of Somerset, to say nothing of
_Ignatius his Conclave_, were all written long after his marriage and
when he was already the author of moral epistles and 'divine poems'.
Even Professor Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
These things were evaporations of wit, and even a serious man in
the seventeenth century allowed to his wit satyric gambols which
disconcert our staider and more fastidious taste. I am quite at one
with Mr. Chambers in accepting his marriage as a turning-point in the
history of Donne's life and mind. But it would be rash to affirm that
_none_ of his wittier lyrics were written after this date.
Donne's 'songs and sonets' seem to me to fall into three rather than
two classes, though there is a good deal of overlapping. Donne's wit
is always touched with passion; his passion is always witty. In the
first class I would place those which are frankly 'evaporations'
of more or less cynical wit, the poems in which he parades his own
inconstancy or enlarges on the weaknesses of women, poems such as 'Goe
and catche', _Womans constancy_, _The Indifferent_, _Loves Vsury_,
_The Legacie_, _Communitie_, _Confined Love_, _Loves Alchymie_, _The
Flea_, _The Message_, _Witchcraft by a picture_, _The Apparition_,
_Loves Deitie_, _Loves diet_, _The Will_, _A Jeat Ring sent_,
_Negative love_, _Farewell to love_. In another group the wit in
Donne, whether gaily or passionately cynical, is subordinate to the
lover, pure and simple, singing, at times with amazing simplicity and
intensity of feeling, the joys of love and the sorrow of parting. Such
are _The good-morrow_, _The Sunne Rising_, _The Canonization_, _Lovers
infiniteness_, 'Sweetest love, I do not goe,' _A Feaver_, _Aire and
Angells_ (touched with cynical humour at the close), _Breake of day_,
_The Anniversarie_, _A Valediction: of the booke_, _Loves growth_,
_The Dreame_, _A Valediction: of weeping_, _The Baite_, _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_, _The Extasie_, _The Prohibition_,
_The Expiration_, _Lecture upon the Shadow_. It would, of course, be
rash to say that all such poems were addressed to his wife. Some, like
_The Baite_, are purely literary in origin; others present the obverse
side of the passion portrayed in the first group, its happier moments.
But one must believe that those in which ardour is combined with
elevation and delicacy of feeling were addressed to Anne More before
and after their marriage.
In the third and smallest group, which includes, however, such fine
examples of his subtler moods as _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The
Primrose_, Donne adopts the tone (as sincerely as was generally the
case) of the Petrarchian lover whose mistress's coldness has slain him
or provokes his passionate protestations. Some of these must, I think,
have been written after Donne's marriage. The titles one or two bear
connect them with Mrs.
There is one, marked by cynicism, ethical laxity and a somewhat
deliberate profession of inconstancy. This I believe to be his
earliest style, and ascribe the poems marked by it to the period
before 1596. About that date he became acquainted with Anne More, whom
he evidently loved devotedly and sincerely ever after. And therefore
from 1596 onwards I place the second division, with its emphasis of
the spiritual, and deep insight into the real things of love. ' This is
a little too early. Anne More was only twelve years old in 1596, and
it is unlikely that she and Donne were known to each other before
1598. Their affection probably ripened later. It almost seems from
Donne's letters to his friends as though about 1599 he was proffering
at least courtly adoration to some other lady.
Moreover, it is to conceive somewhat inadequately of Donne's complex
nature to make too sharp a temporal division between his gayer, more
cynical effusions and his graver, even religious pieces. The truth
about Donne is well stated by Professor Norton: 'Donne's "better
angel" and his "worser spirit" seem to have kept up a continual
contest, now the one, now the other, gaining the mastery in his
Poor soul, the centre of his sinful earth. '
The 'evaporations' which he allowed his wit from time to time till he
took orders showed always a certain 'ethical laxity' and 'cynicism' of
outlook on men and women. The _Elegie XIV_ (if it be Donne's, and
Mr. Chambers does not question its authenticity), the lines _Upon Mr.
Thomas Coryats Crudities_, the two frankly pagan _Epithalamia_ on the
Princess Elizabeth and the Countess of Somerset, to say nothing of
_Ignatius his Conclave_, were all written long after his marriage and
when he was already the author of moral epistles and 'divine poems'.
Even Professor Norton's statement exaggerates the 'contest' a little.
These things were evaporations of wit, and even a serious man in
the seventeenth century allowed to his wit satyric gambols which
disconcert our staider and more fastidious taste. I am quite at one
with Mr. Chambers in accepting his marriage as a turning-point in the
history of Donne's life and mind. But it would be rash to affirm that
_none_ of his wittier lyrics were written after this date.
Donne's 'songs and sonets' seem to me to fall into three rather than
two classes, though there is a good deal of overlapping. Donne's wit
is always touched with passion; his passion is always witty. In the
first class I would place those which are frankly 'evaporations'
of more or less cynical wit, the poems in which he parades his own
inconstancy or enlarges on the weaknesses of women, poems such as 'Goe
and catche', _Womans constancy_, _The Indifferent_, _Loves Vsury_,
_The Legacie_, _Communitie_, _Confined Love_, _Loves Alchymie_, _The
Flea_, _The Message_, _Witchcraft by a picture_, _The Apparition_,
_Loves Deitie_, _Loves diet_, _The Will_, _A Jeat Ring sent_,
_Negative love_, _Farewell to love_. In another group the wit in
Donne, whether gaily or passionately cynical, is subordinate to the
lover, pure and simple, singing, at times with amazing simplicity and
intensity of feeling, the joys of love and the sorrow of parting. Such
are _The good-morrow_, _The Sunne Rising_, _The Canonization_, _Lovers
infiniteness_, 'Sweetest love, I do not goe,' _A Feaver_, _Aire and
Angells_ (touched with cynical humour at the close), _Breake of day_,
_The Anniversarie_, _A Valediction: of the booke_, _Loves growth_,
_The Dreame_, _A Valediction: of weeping_, _The Baite_, _A
Valediction: forbidding mourning_, _The Extasie_, _The Prohibition_,
_The Expiration_, _Lecture upon the Shadow_. It would, of course, be
rash to say that all such poems were addressed to his wife. Some, like
_The Baite_, are purely literary in origin; others present the obverse
side of the passion portrayed in the first group, its happier moments.
But one must believe that those in which ardour is combined with
elevation and delicacy of feeling were addressed to Anne More before
and after their marriage.
In the third and smallest group, which includes, however, such fine
examples of his subtler moods as _The Funerall_, _The Blossome_, _The
Primrose_, Donne adopts the tone (as sincerely as was generally the
case) of the Petrarchian lover whose mistress's coldness has slain him
or provokes his passionate protestations. Some of these must, I think,
have been written after Donne's marriage. The titles one or two bear
connect them with Mrs.
