The Development Of The Concept Of Love In Poetry From Petrarch To Donne
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Introduction
“Metaphysical poetry is the poetry of the great age of our drama. Its master John Donne was, we are told, a great frequenter of plays in his youth. As an ambitious young man of social standing he would not have considered writing for the players, and his work is too personal, wilful, and idiosyncratic for us to imagine him doing so with any success. But his strong dramatic imagination of particular situations transforms the lyric and makes a metaphysical poem more than an epigram expanded by conceits.” (Gardner 1985:23)
Personality and idiosyncrasy are a good starting point to describe the poems of John Donne. Also his love poetry which will be investigated a little bit closer in this work shows many personal elements.
But John Donne did not start a whole new poetry from the scratch, therefore this paper will give an overlook how and where the poetry developed and how it was picked up and changed to meet the requirements of the metaphysical poets.
The sonnet as a lyrical form became popular in the time of Petrarch. His kind of love poetry came into fashion in England in the sixteenth century. It became very influential throughout Europe in the following centuries. The sonnet was brought to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt. Mainly his achievements were the introduction of the petrarchan sonnets into the English society and their translation into the English language. Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey established a new rhyme scheme that he had developed out of the petrarchan rhyme scheme.
Today the so called Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyme scheme that the Earl of Surrey invented. Like the Petrarchan sonnet, the Shakespearean sonnet is not named after the inventor, but after its most famous representatives.
Shakespeare and Donne wrote their love poems approximately around the same time. But they still differ in their form and matter.
Overall this work wants to prove that the love poetry of Donne is more complex and much more differentiated than that of Petrarch. During the following centuries the love poetry in the sonnet form also started to differ in the themes. That means the metaphysical love poetry combined the love theme with the fields of alchemy, the renaissance and the reformation. It also brought in ironical elements, which are often described as the typical “Metaphysical wit” (Beer 1972:26). These ironical elements often find their linguistic realisation in the metaphysical conceit. The metaphysical poets also brought in a change in the formal style of poems. They did not always stick to the conventional forms or only sticked to them on the surface.
The starting point of this paper are two sonnets by Petrarch from his “Canzoniere” namely number thirteen Quando fra laltre donne ad ora ad ora and number ninety Erano i capei doro a laura sparsi. The development of the Petrarchan sonnet in England is shown with the help of some excerpts from at first Thomas Wyatt and his poems Madame, withouten many words and Who so list to hunt and at second with the poem Description and Praise of his Love Geraldine by Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey. The next step in this comparison will be some excerpts from the Dark Lady Sonnets by Shakespeare. Finally, I will analyse Donnes Elegie: To his Mistris going to Bed and prove the development also with the help of some references to other poems of John Donne.
2. Development of love poetry until Donne
2.1. Petrarch
Petrarch was very much concerned with the theme of love in all its variations in his poems. The Canzoniere shows all the different aspects of love, but as a collection of sonnets and cantons it also has poems in it that are about the nature, certain cities or even the political situation in Italy at that time. In sonnet number 13 Quando fra laltre donne ad ora ad ora the overall theme is love, more specific the love to a woman who is out of reach. The poet observes the woman from a distance. He does neither speak to her nor even approach her closer. It seems as if he follows her around, because he “bless [es] the place, the time, and the hour in which my eyes gazed to such a height,” (Petrarch ll.5-6). But even though the writer does not speak to the lady he seems to know her and even more important, she seems to know him as well, because “From her to you comes loving thought,” (Petrarch l.9). The woman as a lady of honour would not send “loving thoughts” to a man she does not know or appreciate. This love that connects the poet and the adored women is a platonic love. It is concerned with the spirits and the thoughts. The woman did not “yield” to the author yet “so that in hope I fly, already, to the heights.” (Petrarch l.14). The writer is still “in hope” so their love is still platonic, he surely wants to change that and there is no hint that she is of an opposite mind. So the reader can not tell for sure, whether the poet and the woman will have a physical affair as well as one that happens only in their minds. Obviously she is worth to be adored, because she “leads to highest good,” (Petrarch l.10) and “from her comes that spirit full of grace” (Petrarch l.12). This poem reflects the state of mind in which the writer is currently in, the reader acknowledges that the poet is thinking. It refers to the ideal of platonic love that means love as the intense union of two different minds.
In sonnet number ninety Erano i capei doro a laura sparsi Petrarch describes a more intense and realistic love than in sonnet number thirteen. He describes the woman he adores here more exactly, not just her beauty or her beautiful face as such, but her golden hair, her eyes and her voice. The adored lady has “gold hair [] that twined it [the breeze] in a thousand sweet knots,” (Petrarch ll.1-2) this image reminds one of the Loreley especially if you read on where the poet refers to the womans speech that “rang higher than a mere human voice.” (Petrarch l.11). The Loreley is a water nymph, she is not a human being, but of another sphere and she drives men crazy through her singing and they drown in the sea. Im not quite sure if Petrarch was familiar with the Loreley or if her tale was known at Petrarchs time. So it is more convenient to say that the description of the adored lady refers to the sirens from the Greek myths. If the picture either refers to the Loreley or the sirens is not really important at the end, because the important