John Donne- The Anniversary
- Created by: Harleym7000
- Created on: 29-05-18 15:49
Fullscreen
- Donne wrote ‘The Anniversary’ to celebrate the first year of the lovers’ “reign.”
- The speaker replicates the claim made in ‘The Sun Rising’ that the lovers are satisfied with each other and have no need for the wealth of princes: “Here upon earth we’are kings, and none but we/Can be such kings.”
- However, in ‘The Anniversary,’ Donne also emphasises aspects of spiritual love: “souls where nothing dwells but love/…then shall prove/This, or a love increased there above.”
- Donne repeats his assertion that love is immune to the passage of Time: “All other things, to their destruction draw,/Only our love hath no decay” exploiting alliteration to communicate the inevitable decay of “all other things.”
- Theodore Redpath, editor of the Metheun University paperback edition suggests it recalls the poet's first meeting with his wife-to-be Ann More, in 1598.
- It's not the most technically complex of Donne's poetry. Some metaphors are conventional such as that lovers are princely or kingly, with more glory than actual princes and kings.
- The rhetorical organisation, based not only on paradox and antithesis but led by Donne's intellectual honesty, which provides much of the poem's energy
- The couple are entering their second year together and are therefore seen to be in the process of crossing the threshold between temporary liaison and permanent commitment.
- In the last stanza the speaker looks optimistically ahead over the years "till we attain/ To write threescore ..." which would be the diamond jubilee of a lasting partnership.
- This is a somewhat unusual angle for a young writer of love poetry, however typical of Donne that he should have thought through his topic in…
Comments
No comments have yet been made