[HN Gopher] The Unlovable, Irresistible John Donne
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The Unlovable, Irresistible John Donne
Author : pepys
Score : 28 points
Date : 2022-08-22 03:17 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| lordleft wrote:
| No man is an island entire of itself; every man
|
| is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
|
| if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
|
| is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
|
| well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
|
| own were; any man's death diminishes me,
|
| because I am involved in mankind.
|
| And therefore never send to know for whom
|
| the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
| wahern wrote:
| I'd never read the whole excerpt.[1] It's much more
| communitarian than the commonly recited phrase, "never send to
| know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee", which seems
| self-centered in isolation, emphasizing one's own mortality
| rather than what one loses when someone _else_ dies. Of course,
| "No man is an island" is also commonly recited and can stand
| alone, but I hadn't known it was from the same paragraph.
|
| [1] I originally wrote poem but it's excerpted from a larger
| work of prose, Devotions, chapter XVII:
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23772/23772-h/23772-h.htm#Pa...
| See also https://interestingliterature.com/2021/08/never-send-
| for-who...
| hprotagonist wrote:
| "unlovable"? Hardly, he's high on my list of poets I adore.
|
| I love the absolute cheek and breadth of scope of a poet that can
| give us the somber meditation "No man is an Island"/"for whom the
| bell tolls", the defiance of "death be not proud", the passionate
| longing of "batter my heart" (perhaps the most dangerous prayer i
| know), and also the charming, leering, nod-and-a-wink of "mark
| but this flea...", which is a very impish seduction poem indeed.
| In the persistence of his turns of phrase in our daily
| vernacular, he's up there with Cranmer or Shakespeare.
|
| In his range, he reminds me of Catullus, who gives us both "hail
| brother and farewell" and "i will skullfuck you and sodomize
| you".
|
| In his life, a man who by all accounts went from rake to devoted
| husband more or less on sight, among much else indeed.
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46467/the-flea
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44107/holy-sonnets-de...
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44106/holy-sonnets-ba...
|
| https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html
| jboggan wrote:
| Absolutely, he deserves a lot of respect and study. I find him
| to be one of the funniest poets ever. The unedited version of
| "An Anagram" [0] is one of the greatest and silliest put-downs
| recorded in English.
|
| 0 - http://www.online-
| literature.com/forums/showthread.php?18947... (two of the last
| four lines are removed in many online versions)
| duxup wrote:
| I hate to get off the rails on just the article itself because I
| find it annoying when that happens, and I'm a poor writer myself.
| But as someone who didn't know John Donne I came away thinking
| that article was hard to read, and there were just a bunch of
| references to other things applied to John Donne... but I know
| nothing more about John Donne.
| kleiba wrote:
| I don't know about that in particular, but I certainly find the
| writing style annoying. There's nothing wrong with choosing a
| light tone, but I find the comedic ambitions rather out of
| place, and they add nothing to my wanting to read on.
| wahern wrote:
| I was unfamiliar with John Donne myself, but from the first
| paragraph it was clear the author was writing in a deliberately
| stylized manner; a manner which in retrospect seems perhaps
| intended to evince or reflect Donne's conversational poetic
| style. I enjoyed the article, but even if I hadn't, I would
| still appreciate the effort; sort of like how I can appreciate
| an otherwise inscrutable quine (program).
| gjm11 wrote:
| The article tells you plenty of things about John Donne.
|
| It tells you a thing or two about his life: that he was born a
| Catholic and some of his family were imprisoned on account of
| their religion; that he went to sea with the Earl of Essex;
| that he had a lot of sex in his youth and became a religious
| minister later on, becoming the dean of St Paul's cathedral;
| that as his death approached he wore what would be his winding-
| sheet so that a sculptor could prepare to make a monument for
| him.
|
| It gives you some quotations, for a sense of the small-scale
| sound of his language. "License my roving hands, and let them
| go / Before, behind, between, above, below" (from a distinctly
| naughty earlyish poem). "A man may be an adulterer in his
| wife's bosom, though he seek not strange women" (from a
| sermon). "Busy old fool, unruly sun [...] saucy pedantic
| wretch, go chide / Late school boys" (from a poem whose speaker
| is in bed with his lover and doesn't want to have to go). "For
| God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love". "I run to death,
| and death meets me as fast". Etc.
|
| It tells you some things about (the author's opinion of) his
| character and writing style. "He was a splenetic satirist, all-
| observing, all-condemning, who was also a world-class
| flatterer/ingratiator. He had a slicing, dicing, predatory mind
| that he applied with equal force to sex, to politics, and
| finally to a religious vocation." His writing is intricate and
| difficult but with flashes of forceful clarity. (See the
| paragraph beginning "As for his poetry".) "Donne's love poetry
| is extreme: Bodies melt, souls commingle, genders elide, death
| is an atom away.". "The almost Tantric lover, seeking an
| essence beyond the body, was also the yearning-for-eternity
| preacher.".
|
| The article could have confined itself more strictly to quoting
| Donne and commenting on his life and work, I suppose. But it
| seems _perfectly OK_ to me. It 's not very long. It gives you
| some idea of how he sounded. It gives you some information
| about his life and its context. It tells you what sort of poems
| he wrote. I'm not sure it's reasonable to demand much more.
| googlryas wrote:
| Off-topic, but I recall from 22 years ago my 11th grade English
| teacher talking about a 16-17th century English poet/author who
| basically sword-fought his way out of Paris to escape back to
| England. I always thought it was John Donne, but I've never been
| able to find any kind of reference to anything of the sort. Does
| anyone know what I'm talking about?
| flenserboy wrote:
| Donne's work is extraordinary, and best read (as with most
| poetry) out loud. His sermons share the same language, and move
| from dry letters on the page into living, clear thoughts when
| heard instead of read.
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