General

G1. (a) How is the repeated subject or motif of fidelity (or constancy) versus infidelity (or inconstancy) in Donne's poetry manifested prominently in some of the poems, both secular and sacred, printed in NAEL? (b1) Which of the poems focus on amorous inconstancy or infidelity? (b2) Which of the poems focus, on amorous constancy or fidelity? (b3a) What cardinal numbers does Donne often cite, and how, in connection with the motif of amorous constancy or fidelity? (b3b) What mathematical equation does Donne formulate that would be disputed by the Math department? (c) Which poems manifest the repeated subject or motif of fidelity or constancy (and the reverse) in religion? (d) How does G1a suggest a connection for Donne of the amorous and the religious?

G2. (a) In which of the poems does Donne manifest the repeated subject or motif of romantic or sexual love as a kind of religion, or as having religious elements? (b) In which poems does he use religious vocabulary or imagery to describe romantic or sexual love? To convey what specific ideas, in each instance? (c) How do G2a and G2b apply to Bernini's sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Theresa? (d) In what way or ways could Donne's ideas be applied to romantic or sexual love or lovers today?

G3. (a) In which poems, and how, is Donne's repeated subject or motif of unity versus diversity (or separation) manifested? (b) What cardinal numbers does Donne cite or imply, in association with the motif of G3a? (c) How does the motif in G3a apply to the recurrent subject in Donne's poems of unrequited love? (d) How does the motif in G3a apply to the recurrent subject in Donne's poems of religion?

G4. (a) In which poems is Donne's recurrent figure or analogy of microcosm versus macrocosm manifested? To convey what ideas or themes? (b) How is this motif related to concepts of both the Middle Ages and Renaissance?

G5. (a) In which poems is found Donne's skepticism, analogous to that found in Erasmus and Montaigne? (b) In which poems are found Donne's exuberance and optimism, akin to those of Rabelais? (c) What paradoxical aspect of Donne's temperament and view, as well as of his poetry, is suggested through G5a and G5b? (d) How does question G5c connect Donne with Cervantes? (e) Which of the poems exemplify ratiocination, the vivid view of a mind in the process of thinking? What tone or feeling is given to these poems through this ratiocination?

G6. (a) In which poems does Donne use figurative language, conceits, or concepts, from Petrarchan poetry (examples of the poetry of Petrarch -- Francesco Petrarca -- can be found in editions of the Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces that include only Western literature)? (b) In which poems does Donne mock Petrarchan style or attitudes, making Donne, in these instances, part of the anti-Petrarchan movement of his time?

G7. (a) In the poems in NAEL, how does Donne show a preference for the three-stanza, five-stanza, and sonnet forms? (b) What rhyme schemes does he use in these and his other poems? (c) In which poems does Donne use one of his favorite stylistic devices or figures of speech, paradox? To convey what ideas or themes, in each instance? (d) How might G7c relate to G5c-d? (e1) In which of the poems is there great drama, a dramatic element, a highly-charged dramatic scene, a miniature play or drama? (e2) How does G7e1 connect with Mannerist and Baroque art (especially painting and sculpture)?

Notes and Questions on Specific Poems

S1. "The Flea"

1. (a) How does each of the three stanzas mark a new stage or development in the little drama or plot or storyline of the poem's action? (b) How at each stage of the plot does the male speaker use ingenuity in attempting argumentation or persuasion aimed at seducing the listener or addressee of the poem? (c) How does the speaker completely reverse his basis of argumentation -- but not his aim -- in the third stanza, relative to the first and second stanzas? (d) In what ways does the poem have a humorous tone, including in the portrayal of the speaker?

2. How does the speaker use religious imagery and vocabulary in arguing or attempting persuasion of something very secular?

S2. "The Good-Morrow"

1. As an alba or aubade, how does this poem compare or contrast with this literary subgenre in Chaucer's The Miller's Tale (especially lines 474-531, Morrison translation)?

2. (a) Which of Donne's recurrent themes, subjects, or motifs are manifested, and how, in the poem? (b) Make a list of which subjects or disciplines or areas of knowledge or study Donne draws from throughout the poem. How does this list suggest the Renaissance quality of the poem, as well as something about Donne's mind and temperament?

3. (a) How does the rhyme scheme of each of the stanzas -- a-b-a-b-c-c-c -- help convey the content of the stanza, as well as relate to the general themes or ideas of the poem? (b) Where, and how, does Donne use the rhetorical figure of speech called "the rhetorical question"? (c) How does Donne use hyperbole throughout the poem? Suggesting what about romantic love, and creating what tone?

4. (a) How are the opening two lines of the poem colloquial, and highly dramatic? What tone do they have, which is continued in the rest of the poem? (b) How are consonance and sibilance (or sigmatism) of the repeated s sound manifested in stanza 1, and how does this sound effect relate to the stanza's tone and content? (c) What physical setting and situation, related to romantic or sexual love, is implied by the poem? Who is speaking, and to whom? (Use the term speaker rather than author, when discussing poems and poetry.) (d) How does the length of the first clause of line 5 convey a forceful, conclusive tone? (e) In what several ways could the remainder of line 5 ("But this, all pleasures fancies be") be paraphrased? What might be the antecedent of the demonstrative pronoun this? How is the word but used for a meaning different from its most frequent usual sense as a coordinate conjunction? (f) How does the speaker playfully allude to and use concepts from Plato's philosophy in the last line of stanza 1?

3. (a) What several meanings of the verb watch in the second line of stanza 2 does the speaker refer to? (Look up the word, as verb, in your collegiate dictionary.) What point is he making about possible motives of one lover for observing another? How does Donne's point apply today? (b) What important development in the Renaissance period does Donne allude to in the concluding three lines of stanza 2? To make what point? With what tone (cf. question G5)?

4. (a) How does Donne develop in stanza 3 (especially lines 17-18) the extended metaphor in the last part of stanza 2? (b) What are the meanings of the metonymies of "sharp North" and "declining West" (18)? (c) What hyperbolic claims is the speaker making about what romantic love can accomplish? (d) In what way or ways might Donne's and the speaker's ideas be applicable or true today?

S3. "Song: 'Go and Catch a Falling Star'"

1. (a) What is the logical organization or structure of this poem? How does its organization or structure resemble a logical argument or proposition? (b) How does the first stanza serve as an introduction? (c) How does the middle stanza introduce the key assertion or claim? (d) How does the final stanza serve as a logical conclusion or development of the preceding two stanzas?

2. (a) How does each of the seven illustrations in the first stanza represent an impossibility? (b) How do the seven illustrations encyclopedically cover the areas of knowledge or study of astronomy or science, superstition or alchemy, history, religion, mythology, psychology, politics, and sociology? (c) Which of the instances alludes to Homer's Odyssey? (d) What social criticism or satire does Donne include in the first stanza, and how? (e) How does Donne's skepticism about human nature in society and politics in stanza 1 relate to the main skeptical focus in the second and third stanzas?

3. (a) How do the first two lines of the second stanza generalize on or extend the specific illustrations and examples in the first stanza? (b) What hyperbole occurs in the third line of stanza 2? How many years is this, exactly? How does this hyperbole contribute to the speaker's and Donne's main skeptical assertion in the poem? (c) After you have discovered that the relevant definition from your collegiate dictionary of "true"(18) is "faithful" or "having fidelity" and of "fair"(18) is "beautiful," expand and restate the assertion or claim the speaker is making in line 18. How or why might this claim have been, or be, true about (some) women?

4. (a) What religious imagery or vocabulary does the speaker use in the beginning of stanza 3, and how is it ironic, given the rest of the stanza? (b) What hyperbole occurs in lines 4-9 of stanza 3, and what irony does it help the speaker convey? How long a time is implied in lines 4 and 7-9, and how does this duration contribute to the ironic hyperbole? (c) How does the reference to time in stanza 3 connect thematically to the reference to time in stanza 2?

S4. "The Undertaking"

S5. "The Sun Rising"

1. (a) How does this poem, like "The Good Morrow" [S2], illustrate the poetry genre or subgenre of the alba or aubade? (b) How does this poem show the ingenuity of the speaker-lover through the device of apostrophe -- that is, the speaker appears to be addressing the sun, but is conscious that his intended listener is hearing all that he says? (c) How does the speaker use the device of hyperbole for persuasive purposes?

2. How does this poem, like "The Good Morrow," illustrate Donne's use of the microcosm-macrocosm motif?

S6. "The Indifferent"

1. Based on the rest of the poem, is the meaning of indifferent as used in the title "apathetic" or "indiscriminate"? How so? What general ideas about men are suggested by the poem through the portrayal of the male speaker? How are these true or untrue of men today?

2. How does Donne's typical use of ambiguity or multiple meanings (technically, plurisignification or polysemy) work in the following instances? (a) How might "fair"(1) also mean (besides what the NAEL footnote indicates) "fair-skinned" or "beautiful," while "brown"(1) would also mean (besides what the NAEL footnote indicates) "dark-skinned" or "plain"? How would the meanings of "fair-skinned" and "beautiful" overlap in the criteria of female (or male) beauty in the days before the nineteenth century? What change has occurred, and why, from the 1940's and onward, concerning having or lacking a suntan? (b) How might "abundance"(2) mean either "fleshiness" or "wealth," with "want"(2) meaning either "skinniness" or "poverty"? How might these sets, respectively, be interrelated (i.e., "fleshiness" and "wealth")? (c) What opposites or antitheses are continued in lines 3-7, corresponding to those of the first two lines of the first stanza? How does the meaning of "masks"(3) of a certain kind of play or drama work in the line; the meaning of "tries"(5) as "skeptical" or "needing proof"; the meaning (standard up through the eighteenth century) of "still"(6) as "always" or "continuously"? (d) What do all these antitheses suggest about the exclusivity of the male speaker's criteria for the amorous love he experiences for members of the opposite sex?

2. (a) In the second stanza, how does the speaker shift or narrow in addressee(s)? What is the difference between "you, and you"(8) in the first stanza, and "you"(10) in the second? (b) Given that the second stanza's first line (line 10) refers to the last line of the preceding stanza (line 9), what surprising "vice" does the male speaker warn his addressee away from? Why wouldn't this habit or trait ordinarily be considered a vice, and why does the male speaker consider it to be one? What is suggested about men, thereby?

3. In the second stanza, (a) how does the word "know"(15) refer to "carnal knowledge" rather than intellectual or social acquaintanceships? (b) What pun, on "travel" and "travail" does the speaker make on "travail" in line 17? How does the pun suggest the seventeenth-century male's desire for one thing rather than another in a romantic or amorous relationship with the opposite sex? (c) How are two different styles or techniques of theft or robbery referred to in the male speaker's imperative "Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go"(16)? Which kind of theft does the male speaker prefer, and why, over the other? What meanings or ideas are suggested by the faint New Testament allusions to Mt. 12:29 and Mk. 3:27?

4. (a) In Classical mythology, is Venus famous for fidelity or infidelity or inconstancy, in her own behavior? (Cf. the portrayal of her in the recent film The Advenures of Baron Munchausen, with regard to her husband, Vulcan [the Roman name, Hephaestos, in the Greek].) (b) The surprising idea of the third stanza, hard to see for many students, is that Venus, devoted, as she says, to "variety," finds that the speaker, in a peculiar way has a behavior that has a constancy in it. What is this constancy in the male speaker's behavior, and why is it paradoxical for Venus to consider this behavior a kind of constancy? (c) As a result of her reasoning about the "constancy" of the male speaker's behavior up to this point, what is the irony of the sentence that Venus decrees? (d) What oblique erotic joke is there in the pausing of the second line of the third stanza between the words "part" and "variety"(20)? Given Venus's and the male speaker's carnality and physicality (including the male speaker's focus in the first stanza), what might readers or listeners have expected or anticipated as the completion of "And by love's sweetest part"(20) rather than "variety"?

S7. "The Canonization"

1. How does the opening of this poem, like the opening of "The Good Morrow" and "The Sun Rising," illustrate the vivid colloquialism of some of Donne's poetry?

2. How does the poem embody the motifs in Donne's poetry of (2a) religious imagery or vocabulary applied to secular love, (2b) the special mathematics of John Donne, and (2c) microcosm vs. macrocosm?

S8. "Song: 'Sweetest love, I do not go'"

S9. "Air and Angels"

S10. "Break of Day"

1. How does this poem, like "The Good Morrow" and "The Sun Rising," make use of a particular genre or subgenre of poetry?

2. In what special way does this poem connect with John Skelton's "Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale," Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey's "O happy dames, that may embrace," and Thomas Campion's "Think'st thou to seduce me then" and "Fain would I wed"?

3. (a) What is the plot of this poem, its implied story or storyline? That is, what has happened prior to the first stanza, which elicits the first stanza (lines 1-6)? What has happened between the second stanza (lines 7-12) and the third stanza (lines 13-18) that elicits what the speaker says in the opening of the third stanza? (b) How does the speaker of this poem use ingenuity in argumentation or persuasion?

4. The three large problems in all reading comprehension, including reading comprehension of poetry are (1) the meanings of words and allusions, (2) grammatical problems (the grammatical structure of any given passage in a text -- subject, predicate, complement, relation of phrases or clauses to each other, and (3) elucidation of figurative language. One frequent problem, particularly in poetry, is the structure of N1 + N2 [+ N3] + V -- where N stands for Noun (or noun substitute) and V stands for Verb. That is, when two or more nouns precede the verb, a question may arise about which noun is the subject of the clause, and which noun is the direct object (or predicate noun) of the clause. Problems (1) and (2) both occur in lines 15-16 of this poem. Problem (1) occurs in the verb "can/ Admit" (lines 15-16), since more than one meaning of "admit" is possible (i.e., "confess" or "let in" -- "admit" as in a movie ticket). Which meaning or meanings might apply? How? Problem (2) occurs because a series of four nouns or noun-substitutes ("poor," "foul," "false," and "love") occurs before the verb ("can/ admit"). The question, thus, is which noun (or noun-substitute) or nouns (noun- substitutes) might be the subject or subjects, and which noun or nouns might be the complement (here, the direct object or direct objects)? What multiple meanings might these two lines have about romantic love?

S11. "A Valediction: Of Weeping"

S12. "Love's Alchemy"

S13. "A Nocturnal upon Saint Lucy's Day"

1. How might this poem apply to Donne's wife, Anne More Donne?

S14. "The Bait"

1. How does this poem join the group of poem's answering Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"?

S15. "The Apparition"

1. (a) What satiric edge and twist do Donne and Donne's speaker put on the typical Petrarchan situation of a lover dying of unrequited love? (b) How is the speaker's tone bitter and accusatory in his implication (lines 1-5) that the reason the lady gives for rejecting him is false? How does he suggest that the reason the lady gives is false, and what proof does he expect to find of her hypocrisy (lines 1-5)? How is the speaker's tone in the poem generally bitter?

2. (a1) What joke about men's sexual capacity and behavior after having sex (completely and scandalously untrue, of course!!!!!!!! -- just ask any male in our English class) is there in lines 5-10? (a2) How will the lady's falseness to the speaker ironically lead to the falseness of her later male companion? (b) Why will the lady's candle ("taper") appear to be "sick" and to flicker ("wink") on account of the speaker's presence in the new form he claims he will take? (c) How is the imagery of disease repeated in the poem, and what satiric points does it help symbolize about the results or causes of certain kinds of behavior? (Cf. question 3d.) (d) What comic situation from several Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello films (Laurel or Costello aware of something that Hardy or Abbott isn't) is set up in lines 4-13? How does this comic quality contribute to the poem's satiric edge?

3. (a) How is the result of the speaker's appearance on the lady (line 13) an ironic consequence or turnabout of what she has done to him (line 1)? (b) How does the poem's title have a play on more than one meaning of the word apparition, taking into account lines 1 and 3? (c) Besides quicksilver (line 12) being used medicinally for what it used to be (NAEL footnote), how might both the shape that quicksilver takes in small amounts as well as its color be appropriate to metaphorically describe sweat (line 12)? (d) How is the color of quicksilver echoed in the implied complexions of the speaker (especially his final form, from line 1 onward) and the lady, including the comparison of her to aspen leaves (line 11)? How does question 3d relate to question 2c? (e1) In what way will the lady have the fluttering quality of aspen leaves (line 11 and NAEL footnote)? (e2) How does the color of aspen leaves help suggest something about the lady's complexion, as well as why she is this color?

4. (a) How does the pun on the word rest (17) at the end of the poem-- meaning both "remain" and "repose, get sleep"--work in the lines? (b1) At the poem's conclusion, how does the speaker shift from a harsh and bitter tone (lines 14-15) to a slyly and playfully renewed "solicitation" (lines 16-17)? (b2) How could the lady best "painfully repent"(16) to please the speaker?

S16. "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

1. This poem has some of the most famous "metaphysical" imagery of all poetry, the kind of imagery that elicited the censure of the Restoration and Eighteenth century, including from Dr. Samuel Johnson (see the excerpt in NAEL from Samuel Johnson's "Lives of the Poets: Cowley" [NAEL7 2736-38]). Why would Dr. Johnson not approve of the metaphor or conceit Donne uses for the two lovers in the sixth quatrain and especially the extended metaphor or conceit Donne uses for the two lovers in the seventh through ninth quatrains?

2. How do the motifs in Donne's poetry of (a) religious imagery or vocabulary applied to romantic love, (b) microcosm vs. macrocosm, and (c) the special mathematics of John Donne?

S17. "The Ecstasy"

1. How does this poem exemplify the motifs in Donne's poetry of (a) religious imagery or vocabulary applied to romantic love, and (b) the peculiar mathematics of Donne?

S18. "The Funeral"

S19. "The Blossom"

S20. "The Relic"

S21. "A Lecture upon the Shadow"

S22. "Elegy 16. On His Mistress"

S23. "Elegy 19. To His Mistress Going to Bed"

1. How do several erotic puns occur in the poem?

2. How does the Renaissance joy of or exuberance in the period's geographical discovery occur in the poem, and how is it applied to the poem's subject?

S24. "Satire 3"

1. Though not a required reading, how does this poem exemplify the genre of formal verse satire?  What poem of Sir Thomas Wyatt also is related to the formal verse satire?
2. For comparison with Alexander Pope (if you have or will have the course on eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature), how does this formal verse satire compare with any of the formal verse satires of Pope?

S25. "The Storm"

1. Though not a required reading, how does this poem exemplify the genre of verse epistle?  What poems of Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey also are related to the verse epistle?
2. For comparison with Alexander Pope (if you have or will have the course on eighteenth-century and Romantic British literature), how does this verse epistle compare with any of the verse epistles of Pope?

S26. "[From] An Anatomy of the World"

S27. "Holy Sonnet 1: 'Thou hast made me'"

S28. "Holy Sonnet 5: 'I am a little world made cunningly'"

S29. "Holy Sonnet 7: 'At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners'"

1. (a1) How could this sonnet be categorized or described as a kind of prayer or petition? (a2) To whom, and for what? (a3) How does the speaker's apostrophe (the figurative device) shift or change from lines 2-3 to line 9? (a4) How does this shift or change correspond to the speaker's shift or change in purpose, attitude, and mood? (b1) Including parts of question 1a, how does Donne use the Italian form of the sonnet in this poem? (b2) In which part is the focus on the plural or plurality, and in which on the singular? (b3) How does 1b2 correspond to the speaker's shift or change in purpose, attitude, and mood? (b4) How does the setting change, radically, from lines 1-3, to line 12, and how is this change or shift related to the sonnet's theme and Italian structure? (c) Why does or has the speaker made the petition he does in the octave? Why does he change his mind?

2. (a) Exactly which details of the sonnet correspond to eschatological passages of Revelation (or Apocalypse) and the Gospels? How? What passages allude to details in Genesis? (b1) Exactly what mishaps, catastrophes, and misfortunes does the speaker refer to in the second quatrain of the octave? (b2) How can "dearth," "age," "agues," "tyrannies," "despair," "law," and "chance," exactly, "slay"? (b3) What group of people is referred to in line 8? (b4) What ironic or paradoxical allusion does Donne make to Genesis 2 in his metaphor in line 8? How does the metaphor connect, imagistically and thematically, with "dearth"(6)?

3. (a) How does the speaker call attention to the subject or issue of figurative or metaphoric language in the sonnet's first line? (b) How is the contrast between imagined or figurative and actual or real important both in line 1 and the sonnet as a whole?

4. What celebrated science fiction novel by Philip José Farmer derives its title from the sonnet's first quatrain? What series by Farmer did this novel initiate?

S30. "Holy Sonnet 9: 'If poisonous minerals'"

S31. "Holy Sonnet 10: 'Death, Be Not Proud'"

1. How does Donne or the speaker use apostrophe, personification, and paradox throughout the poem expressively or thematically?

2. (a) How does this sonnet use a combination of the Italian and English forms? (b1) How is the sonnet organized as a logical argument? (b2) How does quatrain 1 correspond to the topic sentence of an essay? What two main points does it convey? (b3) How does quatrain 2 correspond to the first main point of the topic sentence (quatrain 1)? (b4) How does quatrain 3 correspond to the second main point of the topic sentence (quatrain 1)? (b5) How does the concluding couplet constitute a climactic and clinching conclusion?

3. (a) What elliptical verb is understood and to be supplied in imaginary brackets after "pleasure" in line 6? (Hint: look at the verbs in lines 5-7; it's a version of one of these.) (b) What unfortunate aspect of real life, society, and politics does Donne allude to in line 7? (c) How does line 8 function gramatically as an appositive? To what? Helping to prove Donne's assertion and argument how? (d) How are the items in lines 9 and 11 related to the addressee of the poem? (e) What pictorial representation of the addressee is Donne thinking of, as implied by the partly buried metaphor in the word "stroke"(12)? (e) What several meanings of the word or figure "sleep" does the speaker make use of in the sonnet, and how are these interrelated?

S32. "Holy Sonnet 13: 'What if this present were'"

S33. "Holy Sonnet 14: 'Batter my heart, three-personed God'"

1. (a) How does the figure of speech paradox pervade this sonnet?  What does it help both in individual instances and cumulatively to convey about the religious issues in the poem?  (b) How are the extended metaphors of erotic sexuality and of warfare used both in the octave and sestet of the sonnet?  How do the octave and sestet function as distinct parts?

2. (a) How is one of the three components of the Trinity separately portrayed or embodied in the verbs or lines 2 and 4? (b) How do the verbs of line 2 correspond, in parallel, with the verbs of line 4?

S34. "Holy Sonnet 17: 'Since she whom I loved'"

S35. "Holy Sonnet 18: 'Show me, dear Christ'"

S36. "Holy Sonnet 19: 'Oh, to vew me'"

S37. "Good Friday, 1613.  Riding Westward"

S38. "A Hymn to Christ, at the Author's Last Going into Germany"

S39. "Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness"

S40. "A Hymn to God the Father"

1. How might the very number of the poem's stanzas relate to its religious content?
2. (a) As indicated by the NAEL footnote, how does the poem make complicated use of the puns on "done" and "Donne," as well as "more" and "More" (= Ann More, maiden name of Donne's wife)? (b) Which sonnets of William Shakespeare are recalled by this particular kind of punning?
3. How does the second line of the second stanza allude to a metaphor in Genesis 4:7; Psalms 24:7, 78:23, and 141:3; and John 10:2, 10:7, and 10:9?