Paradoxical Views Of Death In John Donne's Poetry A Thesis

As the most prominent representative of the metaphysical poets in the seventeenth century in England, John Donne is an influential and yet controversial literary figure. After having been celebrated and despised, canonized and doubted, his standing as a great English poet was not assured until being admired by T.S. Eliot and New Criticism in the twentieth century. His love poems, mainly composed during his early literary period, are collected in Songs and Sonnets. While in his later period, he presents religious poems as his focus, collected mainly in Divine Poems. However, Donne is fascinated with death all the time in his poems. Even in his expression of the most fervent love, death has never been far away from his mind. His religious meditation is more replete with death. Death is inserted into poems throughout his poetry, whether secular or divine, which is eye-catching and inspiring. Not only does Donne have an unusual preoccupation with death in his poetry, but also his views of death show opposing tendencies. This thesis aims at exploring Donne's paradoxical views of death throughout his poetry. On the one hand, he taps into his tremendous fear of death, and meanwhile active death-wish is planted in his heart. Rationale for his paradoxical views of death will be explored and detailed analysis of the connotations of death in both his love poems and his religious poems will be made.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One is the introduction to John Donne, his poetic achievements, literature review, the theme and organization of the thesis.Chapter Two approaches the rationale for Donne's paradoxical views of death from the social context of his day and his exceptionally diverse life experience. Fierce conflicts in the field of economy, politics, science, geography and ideology caused his psychological unbalance and anxiety. Thus he took a paradoxical stance towards many things, including death. Rifts and collisions in his personal experience, especially in love and religion, injected concrete connotations into death in his poetry respectively. His paradoxical coexistence of fear and desire of death tended to be more tangible owing to his frustration and pleasure in his love, his Catholic breeding and later apostasy.Chapter Three makes a text-based study of what death is in Songs and Sonnets as the representative poems in his early literary period, which constitutes the best of his love poems. Death is at the cost of love. On the one hand, he dreads death for he holds that each frustration in love is death, which is echoed by his early frustrating love experience. On the other hand, he longs for death, for death is union in love, which constitutes his idea love.Chapter Four puts stress on Divine Poems as his representative religious poems in his later literary period to explore Donne's paradoxical views of death: Death is in pursuit of God. On the one hand, he is thirsty for death, for death implies salvation and resurrection, which is the common faith held by pious Christians. On the other hand, death drives him into fear and even despair because death is sin and damnation in his point of view. His Christian breeding and his change of religion in his later period of life are seeds of his paradoxical views of death during his talk about religion.Chapter Five concludes Donne's paradoxical views of death as coexistence of fear and desire. Based on Donne's two classic collections of poems, his social background and life experience, the thesis gives a panoramic picture of Donne's coexistence of fear and desire of death in his poetry. The paradoxical feature in his views of death brings distinguishing charms to Donne's poetry.