Donne’s Idioms Of Diversiifed Love In His Religious Poetry

John Donne, originator of the Metaphysical poetry, has created plenty of poetic works.Over the past centuries, most of Donne studies are confined to his love poems instead of hisreligious works. Although there are a few studies devoted to his religious poetry, there is nosystematic exploration to the comprehensive understanding of his religious works. Based onclose reading and detailed analysis, this thesis endeavors to investigate Donne’s diversifiedlove from three perspectives: love for God, love for man and love for nature throughout thepoet’s religious poetry.This thesis is divided into three chapters, apart from the introduction and the conclusion.Chapter One explores Donne’s sincere love for God. Donne always infuses his emotionin poetic works as an outstanding poet. Sometimes the poet praises God in elevated, religiousimages and language in order to deliver his love; sometimes his burning emotion is unfoldedin colloquial language, secular even violent images.Chapter Two thoroughly probes into Donne’s profound love for man. As a well-educatedpreacher, there is no doubt that Donne has more thought about human. In his divine poems,the poet reveals contradictory attitudes towards death which clearly states his deep adorationof life. In addition, Donne prays for salvation again and again in his religious opuses, hopingthe redemption of all men. Both are the manifestation of Donne’s love for man.Chapter Three fully deals with Donne’s great love for nature. Living in the Renaissanceage, Donne is of unusual sensitivity to nature. On the one hand, living creatures like plantsand animals are commonly seen in his religious poetry, through which the poet’s respect tonature can be explicitly cognized; on the other hand, astronomical as well as geographicalimages are employed, which reflects Donne’s consciousness of science.Based on the collections of Donne’s religious poems, his life experience and the thensocial background, the thesis tries to interpret Donne’s diversified love for God, for man andfor nature in his religious poetry, which offers a profound and comprehensive understandingof John Donne, and helps to promote the study of Donne’s religious poetry in China.