The Artistic Features Of John Donne’s Songs And Sonets

John Donne (1572—1631) was a great accomplished but controversial English poet of metaphysical school and a churchman who was famous for his spellbinding sermons of17th century. Almost all of his works were published after his death in1633. His works could be divided into two periods, love poems period (before)1615and sermons period (after1615). Love and religion were obsessed in Donne’s works. This thesis attempts to study the artistic features of Donne’s Songs and Sonets from three aspects.The novel tendency in language was Donne’s innovation. He spurned the gorgeous poetry style and the tendency of too much affectation in Elizabethans. His poetry was meticulous in mind, rigorous in logic and laid stress on analyzing mentally. He often used the colloquial forms, the suggestive words and the puns in his poetry to express his own feelingsThe concept of defamiliarization was put forward by Vitcor Shklovsky. The theory seemed to just build on the basis of Donne’s artistic features although Donne didn’t know this concept at his times. Indeed, the defamiliarization of Donne’s poetry was embodied in many aspects. It included using irregular punctuation and indention, nonce forms of stanza, violence of sound and rhythm, and dramatic monologue These forms enriched the poetry’s performance skills, and made the content more vivid and concreteThe individualistic style made Donne’s poetry drift away from the mainstream of English poetry. To a certain extent, this reflected some kind of counter traditional characteristic of Donne’s poetry. The lively and precious counter characteristic not only endowed him endless inspiration in poetry writing, but spurred him eager to explore the poetry innovation in ideological content and artistic form. It made his poetry coruscate distinctive artistic style and glamour, and gave readers a kind of special aesthetic experience and unique art enjoyment.At last, the author has found that the Songs and Sonets, in fact, is a full display of the reality which Donne had viewed and sensed at his time. He vented his cynicism vigorously and made sharp satire on the political and religious movements under which Donne lived.