John Donne’s Principles Of Poetic Creation

John Donne is the leading figure of Metaphysical school. His bold imagination, novel originality and random language always attract his readers and provoke various researches on his works. His peculiar creation principles distinguish his poems from his contemporary ones. This thesis explores Donne’s creation principles from themes, language and prosody.Chapter One deals with the principle of peculiarity in expressing themes in Donne’s poems. To express his understanding of love, Donne used common things to express peculiar thoughts. He employed his true and strong feelings to move God to save him. Donne’s criticism of women is the criticism of himself for his apostasy. This principle is called using A to refer to B. Death in Donne’s eyes is rebirth, another form of living. He talked about death by life.Chapter Two discusses the principle of defamiliarisation in idiom in Donne’s poems. Daily utterance is defamiliarized into the poetic language, which is unique and powerful. The normal dialogue form in drama is defamiliarized into a monologue form, omitting the listener’s utterances and reactions. The common logical reasoning is also defamiliarized by taking the sense of argumentation and persuasion.Chapter Three explores the principle of irregularity in prosody in Donne’s poems. He employed irregular speech sound and metrical feet to convey his feelings. Donne used forty-nine stanzaic forms in his fifty-five poems, offering readers a different metrical experience. The displaced punctuation marks hinder the smooth floating of emotion, becoming a feature in Donne’s poems.The conclusion firstly summarizes the creation principles of Donne in his poems, and secondly makes a brief mention of the new direction of Donne research, pointing out that the application of new theories and interdisciplinary studies will make the outcomes of Donne research richer.