| John Donne, one of the most famous British poets of 17th century, is the representative of Metaphysical school. He is also a talented and prolific poet. His works include love poems, elegies, satires, religious poems, essays, sermons, etc. It is not difficult to find that both Donne’s life and his works are characterized by a deep contradiction, in particular the contradictory attitude towards women. In many of his poems, Donne praises women as angels, divine but unreachable, but at the same time he degrades women as temptresses, beautiful but unfaithful. Sometimes, he thinks women are submissive, so they are men’s accessories that could be discarded casually, but sometimes he portrays women as men’s equals, independent and confident. In a word, Donne does not provide a unified or fixed image of women in his poetry.Through investigating the female images in his love poems, this thesis aims to examine Donne’s contradictory attitude towards women and love, and his unique solution to such contradiction. It proposes that Donne’s conflicting representation of women in his poetry results not only from his peculiar personal experiences, the social milieu of his time, but also from the literary influence of Renaissance. Finally, Donne builds up a unified world for his attitude towards women and love, and also he celebrates the combination of divinity and humanity in women and the unification of spiritual and physical love. This thesis starts with an analysis of Donne’s contradictory female images in his poetry, then it proceeds to investigate how his contradictory and complex attitude towards women and love was shaped. This thesis mainly analyzes the formation of this attitude from four aspects, his unique experiences, religious conversion, literary pursuits, and his rebellious spirit. Finally, it analyzes the nature of Donne’s unique solution to his contradiction. The author of this thesis hopes that this thesis will be of some benefit to the future research of Donne and his works. |
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