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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 30 general entries.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Donne, John
His constancy. He also leaves his tears to women or the sea; his pensiveness to buffoons; his faith to Roman Catholics; his patience to gamesters; his sickness to physicians; and his English tongue to foreigners. The principles by which he gives are: to those who had too much before, to those who have an incapacity, to those that count the gift an indignity, and to those who taught him the gift. I'll leave you to work out which category each gift falls into!
To nature, he left 'all that I in rhyme have writ' and for that we are richly blessed!
Autumn. He tells us in 'The Autumnal':
'No Spring, nor Summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.'
and again:
'But name not Winter-faces, whose skin's slack;
Lank, as an unthrift's purse; but a soul's sack.'
He likes mature, but not actually old, women!
| Donne also wrote some beautiful religious poetry. On what day did he compose the lines
'But that Christ on this Crosse did rise and fall,
Sinne had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I'almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for mee.
Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye;
What a death were it then to see God dye?' | The Poetry of John Donne
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Good Friday. The poem is entitled 'Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward.' Donne meditated on the events of Good Friday - Christ's crucifixion - and is glad he did not have to suffer watching Christ suffering on our behalf.
| Probably the best known section of Donne's writing is not actually poetry. What famous novel stole its title from Donne's 'Meditation 17'? | The Poetry of John Donne
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For Whom the Bell Tolls. Ernest Hemingway took his title from this great, and oft-quoted, observation of Donne's:
'No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee'
A marriage poem. Donne describes the poem he wrote for the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine as 'an epithalamion or marriage song.' The pair were married on St Valentine's Day and so the poem begins
'Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy diocese,
And all the chirping choristers,
And other birds are thy parishioners;'
| Donne wrote a number of poems addressed to individuals. One, to Mr I.L. includes the line 'Your Trent is Lethe'. Who, or what, are Trent and Lethe? | The Poetry of John Donne
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rivers. The river Trent runs through the Midlands but the river Lethe was, according to Greek mythology, one of the rivers running through Hades, which brought forgetfulness or oblivion. Donne refers in the same poem to the Po, the Sequan and the Danube rivers. The Sequan is probably an old name for the Seine.
| Possibly Donne's most explicit poem is 'To His Mistress Going To Bed' - the title says it all! Can you complete the line?
'License my roving hands and let them go before, behind, between, above, below. O my America! My...' | The Poetry of John Donne
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new-found-land. Donne was writing around the time when the first Puritans were leaving England to form settlements in America. Newfoundland had itself been claimed by England in 1497, a hundred or so years earlier.
| 'Come live with me and be my love' is the first line of 'The Bait'. Which other poet began a poem with this line? | The Poetry of John Donne
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Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe's poem is entitled 'The Passionate Shepherd to His Lover' and the first verse is:
'Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.'
| 'Busy old fool, unruly sun...' Which group of people does Donne NOT suggest as more suitable objects of the sun's intrusion than the lovers in 'The Sun Rising'? | The Poetry of John Donne
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Idle princes. Donne concludes the poem by suggesting that for lovers, their bed rather than the sun is at the centre of the orbit!
"Thou hast made me" (Holy Sonnet I). The "old subtle foe" (sin) is so tempting that the speaker cannot resist through his own power.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Batter my heart" (Holy Sonnet XIV). Donne sometimes used sexual imagery in his religious poetry. In this case, being enslaved or raped by another express the speaker's need to be forcefully taken by God's power.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"And burn me, O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"I am a little world made cunningly " (Holy Sonnet V). These lines express a similar idea found in "Batter my heart" (Holy Sonnet XIV). Paradox: being eaten, which would usually result in an item being completely used up, here becomes a means of restoration with God. These lines allude to Psalm 69:9 -- "zeal for your house consumes me".
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feeble flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Thou hast made me" (Holy Sonnet I). The speaker feels terror because he believes his sin will keep him from heaven. He feels trapped between despair and death.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Death, be not proud" (Holy Sonnet X). The speaker belittles Death because it has no control of its own. Death is controlled by kings who order execution, by desperate men who kill themselves or others, by anyone who uses poison or is sick. Fate and war also control Death.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Batter my heart" (Holy Sonnet XIV). A viceroy is a governor, a representative of a king. Thus, Reason, God's viceroy in the speaker, should enable the speaker to avoid sin. However, the viceroy is held captive and cannot provide the necessary guidance.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"But black sin hath betray'd to endless night
My world's both parts, and O, both parts must die." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"I am a little world made cunningly " (Holy Sonnet V). The speaker claims that both his physical and spiritual parts have been betrayed by his sin. The physical damage might be disease while the spiritual damage could keep him from eternity with God.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Batter my heart" (Holy Sonnet XIV). These lines present a paradox. In order to be a new person, complete and acceptable to God, the speaker must be broken and overthrown.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday." | John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Thou hast made me" (Holy Sonnet I). The speaker asks God to forgive (repair) his sin since death is nearing.
| From which sonnet are these lines taken?
"From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow."
| John Donne - Holy Sonnet Quotes
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"Death, be not proud" (Holy Sonnet X). When at rest or asleep, a person appears dead. Donne argues that if rest and sleep bring pleasure, then death must be even more pleasurable; thus, death should not be feared.
"The Sun Rising". The woman is everything to the man. "Nothing else is." --- Blessed is the woman who is loved like this!
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Canonization". A common theme in poetry, these lines immortalize the lovers in verse.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Ecstasy". The new soul created when two people love one another is able to combat loneliness.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Sun Rising". The rising and the setting of the sun are immaterial for lovers since their focus is on one another. Even time itself is irrelevant to them.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Flea". Donne intertwines sexual and religious language in these lines. The speaker is "killed" each time he reaches sexual fulfillment, and he uses religious language ("sacrilege") in his efforts to keep the woman from killing the flea.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Alas, alas, who's injur'd by my love?
What merchant's ships have my sighs drown'd?
Who says my tears have overflow'd his ground?" | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Canonization". The speaker wonders who is bothered by his love; he affects no one but himself. This stanza ends with the lines "Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still/Litigious men, which quarrels move,/ Though she and I do love."
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Sun Rising". How could the sun be so rude as to shine into the bedroom and wake the couple? The speaker demands the sun go bother people who should be awake early in the morning and leave the lovers alone.
"The Canonization". This line always makes me smile because I imagine the man's facial expression. He is exasperated with the woman because she won't shut up while he is trying to show his love for her.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Ecstasy". These lines emphasize the unity and intimacy of the couple as they look into one another's eyes.
| From which poem are these lines taken?
"Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas! is more than we would do." | John Donne's Love Poetry
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"The Flea". "This" refers to the flea which has bitten both the man and the woman and is, thus, swelling with their blood. This swelling of the flea is "more than we would do" because he does not intend to impregnate the woman.
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