Like Crashaw , John Donne ( 1573-1631 ) , the giant among the metaphysical poets, experienced the religious controversy from both sides of the fence. Born and raised a Catholic, Donne became an Anglican, in which faith he took holy orders. From the evidence of his poetry, his vision of doctrine did not belong totally to either Catholicism or Protestantism.
In 1593 , when Donne was in his 21st year, his brother died of the plague , contracted during an epidemic at Newgate Prison where he was incarcerated for sheltering the Catholic priest William Harrington, who was hanged, drawn and quartered. In about 1597 Donne became an Anglican. His secret marriage in 1601 to Ann More, niece by marriage to his employer , Sir Thomas Egerton , Lord Keeper of the Great Seal , cost him his employment. Until he took Anglican orders in 1615, he was without regular occupation, struggling to survive with a wife and a young family. His poetry contains several references to the Blessed Virgin, some cautious; others more forthright. In his poem Upon the Annunciation and Passion falling upon one day, Donne is venturesome. He writes:
She ( the speaker's soul ) sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclus'd at home, Publique at Golgotha.
Sad and rejoyc'd shee's seen at once, and seen
At almost fiftie, and at scarce fifteene.
At once a Sonne is promis'd her, and gone,
Gabriell gives Christ to her, He her to John
Not fully a mother, Shee's in Orbitie,
At once receiver and the legacie.
all this, and all betweene, this day hath showne,
Th'Abridgement of Christs story, which makes one
(As in plaine Maps, the furthest West is East )
Of the Angels 'Ave' and Consummatum est. [It is accomplished)
( 11-22 )
This poem was written "on the last day of 1608, as that was counted, i.e. March 25, 1609"
( Grierson 1985: xli ) . The feast of the Annunciation is celebrated on 25 March; nine months before Christmas Day. When Good Friday falls on the same day, the poet conflates the Annunciation and Good Frday. This is why Donne thinks ( and makes the reader think too) of Mary as, on the one hand, not fully a mother ( 17 ) , since the Annunciation only predicted the birth of Christ, and on the other hand bereft of her Son because the Crucifixion took place on the same day. The leap from one to the other and back again is what initially tinges the poem with enigma. Once this is clarified, it is possible to comprehend Donne's metaphysical conceit that the two events, like the two feastdays, happened together, with no time lapse between Annunciation and Crucifixion, so that, although Mary has not yet had time to become a mother to Christ, He is already dying, giving her as mother to John, the disciple "whom Jesus loved" ( John XIIV:23 ) as a legacie ( 18 ) . In this way Donne creates a scene of confusion - an imagined one - around her, because of the calendar, and describing her as in Orbitie ( 17 ) . Pursuing this ploy of deliberately confusing the reader, the poet further challenges the latter's intellect; aggravating the apparent enigma by his use of strong contrasts, such as Reclus'd . . . Publique ( 12 ) , Sad and rejoyc'd ( 13 ) , at almost fiftie and at scarce fifteene ( 14 ) , promis'd . . . and gone ( 15 ) and receiver and the legacie ( 17 ) . The poem is a more intellectual advance on the mediæval theme of Mary as being simultaneously mother, daughter, wife and sister of God. Like Milton, Donne is showing his intellect but with a difference; Milton's cleverness may be seen as destroying the picture of a real event, while Donne does not pretend to describe a real event ( though he gives us two ) but presents an imagined confusion, which amounts to a sort of wonderment by the speaker's soul at the great roles Mary played, and still plays in his religion.
Donne deals more realistically - certainly more immediately understandably - with the subject of the Blessed Virgin in his poem The Litanie, 1 in which he calls Mary:
. . . that faire blessed Mother-maid
Whose flesh redeem'd us; that she-Cherubin
Which unlock'd Paradise, and made
One claime for innocence, and disseized sin [dispossessed]
( 37 - 40 )
The reference to the unlocking of Paradise ties up with the Biblical text ( Genesis III: 24 ) which tells of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Paradise :
And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of
pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way,
to keep the way of the tree of life.
After audaciously adding that Mary's womb was a strange heav'n, for there/God cloath'd himselfe, and grew. ( 41 - 42 ) , Donne goes a step further in daring and adds; Our zealous thankes we poure. ( 43 ) , and clearly manifests his belief in the intercessional powers of the Blessed Virgin in his concluding lines :
. . . As her deeds were
Our helpes, so are her prayers; nor can she sue
in vaine, who hath such titles unto you ( God ) .
( 43 - 35 )
Donne's intellect and his metaphoric eloquence are evident in the imagery of the Divine Babe, cloath' (ing) himselfe ( 42 ) in the enclosure of the Blessed Virgin's womb. The poet's legal background - he entered at Lincoln's Inn as a law-student in Mary 1592 ( Grierson 1985 : xiv ) is revealed in the precision and economy of his expression. By representing the Blessed Virgin's powers of intercession as those of an advocate, suing on behalf of his client , while in his own right possessing title ( 45 ) to the judge who occupies the Bench, Donne likewise bears witness to his legal training.
ANNUNCIATION 2
Salvation to all that will is nigh
That All which always is All everywhere;
Which cannot sin, and yet, all sins must bear;
Which canno die, yet, cannot choose but die -
Lo, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie
In prison in thy womb; and though he there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet, he'll wear
Taken from thence, flesh, which death's force may try.
Ere, by the spheres time was created, thou
Wast in his mind - which is thy Son and Brother
Whom thou conceivest - conceived; yea, thou art now
Thy Maker's Maker and thy Father's Mother:
Thou has light in dark, and shut in little room
Immensitie, cloistered in thy dear womb
( 15 - 28 )
Donne's legal precision of expression is manifest in his Marian poem, La Corona, of which Annunciation is the second of seven stanzas, all composed in sonnet form and, but for the introductory one, all comments on events in Christ's life. In Annunciation, Mary is hailed as the faithful Virgin, who was conceived by God and has herself conceived God.
As in some of his other works, effective use is made of contrast in this sonnet, which, like most of Donne's metaphysical poetry, is taxing to the intellect and requires concentration to analyse. Christ, the immortal, dies for sin ( 18 ) , he lies in prison in th (e) womb ( 20 ) , yet created time by the spheres ( 23 ) . Christ, the sinless, suffers for sin ( 21-22 ) . Christ as Creator-God, creating all, including the Blessed Virgin and her role in His Plan, conceives ( 25 ) Mary, though in human terms she conceives Him. Mary, His daughter, becomes His mother ( 26 ) . The darkness of her womb is lit up by Christ's eternal light ( 27 ). The tiny space in her dear womb cloisters immensitie ( 28 ) . The depiction of the Blessed Virgin's womb which houses immensity is a far cry from Watkyns' description of it as being neither soft nor brave.
1 The Litanie - John Donne : Stanza V. The Virgin Mary : For that faire blessed Mother-maid - Grierson 1985 : 309/10
2 Annunciation - John Donne: Holy Sonnets: La Corona - Donne 1985:290
Dr Luky Whittle
Edited by Catherine Nicolette
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