The Songs and Sonets of John Donne: an Essay on Mutability

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1967 The onS gs and Sonets of John Donne: an Essay on Mutability. Barbara Ann Maynard Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Maynard, Barbara Ann, "The onS gs and Sonets of John Donne: an Essay on Mutability." (1967). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1304. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1304 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received ^ 13,999 MAYNARD, Barbara Ann, 1935- THE SONGS AND SONETS OF JOHN DONNE: AN ESSAY ON MUTABILITY. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1967 Language and Literature, general Please note: Name in vita is Barbara Kehoe Maynard. University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE SONGS AND SONETS OF JOHN DONNE: AN ESSAY ON MUTABILITY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Barbara Ann Maynard M.A., Louisiana State University, 1959 May, 1967 FOREWORD The number of poems included in the Songs and Sonets varies from editor to editor; accurate dating of the poems is impossible. Hence, various editors choose to arrange or divide the poems according either to the demands of their theses or to the studied arrangement made traditional by H. J» C. Grierson. 1 have chosen to divide the poems into two groups-- the negative and the positive. This organization is used to clarify and reinforce the central thesis. It is not a product of textual criticism. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT 1 gratefully acknowledge the assistance given to me by Professor Thomas A. Kirby and Professor Lawrence A. Sasek, I am particularly indebted to the patience, for titude, and exceptionally careful criticism of Professor Esmond L. Marilla, my advisor and my friend. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWARD .............................................. ti ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................... ili ABSTRACT .............................................. v I. CHAPTER ONE ..................................... 1 The Origins of Che Renaissance Concept of Mutability II. CHAPTER TW O .................................... 35 The Negative Poems III. CHAPTER THREE .................................126 The Positive Poems IV. CHAPTER FOUR ..................................225 A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................... 233 VITA ..................................................238 iv ABSTRACT In his mythologies, philosophies, and imagination man has constantly evidenced an awareness of mutability. During the years 1580-1627 this preoccupation was made acute by the convergent forces of the Renaissance, Reform ation, and emergent science. Because of certain philosophical views--mainly the reciprocal correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm and the placement of man on the great chain of being--man was able to see how mutability was operable in various areas of existence. Thus the perverse and seemingly inconstant elements of man could quite possibly indicate their parallel on a larger scale. Of the many treatises on the subject, the most optimistic approach to a reluctant acceptance of the concept was that despite the awareness of immediate change, a greater constancy prevailed. It was thus possible for man to find positive relatedness to his universe, his community, and to himself. To the Renaissance mind, one major cause of mutability, whether in the universe or in microcosmic man, was the lack of balance of the formative elements. For permanence to exist, it was essential that the four elements be equalized. With this equality came meaning and direction to existence. A perfect state of nature was one in which there was no seasonal variation. But, as man empirically noted, there v were seasons, and for some time this observation served as proof of a degenerate world. However, another view emerged which in fact said that although there was un deniable inconstancy within the shifting seasons there was a larger constancy prevailing in that yearly cycles were predictable generalizations. By analogy man could reason that even though many times he could not immediately detect this constancy, by inductive logic derived from what was observable, he could assume that such constancy did in fact exist even though he was often unable to ap prehend it. The writings of John Donne reflect this emotional and intellectual confusion, explicitly in his sermons and Devotions and implicitly in his Songs and Sonets--poems concerned with the achievement of constancy in love. An awareness of mutability is apparent not only in his imagery but also in his tone and dialectic. His cynicism reflects an inherent belief in the transiency of the flesh as well as fleshly passions. The poems contain a search for mean ing and stability within the love relationship, a relation ship which often seems inherently fated to inconstancy, fated due to the natural decay of the body through age and death, absence, and infidelity caused by a disharmony of affection. The poems can be divided into two groups, the negative vi which investigate various causes for infidelity and the positive which assert means to procure a lasting affection. Although both depict conflicting attitudes toward the love union, in the summary poems such as "A Valediction: for bidding mourning," "The Canonization,11 and "The Ecstasy," Donne achieves a reconciliation of seemingly disparate qualities and his lovers realize a permanence of their union. They do this by subordinating the senses to the intellect, that aspect of man which is immortal. Donne explains how the tension of the body and the soul is maintained. For in love, as in the elements which form the Renaissance universe, an imbalance of parts pre determines mutability. The negative poems make this clear. In the positive poems the lovers, through sheer intellectual affinity and an almost mystical annihilation of ego, sustain an equality of affection in all phases of their existence and find that their love endures often beyond the grave and ultimately in its undying memory which is vitalized by succeeding lovers. vii CHAPTER I The Origins of the Renaissance Concept of Mutability "And the woman said, The Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." (Genesis, 4, Id.) Christian mythology attrib utes its temporal distresses and discomforts to the care less eat ins; of a forbidden fruit. And contingent upon this fatal meal, together with the expulsion from the Garden of Paradise, man fled east of Eden to inherit a hostile earth reluctant to bear fruit, a land newly harsh and unresponsive to his wishes. because he was doomed to suffer privation and death, his finiteness appeared most manifest. The perfection and the simplicity of the order of his prelapsarian state was lost, and his future was one of insecurity, confusion, impermanence, mutability and decay. But long before a Hebrew scribe recorded the activ ities of our bucolic forebears, pagan mythology had al ready answered man's questionings concerning the temporal ity of his state, for inquisitive Pandora had opened the fateful chest and released mankind's torments. And Homer, drinking deep of the sacred well, more than once commented on the imperfections of human nature, and repeatedly re marked upon the inevitability of death. Also, in his des criptions of the Elysian fields, where seasons do not change and temperaments are eternally gentle, he illustrates 1 2 a profound awareness that stability is an ephemeral gift; the fortunate truest to these fields was brought solely at the whims of the deities. Likewise, the Greek tragedians consistently uttered choric homilies to remind their audiences of the frailty of human nature, its utter impotence before the strength of the ordered lottos. whose changeless direction men but futilely seek. There is the constant reminder that all things on earth are subject to change, and in order to survive divine or temporal retribution man must apprehend the illusive absolutes which will preserve him. Thus, tragedy upon tragedy occurs because of the weakness of the human mind, subject both to corruption from without (Ate) and to corruption from within (hamartia). Existence in this moral and intellectual confusion is adequate matter for tragedy. The Greeks comprehended the problem, if not the solution to it. Hence, in both our pagan and Christian mythologies, we see attempts to explain the lot of man, why he must live a life of physical suffering and emotional turmoil, and why he must inevitably experience physical death. The answer to this question involves several areas of in vestigation, chief among them the concept of mutability. And very generally, we can say that mutability is change, a movement from one state to another. Logically, an al teration can be for the better as well as for the worse; but, for the most part, throughout Literature particularly, mutability has been understood in its pejorative sense. The idea of change and impermanence suggested a

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