Ecstasy By John Donne Overview Expresses his unique

Ecstasy By John Donne

Overview � Expresses his unique and unconventional ideas about love. � Theme pure, spiritual or real love can exist only in the bond of souls established by the bodies. = Body Soul True Love

True Nature of Love � The communication of the souls of lovers reveals the true essence of love. � Love is not sex-experience. It is rather a union of two souls. � Each soul appears to keep its identity The fusion of the two souls is the real consummation of love. � The new soul is composed of ‘atoms’ which are beyond decay. Just as the essence of the individual is not the body but the soul, in the same way, the essence of love is not sex but mutual dependence and affection. � The body is no dross, but an alloy necessary for pure metals to become stronger. The body is the channel for the souls to inter-communicate with each other.

Is Love physical or spiritual? � To this old and complex question, Donne has a satisfactory answer. Love is dependent both on the soul and body. Love has to be concretized. � This is possible only through the physical play of love. Donne feels that physical love is enriched by the mutual understanding of the souls of the two lovers. Spiritual love is not possible in a vacuum. Like heavenly beings who influence the actions of men through manifestation, the souls must express themselves through the bodies. � Finally, the poet feels that love ripens in the soul. As such, physical love and holy love are complementary. If some lover observes the poet and his beloved, he will hardly find any change in their behavior when the lovers return to their bodies.

Setting � The first stanza provides the physical setting of the two lovers. On the bank of a river over grown with violet flowers, the lovers sit quiet, looking into each other’s eyes and holding hands firmly. � This physical closeness offers a romantic and pastoral setting—their hands cemented in mutual confidence and the eyes as if strung on a thread. � This sensually exciting scene is a forerunner to the actual physical union. � The poet compares the two lovers to the two armies. The souls are like the negotiators. They are not committed to either side. Only those who are gifted can understand the dialogue of the two souls, and realize the true nature of love.

ANALYSIS Stanza 1 Where, like a pillow on a bed A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest The violet's reclining head, Sat we two, one another's best. � Passionate scene as the backdrop for the lovers to embrace � described in erotic terms � reference to pillow, bed and pregnancy suggest sexuality � image of violets symbolizes faithful love and truth � holding each other’s hand looking intently into each other's eyes � “one another’s best” each person complement’s the other

Stanza 2 Our hands were firmly cemented With a fast balm, which thence did spring; Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread Our eyes upon one double string; �Sweaty palms �a sign of repressed physical attraction �and our eye-beams (conceived as lines of light from the eye rather than to the eye) intertwined and threaded our sight together as if on a double string.

Stanza 3 So to'intergraft our hands, as yet Was all the means to make us one, And pictures in our eyes to get Was all our propagation. �Their eyes meet and reflect the images of each other, and their sights are woven together

Stanza 4 As ‘twixt two equal armies, Fate Suspends uncertain victory, Our souls (which to advance their state, Were gone out) hung ‘twixt her and me. �souls are outside their bodies negotiating like 2 armies. �Their bodies meanwhile are motionless

Stanza 5 And whilst our souls negotiate there, We like sepulchral statues lay; All day, the same our postures were, And we said nothing, all the day �Just as the outcome of a battle is uncertain where the opposing armies are of equal strength, our two souls,

Stanza 6 If any, so by love refin'd That he soul's language understood, And by good love were grown all mind, Within convenient distance stood, �Only the person refined by love could understand the language they speak to each other in those silent moments

Stanza 7 He (though he knew not which soul spake, Because both meant, both spake the same) Might thence a new concoction take And part far purer than he came. �The entire section stresses equality �Donne departs as a “purer” soul as when he first came.

Stanza 8 This ecstasy doth unperplex, We said, and tell us what we love; We see by this it was not sex, We see we saw not what did move; �They move with the help of the bodies. Body is the medium of contact of the two souls. Therefore, the lovers turn to their bodies and try to understand the mystery of love. Body is the medium to experience love

Stanza 9 But as all several souls contain Mixture of things, they know not what, Love these mix'd souls doth mix again And makes both one, each this and that. �Just as all individual souls are a mixture, of unknown qualities, Love re-mixes these mixed souls to make one soul that yet contains both souls, so that each is also the other.

Stanza 10 A single violet transplant, The strength, the colour, and the size, (All which before was poor and scant) Redoubles still, and multiplies. �a metaphor of a transplanted violet to show two souls can be inter animated and how this "new" soul can repair the defects of each of the individuals souls.

Stanza 11 When love with one another so Interinanimates two souls, That abler soul, which thence doth flow, Defects of loneliness controls. �Two souls as one �Abler: especially capable or talented

Stanza 12 We then, who are this new soul, know Of what we are compos'd and made, For th' atomies of which we grow Are souls, whom no change can invade. �lovers know what they are made of so no change can invade them �Unified abler soul which longs for union which may allow peace �“New soul” created when Donne and his lover’s soul mingle

Stanza 13 But oh alas, so long, so far, Our bodies why do we forbear? They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are The intelligences, they the spheres. �Questions why we reject our bodies �Although the soul is the intelligence, the bodies are spheres which control them

Stanza 14 We owe them thanks, because they thus Did us, to us, at first convey, Yielded their senses' force to us, Nor are dross to us, but allay. �Thanking the body for the service of bringing the soul to yield their senses �Bodies are vessels, not impurities that weaken us �They strengthen us

Stanza 15 On man heaven's influence works not so, But that it first imprints the air; So soul into the soul may flow, Though it to body first repair. �The influence of the heaven imprints the air so that our souls can flow out from the body

Stanza 16 As our blood labors to beget Spirits, as like souls as it can, Because such fingers need to knit That subtle knot which makes us man; �Blood makes ‘spirits’ which help marries the body and soul, in order to make us man

Stanza 17 So must pure lovers' souls descend T' affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great prince in prison lies. �Souls must give in to the affection that our body provides us with

Stanza 18 To'our bodies turn we then, that so Weak men on love reveal'd may look; Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book. �Implies that sex is the love revealed �Also suggests that love is grown in the soul (importance of the soul) �True love resides in the soul

Stanza 19 And if some lover, such as we, Have heard this dialogue of one, Let him still mark us, he shall see Small change, when we'are to bodies gone. �Sex is the result of a spiritual union and it strengthens the emotions instead of the bond �Emphasizes the importance of the souls’ union over sex