Air and Angels

There are several themes present in the poem “Air and Angels” by John Donne and each carries a particular meaning. While giving a summary of all of the themes in “Air and Angels” by John Donne is nearly impossible given the multiple possible interpretations, at the least, it is best to identify the themes that are most prominent, including love and the world of the flesh versus spirit worlds. The influence of Shakespeare, particularly his sonnets, are clear in “Air and Angels” as many of the same themes are explained and explored. In the poem, “Air and Angels” love is represented as being something higher than human thought and comprehension.
In “Air and Angels’ love is something that transcends the flesh and the human body is merely a vessel for this potent emotion. Love in this poem is not represented as a feeling that is strictly based on outside or shallow perceptions of beauty but rather, it is projected onto the object of the affection in a pure and spiritual sense. Through using specific images and compounding themes and meaning throughout the poem “Air and Angels” by John Donne, the reader gets the sense that even though the speaker seems to have a notion of the power of love, he is not quite able to grasp it or give it the form and shape he seems to desire.
These ideas of form and shapelessness as a theme in “Air and Angels” by John Donne are interwoven by language that is at once “earthly” and heavenly. This poem accomplishes its task of questioning the relationship between the ethereal and intangible nature of a “pure” emotion by placing the idea of love in a number of different contexts. It is at once compared and contrasted and interposed onto the human form, then is placed in connection with the heavy connotations associated with ballasts and boats, and then, by the end, it is “freed” because it is associated with angels who are thought to be in their most pure form when appearing as air.
The mix between this world of the flesh and the world of the