The Canonization by John Donne
The Canonization by John Donne
Love is true and pure, a divine experience, a way to live more and to surpass even death. It is a sublime fantasy that is real and better than the material world. Love is life’s paradox. This is the idea that John Donne is expressing in the poem The Canonization. It is a reply as well as a declaration that the poet makes to the world- a world that treats lovers harshly. He scorns the worldly, he questions the inquisitive, he proves the myths true, he places his love high and announces it as canonized.
The sudden change in his tone doesn't bother if one recognizes the powerful and apt imagery he has used in the poem. The very first line ‘For God’s sake, hold your tongue, and let me love’ hits hard but certainly without any pain. In fact, it catches the interest of the reader at once. The poem is like a necklace, beaded with beautiful and grand images like, ‘What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?’, ‘And we in us find the eagle and the dove’, ‘The phoenix riddle hath more wit’, ‘The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs’, etc. These are not empty expressions as every word in the poem is linked with the central theme - love.
If we randomly pick one word from each stanza it will still prove to be in deep relation with the poem. For example, ‘improve’ (stanza 1) - one who is in love grows as an individual and improves by learning to be selfless; ‘remove’ (stanza 2) - when in love you can’t dwell on hatred, and so the negativity is removed to let the hopefulness enter in you; ‘Mysterious’ (stanza 3) – love is an easy mystery; ‘legend’ (stanza 4) – we all remember love stories as legends, sadly these are mostly incomplete ones; ‘mirrors’ (stanza 5) – love is as reflective as a mirror, etc.
Love is closely related to asceticism in the poem, which is one of the conceits used by the poet. He proves it with great subtlety that the lovers need nothing from the world; they complete each other and hence find peace in each other. The
Love is true and pure, a divine experience, a way to live more and to surpass even death. It is a sublime fantasy that is real and better than the material world. Love is life’s paradox. This is the idea that John Donne is expressing in the poem The Canonization. It is a reply as well as a declaration that the poet makes to the world- a world that treats lovers harshly. He scorns the worldly, he questions the inquisitive, he proves the myths true, he places his love high and announces it as canonized.
The sudden change in his tone doesn't bother if one recognizes the powerful and apt imagery he has used in the poem. The very first line ‘For God’s sake, hold your tongue, and let me love’ hits hard but certainly without any pain. In fact, it catches the interest of the reader at once. The poem is like a necklace, beaded with beautiful and grand images like, ‘What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?’, ‘And we in us find the eagle and the dove’, ‘The phoenix riddle hath more wit’, ‘The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs’, etc. These are not empty expressions as every word in the poem is linked with the central theme - love.
If we randomly pick one word from each stanza it will still prove to be in deep relation with the poem. For example, ‘improve’ (stanza 1) - one who is in love grows as an individual and improves by learning to be selfless; ‘remove’ (stanza 2) - when in love you can’t dwell on hatred, and so the negativity is removed to let the hopefulness enter in you; ‘Mysterious’ (stanza 3) – love is an easy mystery; ‘legend’ (stanza 4) – we all remember love stories as legends, sadly these are mostly incomplete ones; ‘mirrors’ (stanza 5) – love is as reflective as a mirror, etc.
Love is closely related to asceticism in the poem, which is one of the conceits used by the poet. He proves it with great subtlety that the lovers need nothing from the world; they complete each other and hence find peace in each other. The