Love's Alchemy

Love's Alchemy:

Some that have deeper digged love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:
I have loved, and got, and told,
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery;
Oh 'tis imposture all:
And as no chemic yet the elixer got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befall
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,
Shall we, for this vain bubble's shadow pay?
Ends love in this, that my man,
Can be as happy as I can; if he can
Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom's play?
That loving wretch that swears,
'Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,
Which he in her angelic finds,
Would swear as justly, that he hears,
In that day's rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.
Hope not for the mind in women; at their best
Sweetness and wit, they are but mummy, possessed.

OVERVIEW:

The speaker admits that those of whom have loved greater than him and experienced more enriching relationships claim to know where their happiness come from, whilst the speaker has also loved, got and told within his relationships but has not found happiness, and pessimistically is adamant that he never will. However, he then goes on to exclaim that it is all fraudulant and that no man have found total happiness within their relationship, just as no chemic has found the elixer of life, but claims happiness wonder in pregnancy. He claims that those who claim to have found true happiness and love are merely dreaming, and infact their sex-life is cold and unsatisfying.

The speaker then brings the poem back to his own relationship and praises the ease and honour he finds within the relationship, and asks why the lovers should pay for living in their private, intimate, loving microcosm, just because it makes all other relationships seem insignificant in comparison? He advises men with the secret of such a fulfilling relationship - to endure the scorn he will experience on his wedding day and to be quietly content in his relationship - not necessarily happy though. He criticises the 'loving wretch' who believes that minds and intelligence marries and not the physical bodies, and ridicules him for claiming he finds her heavenly and angelic, in an attempt to elevate their love beyond others (self-criticism of his previous poems?). His closing statement advises men not to seek mind in women, claiming that other than sweetness and wit, they are stagnant creatures.

VERSIFICATION:

-2 X 12 line stanzas - simple, straight-forward way of expressing his personal views as though they were fact or monumental.

-Inconstant metre and rhyme scheme - with Donne's manipulation of the structure reflective of the complex toil involved in the alchemic chemistry of love.

-Use of mainly iambic pentametre, enjambment and caesura - reflects natural speech, easily understood, as though the speaker is addressing and advising other men on the female counterpart.

-Rhetorical Questions - not used for purpose of expressing arguement and stimulating agreement from the audience, but instead show uncertainty and lack of conviction.

IMAGERY:

-Love's mine - physical act of sexual intercourse, entered deeper into each other's hearts, reached a greater understanding of each other - whilst also implicitly suggesting the male speaker's possession of the woman.

-Winter-seeming summer's night - paradoxical image of lovers experiencing lapse of a cold and passionless sex-life, even during the steamy summer nights.

-Vain bubble's shadow - The vain view and attitude that all other relationships are eclipsed by their mighty relationship, which defies all social expectations and exists independantly in its own intimate microcosm or bubble.

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES WITH 'DUCHESS OF MALFI'

-In both texts, both the speaker of the poem and the Duchess elevate their relationship above all others, with Donne emphasising the ease and honour of his relationship, and the Duchess claiming the relationship is better as it defies social class and the conviction that 'men are often valued high when they are most wretched'.

-Elizabethan fascade usually meant that men often felt scorn for women, such as the brothers' displeasure with the Duchess, however in the play they don't outwardly express this disdain, whilst in all of Donne's poems he will dismiss all formalities and air his outward views, be it only to the intimate circle of friends who were his audience.

-The somewhat characatures of the brothers in the play act on their views, whilst from what we can tell, Donne didn't - using his poetry as a way of venting his emotions without acting on them, so he was merely a scriber of the surpressed views of men in the 1th century.