Loves exquisite versatility gives it freedom to exist in whatever form it wishes, whether it is Eros, Phillia, or Agape. This versatility is the source of much of the emotions sparked by love. These great emotions aroused through personal experience inspire many of the enlightened to portray love in their works. One such artist was the poet John Donne. John Donne was an exceptional metaphysical and love poet of the seventeenth century. He is best known for his vivacious and passionate poetry that captured the hearts of many during his lifetime and continues to captures the hearts of many. In the following two poems: The Ecstasy and Loves Deity, John Donne conveys his views on love and its sincerity in the world.
The Ecstasy is a poem that spiritualizes the experience of sex by portraying it as the joyful union of two souls. In stanza three, Donne shows that touching hands and uniting their bodies was all that they needed to bring their souls together so they could see the same dreams. In stanza four, their souls advance their state and leave their bodies meeting between them as one. Donne shows how their bodies were sepulchral statues while their souls merged. Donnes choice of the words sepulchral statue gives the body a very negative connotation making it sound like a useless entity. In stanza five, their love for each other allowed their souls to speak to each other and grow in love. In the sixth stanza, he knew not which soul spake, /Because both meant, both spake the same. Since the souls are united, he is uncertain about which soul speaks to him but this does not matter because they speak the same thoughts. The alliteration in soul spake and spake the same stresses that both the souls had the same thoughts and therefore spoke the same words. The spiritual union of these souls makes them one for all eternity. In the eighth paragraph, Donne implies that they have sex not because they enjoy the physical pleasure but because of they love the love their souls experience. The break in the pattern of four line stanzas in the seventh and eighth stanzas suggests that here was where Donne stresses his main idea of the union of souls. In the fourteenth and fifteenth stanzas however, Donne reminds us in an apostrophe that our bodies are our possessions and although they do not make our spirits, they still play a role in bringing our spirits together. In the nineteenth stanza, Donne suggests that love exists in the soul and our bodies hold our souls. In conclusion to his poem, Donne explains that since love is not physical but spiritual, it is eternal because even if the body withers away, the soul will live forever.
In Loves Deity, Donne suggests that love is not a preplanned course of action or written in the stars. Donne explains that love is a mutual emotion of two souls that are rapt in nothing but passion for each other. In the first stanza, Donne wonders how a person found love before the god of love (possibly Cupid) existed and how this person was sure that she loved him back. He wonders whether this person would stoop sp low as to love someone who didnt love him back because he knew that God had produced a destiny for him. Donnes sarcastic tone in this stanza suggests that he mocks the idea that ones destiny overpowers a strong emotion such as love. It suggests that Donne does not wish to leave destiny to choose his love for him. In stanza two, Donne stresses that even if God were to put actives and passives together, the actives being those who loved the other person and the passives being those who did not, it would not be considered love because it is a one-way relationship. It is interesting how Donne portrays those who love as being actives and those who dont as being passives. In the third stanza, Donne stresses the power of the god of love making him seem like a very powerful being. His vast prerogative as far as Jove. /To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, / All is the purlieu of the god of love. However, in the same stanza, in an apostrophe, he says that even if the god of love confronted him with all this power, he would not love someone who does not love him. In his final stanza, Donne stresses that even a Rebel and atheist should love a person who loves them back. Donne says that even if it takes so long that he has to give up on finding love, he will still refuse to love someone who does not love him back, and neither will he love a person forced to love him because Falsehood is worse than hate. He would rather be hated by a person than have the person love him out of duty. At the end of each stanza, Donnes strong rhyming couplets reinforce the poems theme that love is a two-way relationship, which can never be arranged.
The Ecstasy and Loves Deity give readers a very sincere view of love through the eyes of the poet into the hearts of the readers. John Donnes poems give meaning to the sentiment of love and portrays it not as the meeting of two people but as the union of two souls that are as much a part of one as the other.
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