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The Religious-Metaphysical Conceit in Donne’s Poetry

John Donne, English poet and priest of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, is

generally considered to be the most influential figure of a particular school of poetry which

was identified and named by other critics as “metaphysical poetry”, long after Donne’s death

(“Introduction”). Metaphysical poetry is characterised by its wit through the special use of

extended metaphors, which are called “metaphysical conceits” (Gardner 42). Donne, a devout

Christian, generally mixed his love for a particular person and his love for God in his poems,

sometimes by using religious concepts in the description of his love for a woman, sometimes

by describing his ultimate devotion to God in the fashion of love between a man and a

woman, and sometimes by using the church-woman metaphor ("The Early Seventeenth

Century”). The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of metaphysical conceits of amorous

love and divine love, which are mixed together, in some of Donne’s poems: “Satyre III”,

“Holy Sonnet XVIII”, “Elegy VI”, “Holy Sonnet XIV”, “the Canonisation”, and “the

Relique”.

Poets such as John Donne, George Herbert and Abraham Cowley were described as

“metaphysical poets”, by Samuel Johnson in his book Life of Cowley (“Introduction”).

Although it was an unfavourable description, for the first time a relatively more detailed

definition of this particular type of poetry, was made by Samuel Johnson (xv). Johnson finds

the type of conceits in such poems to be discordant analogies of apparently unlike things and

admits he does not favour them (xvi). Earlier than Johnson, in his Discourse on Satire and on

Epic Poetry, Dryden argued that Donne “affects the metaphysics, not only in his satires, but in

his amorous verses, where Nature only should reign; and perplexes the minds of the fair sex

with nice speculations of philosophy, when he should engage their hearts and entertain them

with the softnesses of love." (Gutenberg.org). Until the late 19th century, there seemed to be a

continuing feeling of dislike and condescension towards “metaphysical poetry”, which can be
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observed in many critical writings regarding the matter (“William Minto”). However, with

further inquiries made by later critics, this type of poetry later came in to the favour of readers

in 19th and 20th centuries (“Introduction”).

Like many other metaphysical poets’ works, Donne’s poetry is not easy to understand

with its extensive use of metaphors and seemingly far-fetched analogies. In order to be able to

comprehend the concepts and terms, and to grasp the meanings of his analogies, one has to be

intellectually alert while reading (Swan). According to Herz:

Metaphysical poetry argues; it is complex and intellectual, and it depends on

surprise (but in Donne’s case, a surprise that the poem often makes true).

Dexterity, inventiveness, the pleasure of and in the word, and the fusion, often

exorbitant, of the carnal and the spiritual, of body and soul: these are certainly

the essential ingredients of metaphysical wit. (105)

According to Gardner, “[a]rgument and persuasion, and the use of the conceit as their

instrument, are the elements or body of a metaphysical poem” (quoted in Swan). At this point,

the definition of the term ‘conceit’ gains importance. However, there is an abundance of

criticism but little consensus on a clear definition for ‘conceit’ (Alden 129-132). Alden argues

that a metaphor creates an “imaginative flash” in the mind of the reader, such as the

comparison of teardrop to pearl, as in Shakespeare’s sonnet: “Ah! but those tears are pearl

which thy love sheds,” (1). But Shakespeare goes on to elaborate the metaphor by saying

“[a]nd they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds,” (2). Alden suggests that, by Shakespeare’s

further advancing of the teardrop-pearl metaphor in the following lines of the poem, “the

metaphor has been elaborated to form a conceit” (135). As a result, not only an analogy is

created, but it is further expanded to become a separate mental progress that requires the

reader to fully comprehend its understanding, making the analogy of different concepts less
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important than “the process of elaboration” (135). Other literary figures such as

personification, simile and pun can be used to create a conceit, in a similar fashion to that of

metaphor (135-136). According to Alden,

Now if the details of the symbolic development are related to each other so

closely as to form a single vivid imaginative whole, we say simply that we

have a perfect piece of symbolism, or a perfect allegory; but if they are so

complicated or incongruous as to require a bit of special reasoning to make

them intelligible, they may be said to take on the nature of a conceit. (136)

Alden suggests a working definition for conceit, which is going to be the structural

base for analysing Donne’s poetry in this paper: “the elaboration of a verbal or an

imaginative figure, or the substitution of a logical for an imaginative figure, with so

considerable a use of an intellectual process as to take precedence, at least for the moment, of

the normal poetic process.” (137)

As I have mentioned earlier, John Donne lived in a period of time extending from the

late 16th to the early 17th centuries, which was a politically and culturally turbulent period in

the English history (Post 1-3). Late 16th century marked the reign of the Protestant queen

Elizabeth I, which was a troubling time for non-Conformist families such as Donne’s (2-8).

Donne, who was originally Catholic by birth, later conformed to the Anglican Church (8-9),

but he did not deny his Catholic roots: ‘‘as I am a Christian, I have beene ever kept awake in a

meditation of Martyrdome, by being derived from such a stocke and race, as, I believe, no

family (which is not of farre larger extent, and greater branches,) hath endured and suffered

more in their persons and fortunes, for obeying the Teachers of Romane Doctrine, then it hath

done’’ (quoted in Post 2). Donne adopted an all-embracing approach towards the two warring

denominations of Christianity: Catholicism and Protestantism (Shell and Hunt 65), and he
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held a rather liberal understanding towards the notion of religion itself, by using “[s]exualized

metaphors for religious activity” (79). This might result from “Donne’s search for common

ground between the denominations”:

It is a critical commonplace that Donne insistently links religion and woman –

often with the effect of ironizing religion and denigrating women, thus picking

up on the double-edgedness implicit in St. Paul’s original description of the

Church as the spouse of Christ. In this marriage, Christ remains the unerring

point of reference, but since the Church is only the aggregate of believing

mankind, she can be portrayed as a foolish wanderer, a glorious unspotted

bride, or anything in between. (79)

In his “Satyre III”, he uses “female personifications of the Church” (80). The poem

begins with Donne’s appeal to the reader’s conscience by simply asking this: “Is not our

Mistresse faire religion,” (5). Donne compares the value of virtue in the pre-Christian times,

to the values taught by Christianity, stating that virtue was as valuable to the pagans as

Christian doctrines are valuable to the Christians. As pagans lacked the information the

Christians have, he argues that humans “should fear to be judged by God for being worse than

the pagan philosophers were” (Crossref-it.info). Donne states that “the fear of damnation” is

the “true courage” that one should follow: “This feare great courage and high valour is.” (16)

Donne goes on to describe the great dangers and challenges that one who is in search of the

“true religion” could face: wars, storms, ice and fire, dungeons, and the most dangerous of

them all, the joys of the flesh. He pleads the reader to “seek true religion”, and gives examples

of the searchers (41). Mirreus, representing the Roman Catholics, knows that “she” (true

religion) is at Rome, because “That she was there a thousand years ago” (46). Crantz,

representing Calvinists, “loves her only, who at Geneva is called/ Religion, plain, simple,

sullen, young” (50-51). Graius “stays still at home here” (55), he is the Anglican who prefers
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the Anglican Church because “Some preachers, vile ambitious bawds, and laws/ Still new like

fashions, bid him think that she/ Which dwells with us, is only perfect, he” (56-58). Phrygius,

the agnostic, rejects them all because “Knowing some women whores, dares marry none.”

(64) And, the religious relativist Gracchus loves them all (Shell and Hunt 80), for he believes

“As women do in divers countries go/ In divers habits, yet are still one kind,” (66-67). So,

which one is the truth? Donne advices the reader not to wildly react, but to “doubt wisely”

(76), because the truth is not easy to attain to:

May all be bad; doubt wisely, in strange way

To stand inquiring right, is not to stray;

To sleep, or run wrong is. On a huge hill,

Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will

Reach her, about must, and about must go;

And what the hill's suddenness resists, win so; (76-81)

Donne admits that there is a tough road ahead for the one who searches, but if one does not

find true religion, he is doomed: “Yet strive so, that before age, death's twilight,/ Thy soul

rest, for none can work in that night,” (82-83). Donne advices not to “blindly follow the

authority of human rulers and leaders; it is better to suffer persecution (as Donne's own family

had done so harshly) than to risk losing one's eternal soul, by obeying human authorities

rather than God” (Crossref-it.info).

According to Shell and Hunt, the characterisation of different religious beliefs in

“Satyre III”, “presents various satirical characters whose imprudence in courtship reflects

their religious delusions”: Mirreus goes after “a mistress last seen a thousand years ago and
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Graius, “like a ward of court wishing to avoid financial penalties, takes a wife simply because

his guardian proffers her” (80). Donne depicts churches as women, and believers as men who

have to choose the right one among them. He does not simply create characters out of

concepts, but he also creates an allegory about the war on religion. The allegory of comparing

women to church (religion), at first sight, seems far-fetched, and it requires a certain amount

of knowledge as well as the ability of reasoning on the part of the reader. Thusly, Donne

creates a conceit by elaborating a complex set of analogies through the use of personification

and metaphor, which requires logical process more than a simple allegory.

In a similar fashion to that of “Satyre III”, Donne employs the “woman\church

metaphor” in his “Holy Sonnet XVIII” (Shell and Hunt 80). He likens the Church to the bride

of Christ by using “St. Paul’s original description of the Church” and asks Christ which one is

the right one: the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestant Church (79-80), and appeals

directly to Christ:

Show me deare Christ, thy Spouse, so bright and clear,

What! Is it She, which on the other shore

Goes richly painted? Or which rob’d and tore

Laments and mournes in Germany and here?” (1-4)

He further advances the analogy of two churches and women, by asking Christ if his spouse is

in England or they do have to travel to Rome to find her: “Dwells she with us, or like

adventuring/ First travaile we to seeke and then make Love?” (9-10) He goes on to ask Christ

to present his bride to the eyes of Christians so that they can find her and bask in her beauty:

Betray kind husband thy spouse to our sights,

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And let myne amorous soul court thy mild Dove

Who is most trew, and pleasing to thee, then

When she is embrac’d and open to most men. (11-14)

In this poem the comparison of the Church to the “Spouse of Christ” is quite explicit and the

conceit is quite coarse, for Donne depicts “the Church as Christ’s prostituted spouse” and

“Christ himself as complaisant cuckold” (Shell and Hunt 80). He elaborates the metaphor of

Church as Christ’s spouse, by asking Christ where to find her, and if he did find her, he asks

her to be presented to many people, thus turning the metaphor into a conceit.

According to Guibbory, “Donne brings politics and religion into his erotic poems.”

(139) “Elegy VI” starts with Donne’s resigning from “his unrewarded service to his cold

Petrarchan mistress” (139): “Oh, let mee not serve so, as those men serve/ Whom honours

smoakes at once fatten and sterve;/ Poorely enrich’t with gret mens words or lookes;” (1-3).

The metaphor he employed in the first three lines can be read as both romantic and political at

the same time, however, “[t]he third term, religion, enters the poem as the speaker refuses to

be one of ‘‘those Idolatrous flatterers’’ (5) and speaks of his mistress as his ‘‘Purgatory’’ (13).

She has been not only ‘‘faithlesse’’ (13) (inconstant? lacking the true faith?) but ‘‘traiterous’’

(28) and destructive, burning or drowning the victims she lures with her embrace.” (Guibbory

139) She (the mistress who is addressed to) ambushes her victims to return but then she kills

all the hopes, which can be seen as “a trope for love-suffering but also a reality for some

persecuted Catholics, including members of Donne’s own family” (139). Here, there is not a

consistent analogy of either politics-love or religion-love within the whole of the poem,

however, there are such metaphors that can be considered to be so (139-140). At the end of

the poem, Donne warns his mistress to cease hurting him, for it would only lead to his falling

apart from her:

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As nations do from Rome, from thy love fall.

My hate shall outgrow thine, and utterly

I will renounce thy dalliance: and when I

Am the Recusant, in that resolute state,

What hurts it mee to be’excommunicate? (42-46)

Donne mixes sexual behaviour with religious concepts in other ways than his various

uses of the church-women metaphor. In his “Holy Sonnet XIV”, Donne depicts the

relationship between God and himself (the speaker) as a kind of master-slave relationship. He

appeals to the Christian God (Holy Trinity), not to be so gentle but more violent with him:

“Batter my heart, three-personed God; for, you/ As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to

mend” (1-2). He asks God to enter him with violence, like one enters and sieges a city:

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end, (3-6)

He states that his “reason” keeps him away from God, but it is weak compared to God’s

might: “Reason your viceroy in me, me should defend,/ But is captived, and proves weak or

untrue,” (7-8). He admits that he loves God, but he is “... betrothed unto your (God’s) enemy”

(9-10), which might be his “reason”, the Satan, or even a worldly spouse. He asks God to save

him from his bondage and take him away, because he knows that he can never be free if God

does not possess him completely and that he can never be “chaste” if God does not enthral

him:
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Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthral me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. (11-14)

There are two metaphors in this sonnet: “the speaker’s heart as a captured town, and

the speaker as a maiden betrothed to God’s enemy” (Sparknotes.com). Donne’s speaker

personifies God as a powerful ruler and conqueror of cities, and considers himself as his

feeble but unyielding subject, who needs God’s complete dominion over himself in order to

understand God’s true power. Then he elaborates the metaphors and personifications to form

a conceit, which depicts man’s ultimate devotion to God. The poem also, has a violent

language with powerful verbs such as “batter”, “overthrow”, “bend”, “force”, “break”,

“blow”, “burn” and “ravish”, which highlights the nature of a violent relationship between

God and men.

In the poem “the Canonisation”, Donne employs a different kind of conceit: he

idealises love and puts it on the religious plane. Firstly, Donne appeals to the reader not to

criticize him, but just let him love: “For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love,” (1).

He asks the reader not to judge his words, before considering his state of mind: “Contemplate;

what you will, approve,/ So you will let me love.” (8-9) He goes further on justifying his love,

by stating that his love never hurt anyone: “Alas, alas, who's injured by my love?/ What

merchant's ships have my sighs drowned?” (10-11) In the third stanza, Donne starts to clear

his case with the various types of metaphors:

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly,

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We are tapers too, and at our own cost die

And we in us find the eagle and the dove, (19-22)

By comparing their togetherness to the mythical bird phoenix, who regenerates itself from its

own ashes, he further elaborates the metaphor. Donne states that they “... can die by it, if not

live by love” (28). And they would survive in verses, because a well written verse can be as

much memorable as a magnificent tomb is:

And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

As well a well wrought urn becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs, (29-34)

And thusly, their love is canonised: “And by these hymns, all shall approve/ Us canonized for

love” (35-36). In the last stanza, Donne beseeches to God to exalt them to where they belong

so that others can bestow them: “Countries, towns, courts: beg from above/ A pattern of your

love!” (44-45)

In “the Canonisation”, Donne carries his relationship with his lover to the spiritual

plane, by asking to be canonised and he employs several metaphors to create a conceit.

Canonisation is granted only to great people “whose lives have been marked by the exercise

of heroic virtue” (Newadvent.org), and from that definition we can say that Donne compares

the mutual love, which requires lovers’ complete devotion to one another, to the divine love.

After that point, he furthers the metaphor: the lovers merge into each other, and they are
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reborn as “one”: “By us; we two being one, are it./ So to one neutral thing both sexes fit/ We

die and rise the same ...” (24-26), and as a result of this unity they are made “Mysterious by

this love (27). According to a critic, “[t]hese words may imply the mystery of marriage as it

reflects the relationship of Jesus and his church, as stated by Paul in I Corinthians. Indeed, the

new union is unsexed even though it incorporates both sexes: ‘to one neutral thing both sexes

fit,’ just like in Christ there is no longer any male or female (Galatians 3:28).”

(Gradesaver.com) In the end, lovers are bestowed with the gift of “canonisation” through the

oft-cited verses of their legend. According to Guibbory, “Donne’s figurative language makes

sexual love sacred, suggesting that it offers an experience of transcendence, a taste of the

divine” (142). By creating an allegory of martyrdom out of ‘the saint of love- saint of God’,

Donne sanctifies the concept of secular love.

In “the Relique”, Donne, again compares the sanctity of love between a man and a

woman, to the divine love. The poem begins with a striking image: a grave is broken into, and

the one who digs it, finds “A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,” (6). The poet lies in his

grave with a piece of his lover’s hair, so that they could meet again “on the last busy day”, the

Judgment Day (10). In the second stanza, the poet fantasies about what might happen to him

and his lover:

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then, he that digs us up, will bring

Us, to the Bishop, and the King,

To make us relics; then (12-16)

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He imagines that they would be canonised as saints, admired by men and women alike; thus

letting the miracle of their love to be cherished. In the third (last) stanza, he underlines the

innocence of their love: “...we loved well and faithfully” (23) without the awareness of the

“difference of sex” (25), just like the heavenly creatures, the “angels do” (26). Donne goes

further on developing this metaphor, by stating that their “hands ne'er touched the seals,/

Which nature, injured by late law, sets free” (29-30); seals meaning “sexual contact”

(Neboliterature). He concludes with the miracle of such a love: “These miracles we did; but

now alas,/ All measure, and all language, I should pass,/ Should I tell what a miracle she

was.” (31-33)

In “the Relique”, Donne uses a quite dazzling and captivating imagery: a grave is dug

up to find the bones of two lovers, mingled through “a bracelet of bright hair ...” (6), giving

their love an immortal quality. And he furthers it by saying that these bones will then be

carried out of the grave to be sanctioned as a miracle. According to a critic, there is more here

to ‘the miracle of love’ metaphor:

When he (Donne) refers to a “land/where mis-devotion doth command” he is

referring to countries not touched by the Reformation. In such countries the

bones of saints and martyrs were venerated and were believed to work miracles

of healing. In Protestant England this no longer applied. In such a country,

then, the supposed grave—digger, instead of leaving them alone to wait for the

Last Day, would take the bones to the Bishop or the King and have them

officially declared to be the relics of saints, and so able to work miracles.

(Neboliterature)

By Donne’s use of the word “mis-devotion” (meaning mistaken devotion) to refer to the lands

where the Reformation did not reach, it can be reduced that Donne is disparaging their
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ignorance. However, Donne still continues to exalt the concept of miracle and relics, by

comparing his lover to the saint “Mary Magdalene”, who has a special place among all the

other saints because of her closeness to Jesus Christ (Smithsonianmag.com). Then he develops

the comparison by underlining the divine aspect of their love. The miracle of their love is that

it is pure and innocent without the notion of sexual gratification, which makes their love

divine, because they are pure of sex, just like the “angels” in heaven (26). He concludes the

comparison by stating that there are no words to describe “what a miracle she was.” (33)

In “the Relique”, generally, Donne makes use of religious concepts belonging to the

Catholic faith to elaborate the conceit. He integrates divinity to love by stripping it of its

carnal quality, therefore making it easier for the reader to grasp the analogy. According to

Guibbory, in “the Relique” as well as in “the Canonisation”, “Donne captures the truth that

there is something mysterious about intimacy.” (143) Because “[l]ove, like birth, feels

miraculous.” (143) There are conflicting circumstances surrounding the poem’s imagery,

when the historical facts of the time it was written in are considered:

The Reformation had reduced the sacraments from seven to two (Baptism and

Communion), redefined them as ‘‘signs’’ rather than instruments of grace,

abolished monasteries, got rid of saints, and forbade the worship of saints,

relics, and images. All of these appear in Donne’s celebrations of love. The

experience of intense, reciprocal, committed erotic love offers spiritual

fulfilment and access to the divine, much as in the Roman Catholic Church the

sacraments provided avenues for grace. Donne’s representation of love as both

sexual and spiritual is an erotic reworking of the Catholic understanding that

body and soul, material and spiritual are inseparably linked in the world, in

devotion, and in the Sacrament. His poetic representation of love evokes the

Protestant/Catholic conflicts of his time, while suggesting that only erotic love
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(and the bedroom) is a site of peace and unity, a ‘‘temple’’ (‘‘The Flea.’’).

(Guibbory 143-144)

Donne’s poetry defies the Petrarchan sonnet tradition which was prominent in his

time, with its complex spiritual and sexual nature (Hadfield 145). In a manner of speaking, it

can be said that, Donne took the woman from the pedestal on which the Petrarchans had put

her, and placed her in the bed. This can especially be said about his “love poetry”, which

“embraces human sexuality and celebrates the experience of love”, by giving love a “religious

significance” (Guibbory 142-145). Also by drawing complicated analogies between carnal

love and divine love, and women and religion, he creates seemingly far-fetched metaphors

which can be misinterpreted by readers, if they are not studied carefully and read thoroughly.

This is mostly the reason why Donne’s poetry was not appreciated after his death, in the way

that it truly deserved, even by important critics such as Samuel Johnson and John Dryden.

Donne’s poetry, with its acute wit and sometimes bawdy-sounding language, “overturned

conventional pieties with his witty libertinism, but his boldest intervention was representing

erotic love as a spiritual experience that provides fulfilment the public world, and even its

religious institutions, cannot.” (Guibbory 142) He places romantic love with religion by

giving it a divine quality. Therefore he defies “the Christian tradition that distrusted the body

and sexuality”, by merging carnality and spirituality of love (144). He disregards the

“Christian association of sexuality with sin”, although there are certain instances that

contradict this theory (145).

Donne’s literary style and the architecture of his verse mark a special place for him: he

makes use of certain literary tools such as personification, metaphor and simile, in order to

create vivid allegories that are not, at first sight, intelligible. But through the mental process

that is required on the reader’s part, almost everything falls into its place, and perfect
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examples of “metaphysical conceit” are discovered. His poetic wit, ingenuity and originality

make him a leading figure in the school of metaphysical poetry.

Having lived in an age of drastic changes in religious understanding that resulted in

cultural and social developments, Donne’s poetry seems to resonate with its age, through its

ambiguities and complexities. These circumstances add a distinctive quality to his poetic wit,

which altogether makes Donne and his poetry an interesting field of study both for historians

and for men of letters, who wish to examine a great period in the English life.

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