Most of the poem is a speaker's account of a woman who is undressing. The speaker calls and entices the mistress to come into bed. Further, the speaker believes that he will only be in content if he engages in coitus with the mistress. The next lines describe the act of gradually undressing the woman piece by piece. He compares her pieces of attire to different things such as her girdle, which he compares to elements in the heavens. He tells of the woman's beauty and compares his exploration of the woman's body as that of the exploration of the Americas (Syminges5). He says of how he derives pleasure from viewing the mistress' body, and he finally concludes by indicating that he would begin a sexual adventure and obtain satisfaction from the whole process.
In the third part of the poem, he alludes to the nakedness conceit. In the beginning, he states, "As souls unbodied, bodies uncloth'd must be. To taste whole joyes." (Buci-Glucksmann and Baker 52) These depictions of platonic love reference spiritual love and physical sex. They connect Christian mysticism and Renaissance Platonism. Platonists had the belief that the body was the cover up for the spirit. Therefore, in ecstasy, the soul left the body momentarily to be in contact with God. Subsequently, the soul will experience true joy once it is detached from the body, so the body can know real joy only when it is unclothed (Buci-Glucksmann and Baker 52). He likens the idea of the undressing of the mistress to religious ecstasy. Donne derives from Platonic influences that depicted that rational lovers were not limited in thought by sensuality.
In the intellectual thought, the body is just a covering of the soul and thus the gems that the speaker talks of are more than just ornaments but also references of the mistress. He further depicts the throwing of Atalanta's balls. In the myth, Hippomenes with Aphrodite's help threw the balls to distract Atalanta who had declared that the winner would have to defeat her. Thus, the author succeeds in alluding that the body is covering for the soul. He also uses the allusion of beautifully covered books to depict the body and soul concept. Hence, fools will be attracted to women's bodies rather than to their souls. He compares the church's use of imagery in installing faith to women's bodies. Hence, the illiterate could acquire inspiration from the beautiful covers of books despite having the inability to read from these books. Inasmuch, the woman's body was created beautifully to bring back non-specialists to rediscover their souls.
Donne explicitly uses metaphysical conceit in his poem which involves the use of paradox and metaphor. Most of the statements are contradictory but filled with truth. One of the paradoxes can be found in the line where the speaker says, “To enter in these bonds is to be free.” He refers to enter in its sexuality form. In the line where the speaker says, O my America! my new-found-land/My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man’d/My Myne of precious stones, My Emperie/How blest am I in this discovering thee!” (Buci-Glucksmann and Baker 52) In this metaphor Donne compares the act of consummation to an adventure. The use of metaphysical conceit is a dabbling of power dynamics at the time of the composition of the poem.
In his poem, John Donne has depicted women as lowly beings with lower physical and mental capabilities compared to men. They are just part the bigger matrix of the body and the soul. He describes them as vessels and possessions to be owned by men. The mutual and necessary relationship between man and woman is similar to that of the body and the soul. Furthermore, there is interconnectedness between the physical and the spiritual. The poem is paradoxically hinged on metaphors and ambiguity, which makes it a unique piece. Donne tries to remove the need for distinction by using of religious allusions. However, ultimately readers never get to get to know of the woman's responses to the pleas of the speaker. She seems to have no control over her fate. Therefore, it is hard to determine the misogynic tendencies of the poet within the context of the poem, since further information concerning the intimacy is left out.
Works Cited
Black, Joseph, et al., eds. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Volume A. Vol. 1. Broadview Press, 2011. Print.
Buci-Glucksmann, Christine, and Dorothy Z. Baker. The Madness of Vision: On Baroque Aesthetics. , 2013. Print.
Syminges, John. "A DONNE CHRONOLOGY." A John Donne Companion (Routledge Revivals) (2014): 7. Print.
