THE AIR AND ANGELS

There are several themes present in the poem “Air and Angels” by John Donne and each carries
a particular meaning. While giving a summary of all of the themes in “Air and Angels” by John
Donne is nearly impossible given the multiple possible interpretations, at the least, it is best to
identify the themes that are most prominent, including love and the world of the flesh versus
spirit worlds. The influence of Shakespeare, particularly his sonnets, are clear in “Air and
Angels” as many of the same themes are explained and explored. In the poem, “Air and Angels”
love is represented as being something higher than human thought and comprehension. In “Air
and Angels’ love is something that transcends the flesh and the human body is merely a vessel
for this potent emotion. Love in this poem is not represented as a feeling that is strictly based on
outside or shallow perceptions of beauty but rather, it is projected onto the object of the affection
in a pure and spiritual sense. Through using specific images and compounding themes and
meaning throughout the poem “Air and Angels” by John Donne, the reader gets the sense that
even though the speaker seems to have a notion of the power of love, he is not quite able to grasp
it or give it the form and shape he seems to desire. These ideas of form and shapelessness as a
theme in “Air and Angels” by John Donne are interwoven by language that is at once “earthly”
and heavenly. This poem accomplishes its task of questioning the relationship between the
ethereal and intangible nature of a “pure” emotion by placing the idea of love in a number of
different contexts. It is at once compared and contrasted and interposed onto the human form,
then is placed in connection with the heavy connotations associated with ballasts and boats, and
then, by the end, it is “freed” because it is associated with angels who are thought to be in their
most pure form when appearing as air. The mix between this world of the flesh and the world of
the pure spirit of love are constantly playing off and one another as earthly and heavenly or
supernatural images are juxtaposed. The form that a pure emotion like love takes is the central
question and is explored in different ways throughout the poem. The best way to examine this
meaning would be to look at the very structure which is at once a unified thought process yet is
broken into two distinct ideas. There are two sections to the poem, each with its own separate
theme and use of language. The first fourteen lines encapsulate the need for emotion to be placed
in

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flesh and relies heavily on the use of “earthly” terms such as “limbs of flesh” and “parent” as
well as the fuller sense that the poet is attempting to “ground” his thoughts to the mere
earth-bound before launching into a discussion of higher things as the poem moves forward
and branches out to include the metaphysical. -------------------------------------------------

At the beginning of the second set of fourteen lines, the poem still retains a beginning that is
firmly rooted in the “real” by invoking nautical terminology such as “ballasts” and “pinnace”
which at once puts the poem in a sort of grounded and earth-bound context yet all the while
is developing the idea that love cannot be attained through such average modes. The
images of heavy “human” items such as the ballasts and boats are set against the following
lines, which are important quotes from “Air and Angels” the poem by John Donne, “Extreme,
and scattering bright, can love inhere; /Then as an angel face and wings.” The narrator
goes on to speak of love and angels as something that are of the air and not bound to the
weighty matters of the flesh and society.

Air and Angels.

Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

    Before I knew thy face or name;
    So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipped be.
    Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing did I see.
    But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
    More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
    And therefore what thou wert, and who,
        I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,

    And so more steadily to have gone,
    With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love’s pinnace overfraught;
    Thy every hair for love to work upon
Is much too much; some fitter must be sought;
    For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scattering bright, can love inhere;
    Then as an angel face and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
    So thy love may be my love’s sphere;
        Just such disparity
As is ’twixt air’s and angels’ purity,
’Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be. 

Verse 1: I loved you two or three times before I knew your face or name; so angels stir us,
appearing as a voice or a shapeless flame, and are worshipped so. And I still saw some
lovely glorious nothing when I came to where you were. But since my soul, of whom love is
the child, inhabits a body with limbs of flesh, and without that could achieve nothing on
earth, love cannot be more subtle than its own parent, and must also become material, and
acquire a body. And so I told love to find out what you were, and who, and I now allow it to
assume your body and settle itself on your lip, and brow, and in your eye.
 
Verse 2: While I thought to weight love with a body in this way, and so progress more
smoothly with its cargo of love that would overcome mere admiration, I saw I had
overburdened love’s vessel, since it is too great a matter for love to try and work with all of
your individual hairs at once, and something more suitable must be sought. For, just as love
cannot reside in nothingness, it cannot reside either in things separate and brightly
scattered. As an angel wears wings and face of air, which are not as pure as itself, but are
still pure, so your love can embody my love. The same disparity as exists between air
(material) and angel’s purity (immaterial) will always exist between the love of women (of
the body?!) and that of men (of the soul?!) 

The beginning of the poem is rather difficult to decipher, which is in many senses, the
meaning of the poem; that beauty is difficult to grasp and put into form. By the end of “Air
and Angels” however, there seems to be a resolution to the question of such formlessness
when the narrator decides in one of the quotations from “Air and Angels” by John Donne,
“As is ‘twixt air’s and angels’ purity, / Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be” since
here he concludes that love is just what he thought it was from the beginning—an idea
without boundaries, much like air—formless and supernatural even though we may try to
put it into the terms of flesh and reality. In some ways, there is actually a conflict and
resolution to the poem since the narrator at once declares in the first section quote, That it
assume thy body, I allow/And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow” yet by the end of his
thoughts he is left with the resolution that there is no way to fix the flesh to the formlessness
or “shapelessness of flame” which is, in this case, love -------------------------------------------------

John Donne's poem "Aire and Angels" points out the separation between physical love of
this world and that which is heavenly. This is, in fact, one of the many themes in Donne's
poem: ...love and the world of the flesh versus spirit worlds...

The speaker is aware of physical nature of the woman he is writing about. However, he
notes that some women seem to be not of body, but of air. "Then as an Angell, face, and
wings..."—Angels who appeared to men did so by 'assuming' a body of thickened air, like
mist... In Nicole Smith's article, "Poem Analysis of 'Air and Angels' by John Donne :
Summary of Themes and Meaning," the author notes the similarity of Donne's poetry to that
of William Shakespeare. For example, love is seen as something that reaches beyond what
can be understood by "human thought and comprehension," as it comes from heavenly
realms. For Donne, however, while the body may house the soul, it simply provides a
resting place for love. The speaker'nature of the flesh which ages over time, but looks to the
purer form of spiritual love that transcends the weak and changeable form of the flesh. So
the struggle in the poem is between physical love and spiritual love. In Shakespeare's
Sonnet 18, the speaker speaks of his love's beauty, more lovely than "a summer's day."
However, he is mindful, too, that time will take its toll on this physical beauty: Rough winds
do shake the darling buds of May.

He is aware that as time passes, her beauty will fade, for it is temporary. The first two
quatrains (four-line stanzas) make it clear that the speaker can spend his time praising her
beauty, but that in time, it will pass. The shift of the tone of the sonnet comes at the
beginning of the ninth line: But thy eternal summer shall not fade...

The author does not worry about how time will dim her beauty and that Death will eventually
take her life: he makes her immortal in the lines of his poem. He writes: So long as men can
breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Whereas Donne's poem concentrates on the lack of importance of physical beauty, looking
more toward the spiritual while in the earthly realm, Shakespeare seems to look to the
physical, but with a a realistic sense of the passing time: that the physical (as with Donne's
poem) is not the most important thing, but that the essence of the person existed within—
beneath the flesh. And more so, Shakespeare is more concerned, above all, in making this
woman immortal through his words. Donne's topics were different than Shakespeare's:

Donne is best known for his metaphysical poetry on topics as diverse as the joys of
lovemaking and humanity's subservience to God. Shakespeare:
...is the supreme interpreter of human relationships, the supreme percipient of human
frailties and potentialities. And while he was influenced by the "Christian neo-Platonism of
his day," he did not concentrate on the spiritual as did Donne, but more on the here-and-
now, while hoping by his writing to capture the essence of those he wrote about on paper,
evens observations are not based simply on the transient after time had taken its toll.
Additional Sources:

http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/donne-john
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http://www.enotes.com/william-shakespeare-william-shakespeare-5-salem/william-
shakespeare-9810000418 Air And Angels 

                     Air and Angels John Donne’s poem “Air and Angels” focuses on the medieval
beliefs respecting angels. Angels are commonly seen as messengers of God or appear as a
conventional representation of a human form with wings. A popular theory in medieval times
assumed angels under certain circumstances did assume bodies of air. The underlying
theme of this poem is on love. John Donne’s theory is that love cannot exist in nothing or in
things, but somewhere in-between. The ideal of love expressed throughout the poem takes
on a shapeless and physical form, but to John Donne, love takes on the form of air and
angels, which is the in-between. Throughout the poem, it shows love taking on two forms, a
shapeless and physical form. In the first stanza there are illustrations and clear examples
showing the two forms of love. In the first stanza of the poem the poet remembers a past in
which he loved his lady before he knew her face or name; her effect upon him is likened to
that of angles which, “so in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,” are worshipped by man. John
Donne continues his line of reasoning by remarking that the soul, a soul being the immortal
part of a human being, often regarded as immortal or the moral, emotional or intellectual
nature of a person, gives birth to love which has “limbs of flesh.” This means love must also
assume a physical form. John Donne than proceeds to say, “That it assume thy body, I
allow, And fix, itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.” This means that he is asking for love to take
the body of the woman. Again, the ideal of love taking a shapeless and physical form is
discussed, but in stanza two. The second stanza a continuation of the first stanza
advances, especially using nautical imagery. John Donne discusses the ideal of “ballast
love,” ballast meaning anything heavy carried in a ship to give stability. This ideal of “ballast
love” used by John Donne means that he had intended to steady or by so embody love.
John Donne discovered instead that the wares which he placed upon his love “would sink
admiration,” meaning his love would not please contemplation. Nautical imagery is ended
with “I saw I had love’s pinnace over fraught.” Lastly, an interesting line to point out is, “For,
nor in nothing, nor in things Extreme and scattering bright, can love inhere.” This line clearly
indicates that love cannot exist in nothing or in things, but somewhere in-between. The
question to be asked than is, what is the in-between of love? In the last part of the poem,
John Donne attempts to prove the in-between of love, which to him is through air and
angels. Where it states, “Then, as an angel, face, and wings Of air, not as pure as it, yet
pure doth wear,” indicates that it was thought angels are immaterial, but “assume” a body of
air, the least immaterial of the elements when they appear to men. John Donne realizes the
inequality between air and angels, as well as between men and women. It is seen as well,
that an angel is less material than “love’s sphere,” meaning air, so man is more material
than the sphere it takes upon, which is the woman’s love. Finally, it is apparent to see that
in, “As is ‘twixt air and angels’ purity, ‘Twixt women’s love and men’s will ever be,” that
relative purity is being represented in angels and man, while the perfection of purity is of the
air and the woman. Throughout the poem, than translated into the essay, it is clear to see
that love takes on a shapeless and physical form. Stanza one and two provided clear
illustrations of these two forms of love. Although love throughout the poem takes on a
shapeless and physical form, John Donne’s theory to love is that it cannot exist in nothing or
in things, but somewhere in-between. This in-between of love, which was clearly illustrated
by John Donne, is in fact air and angels.