A Feminist Analysis of John Donne’s Selected Poems

Name: Dr. Panchali Mukherjee

Designation: HoD & Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, T. John College.

Mobile Number: 09731077998

E-Mail Id: panchali.mukherjee@gmail.com

Name: Ms. Anjali P. Perumayan

Class/Semester: IVth Semester B. A. (JEP)

College: T. John College

Mobile Number: 8151031433

E-Mail Id: anjaliperumayan@gmail.com

Name of the Supervising Teacher: Dr. Panchali Mukherjee

Designation: HoD & Assistant Professor, Department of Languages, T. John College.

Mobile Number: 09731077998

E-Mail Id: panchali.mukherjee@gmail.com

Abstract

John Donne (1572-1631) the father of metaphysical poetry, a prominent figure in the history
of English Literature, who brought together the opposites and even his works were a
breakaway from the tradition. The way women were represented in his elegies, poems
etcetera is an aspect that needs explanation. Living in the Jacobean Age, Donne wrote love
poems and elegies addressed to his lady love, patrons and mistresses. He went on to describe
them as objects of pleasure or beauty and as a gender that was subjected to many emotional
turbulences due to their position in a patriarchal society. The women in Donne’s poetry are
weak, cunning and very submissive.

The poems such as “The Sunne Rising”, “The Flea”, “Go and Catch a Falling Star”, “Elegy:
On His Mistress” and “Elegy: To His Mistress Going to Bed” are examples where women are
represented in the abovementioned manner. To study this representation of women by the
poet theories of feminism and male gaze were applied on the poems.

The feminist critical theory says how women were portrayed as objects whose intellectual
and reasoning powers are not acknowledged at all leading to the objectification and the
commodification of women. Even in his love poems the female character has no voice of her
own rather the male character identifies her by her appearance and beauty. The research paper
attempts to deconstruct the binary oppositions that are applied to gender differences and
women are always seen on the negative side of it.
The paper also attempts to apply the theory of “Male Gaze” on the poems. It is a term coined
by modern film critic Laura Maulvey in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
‘Male Gaze’ defines how women are looked at and displayed as erotic objects both for the
character within the story and for the spectator who identifies with the male protagonist and
derives a sense of pleasure and omnipotence from it.

John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England.
He is considered to be an eminent representative of the ‘School of Metaphysical Poetry’ so
much so that he is referred to as the ‘Father of Metaphysical Poetry’ due to his contribution to
this kind of poetry. His poetry includes sonnets, love poems, devotional poems, Latin
translations, epigrams, elegies, satires and sermons. Some of his poems such as “The Sunne
Rising”, “The Flea”, “Go and Catch a Falling Star”, “Elegy: On his Mistress” and “Elegy to
His Mistress Going to Bed” may be subjected to a feminist analysis and may be projected
through the lens of Feminism. Feminist Criticism “is a specific kind of political discourse: a
critical and theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism…”
(Moi 204). When John Donne’s above mentioned poems are perceived through the prism of
‘Feminist Criticism’ they are found to be embodying a lopsided discourse that has its
foundation in patriarchy and sexism although they are known for their exquisite sensual
beauty. In the poems such as “The Sunne Rising”, “The Flea”, “Go and Catch a Falling Star”,
“Elegy: On His Mistress” and “Elegy to His Mistress Going to Bed” the speaker is the poet
narrator or the poet persona who is a man although all these poems except for “Go and Catch
a Falling Star” are addressed to his beloved who is a woman but the voice of the woman is
successfully silenced as nowhere in these poems the readers are able to know about the
beloved’s emotions or feelings or about her opinions regarding whatever the lover is saying.
The poems except for “Elegy: On His Mistress” do not provide any clues to her identity or
existence as in the above mentioned poem the addressee is said to be the poet’s wife Anne
More. In “Go and Catch a Falling Star”, the poet narrator constructs a gender stereotype
related to women and states that if an individual travels through the whole world till his hair
turns grey he will not be able to swear an oath that he ever found a fair and faithful woman
during his travels:

If thou be’est born to strange sights,

Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, then thou return’st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair. (“Go and Catch a Falling Star”)
The comment is basically on women’s inconstancy in general and no exception is made to the
generalisation thereby endorsing the gender stereotype.
The women are stereotyped either as representatives of a higher and purer nature such
as angels or as representatives of darkness and chaos such as vamps. In the poem “Elegy to
His Mistress Going to Bed”, the poet describes his mistress as an angel who comes to him in
white robes and brings to him all the pleasures found in Mahomet’s paradise thereby
stereotyping her as an angel and exalting her to a higher station but not perceiving her as a
woman with an identity or with any kind of individuality. Thus, the discourse embodied in
the poems construct long lasting stereotypes.
Femininity is a social construct that signifies the patterns of sexuality and behaviour
imposed by cultural and social norms. Thus, feminine represents nurture and female
represents nature. Femininity is a cultural construct: one isn’t born a woman, one becomes a
one, as Simone de Beauvoir puts it (Moi 209). In the poem “Elegy: On His Mistress”, a
feminine code of conduct is prescribed by the poet narrator to his wife on the eve of his
departure to the continent, sometime in 1611. He tells her not to disguise herself as a boy, not
to change her dress or her mind and not be different from what she really is. All people
should be able to see a feminine grace in her. These are all patriarchal injunctions which are a
part of the feminine code of conduct that the wife is expected to follow as she is a woman and
any kind of transgression is liable to lead to serious consequences and an extreme form of
chastisement. She is asked not to disguise herself as a boy as it may subvert the established
power dynamics associated with the domains under gender thereby giving the woman agency
under the guise of a man and also bringing the woman from the margins to the centre of the
power structure which is not acceptable to patriarchy.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
Thy body’s habit, nor mind’s, be not strange
To thy self only; all will spy in thy face
A blushing womanly discovering grace; (“Elegy: On His Mistress”)
In the poem, on the other hand there is no model code of conduct for the man that is dictated
by the woman.
The sexual objectification of women or commodification of women by men refers to
primarily perceiving women as objects of sexual desire or as commodities thereby
dehumanizing them in the process by disregarding their identity as women. In the poems of
John Donne, women are seen as mere objects of sexual desire rather than as human beings
with identity. In “The Sunne Rising”, the lover blatantly objectifies the beloved when he talks
about the beauty of her eyes that is expected to have blinded the sun and not of any other
quality of the beloved other than her looks. He states:
If her eyes have not blinded thine, (“The Sunne Rising”)

In the above mentioned poem, the poet states:

She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is. (“The Sunne Rising”)
In the above mentioned lines, the poet narrator or lover dehumanizes his beloved and reduces
her to the status of a commodity and asserts that he is in possession of that commodity. In this
case, the beloved symbolises all the kingdoms or states whereas the lover symbolises all the
princes who own those states. Thus, the beloved who is a woman is shown to be passive and
in the possession of the lover who is a man with agency as he owns the beloved.
 In “The Flea”, the poet urges the beloved for a sexual union thereby establishing the
beloved’s body as primarily an object of sexual desire. He also states that she will not lose
her honour if she yields to him just as she hardly lost any blood when the flea had bitten her
(“The Flea”) thereby presenting the beloved as an object of sexual gratification.

In “Elegy on His Mistress Going to Bed”, he objectifies and commodifies the body of
his mistress thereby portraying it to be an object of sexual desire. He provides a detailed and
luxurious description of her body that he wants to discover thereby projecting her once again
as an object of lust. He asks her to undress and come to bed and tells her that she is an angel
who excites his sexual impulse (“Elegy on His Mistress Going to Bed”). He also
commodifies her by stating,
O my America, my new found land,
My kingdom safeliest when with one man manned,
(“Elegy on His Mistress Going to Bed”)

Thus, the beloved’s identity is dehumanized and she becomes a passive possession of the
man with agency who owns her. In this example, the woman’s body is foregrounded as an
object of sexual pleasure and her identity is dehumanized or disregarded.

The French feminist Hélène Cixous in “Where is she?” talks of death dealing binary
opposition such as Activity/Passivity, Culture/Nature, Head/Emotions or
Intelligible/Sensitive etcetera. These binary oppositions are imbricated in the patriarchal
value system and each opposition can be analysed as a hierarchy where the ‘feminine side’ is
seen as the negative, powerless instance (paraphrased from Moi 210). In all the poems of
John Donne, the woman’s voice is silenced thereby upholding the above mentioned binary
oppositions and relegating women to the negative and powerless instance of death-dealing
binary opposition. In “Go and Catch a Falling Star”, where the poet is commenting on the
fidelity of women and displaying them in a poor light for the inconstancy in them but in the
very same poem the women are not given an opportunity to explain themselves or counter the
allegations as levelled by the poet against them thereby showing them to be passive.
‘Male Gaze’ is a term coined by the feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975. This
term has been introduced to define the way in which women were portrayed in Hollywood
films. According to Laura Mulvey the media showcased women as an object of the male gaze
and desire. The women were presented as erotic objects of desire on the screen. The term
‘male gaze’ has been introduced by the feminists to illustrate the position of women in the
society especially in the modern era (“The Patriarchal Gaze”). John Donne’s poetry when
analysed in the context of ‘male gaze’ is perceived to be embodying the gaze of the poet
narrator or the lover which is typically a male gaze that has its roots in eroticism and the
focus of the gaze is the beloved who is projected as an erotic object. In the poem “Elegy to
His Mistress Going to Bed”, the lover states that all joys will belong to the beloved when she
is fully naked, just as souls enjoy full freedom and happiness when they leave their bodies
similarly the naked bodies are free to enjoy their pleasure thereby urging her to be completely
naked so that her body becomes a feast for his eyes and he is able to satiate his sexual urge
initially through his visual sense.
 The poetry of John Donne may be branded as sexist poetry as a result of the treatment
meted out to the women characters in his poems. The analysis elucidates the fact that the
above mentioned poems go a long way in establishing gender stereotypes, the feminine
model code of conduct, sexual objectification and commodification of women, the binary
oppositions that project women as negative and powerless instances and finally the male gaze
that perceives women as mere erotic objects. The poems do not attempt to give a voice to the
women characters neither do they try to explore the identity and individuality of women. The
model code of conduct that women are expected to follow have no control over men. The
poems although exquisite pieces of art are thus perceived to be strongly rooted in sexism and
patriarchal ideology.

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Ed. Ted Buchholz. Bangalore: Prism Books

Private Limited, 1993.

Cixous, Hélène and Clément, Catherine. La Jeune Nèe. Paris.

Gardener, Helen Louise, ed. The Metaphysical Poets. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1960.

Moi, Toril. “Feminist Literary Criticism.” Modern Literary Theory. Ed. Ann Jefferson and

David Robey. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1986. 204-233.

“The Patriarchal Gaze.” Femtheory Journals. 17 February 2016.

http://www.tulane.edu/~femtheory/journals/paper7.html.