| John Donne's Songs and Sonnets do not describe a | | | | leads Donne to express a condescending attitude |
| single unchanging view of love; they express a wide | | | | towards physical love in this poem which is in marked |
| variety of emotions and attitudes, as if Donne | | | | contrast to the attitude he expressed in To his |
| himself were trying to define his experience of love | | | | Mistris Going to Bed.But O alas, so long, so farre |
| through his poetry. Love can be an experience of the | | | | Our bodies why doe wee forbeare? |
| body, the soul, or both; it can be a religious | | | | They'are ours, the though they'are not wee. Wee |
| experience, or merely a sexual one, and it can give | | | | are |
| rise to emotions ranging from ecstasy to despair. | | | | Th'intelligences, they the spheare.But in reading |
| Taking any one poem in isolation will give us a limited | | | | Donne one soon learns that an attitude expressed in |
| view of Donne's attitude to love, but treating each | | | | one poem is not to be taken as absolute and |
| poem as a fragment of a totality of experience, | | | | exclusive. One of Donne's characteristics is that he |
| represented by all the Songs and Sonnets, it gives us | | | | freely contradicts himself from one poem to another. |
| an insight into the complex range of experiences that | | | | The title of this poem, The Extasie, implies that love |
| can be grouped under the single heading 'Love'.In To | | | | is a religious experience, just as the diction of To his |
| his Mistris Going to Bed we see how highly Donne | | | | Mistris Going to Bed conveyed sex as a religious |
| can praise physical pleasure. He addresses the woman | | | | experience. The religious metaphors give a hyperbolic |
| as:Oh my America, my new found lande, | | | | intensity to his imagery, but the ideas expressed in |
| My kingdome, safeliest when with one man man'd, | | | | The Extasie are firmly rooted in the scientific theories |
| My myne of precious stones, my Empiree,The | | | | of his day.Donne's view that spiritual love can be |
| images are of physical, material wealth, and anyone | | | | attained through physical love ties in with the |
| reading this poem alone would think Donne's interest | | | | contemporary theory of the 'chain of being'. Angels, |
| in women was limited to the sexual level. He | | | | presumably, could experience a totally spiritual love, |
| describes sex in terms of a religious experience; the | | | | unadulterated by the physical. But man, being part |
| woman is an 'Angel', she provides 'A heaven like | | | | divine and part animal, can only reach the spiritual |
| Mahomet's Paradise', and the bed is 'loves hallow'd | | | | level through the sensual.So must pure lovers soules |
| temple'. But this is not a love poem; nowhere does | | | | descend |
| he say that he loves the woman, or that sex is part | | | | T'affections, and to faculties, |
| of a deeper relationship.In The Extasie Donne | | | | That sense may reach and apprehend, |
| conveys a very different and more complex attitude | | | | Else a great Prince in prison lies.The inherent |
| to physical pleasure, when it is just one part of the | | | | superiority of the spiritual level, and the part love can |
| experience of love.This Extasie doth unperplex | | | | play in refining man's nature towards the spiritual, is |
| (We said) and tell us what we love, | | | | expressed in these lines:If any, so by love refin'd, |
| Wee see by this, it was not sexe, | | | | That he soules language understood, |
| Wee see, we saw not what did move . . .Love's | | | | And by good love were grown all mindeCopyright: |
| mysteries in soules doe grow, | | | | Ian Mackean |
| But yet the body is his booke.The body and the soul | | | | Mackean runs the sites which features a substantial |
| are distinct, but related aspects of the totality of | | | | collection of Resources and Essays, (and where his |
| love. The uniting of souls is the purest and highest | | | | site on Short Story Writing can also be found,) and |
| form of love, but this can only be attained through | | | | He is the editor of The Essentials of Literature in |
| the uniting of bodies.Soe soule into the soule may | | | | English post-1914, ISBN 0340882689, which was |
| flow, | | | | published by Hodder Arnold in 2005. |
| Though it to body first repaire.This focus on the soul | | | | |