JOHN DONNE - PRINCIPAL FEATURES, THEMES

letteratura inglese

JOHN DONNE

LANGUAGE:

Was different from Elizabethan period:

  unconventional

  colloquial

  direct to shock the reader 545j93f

TONE

  irreverent

  harsh ( duro )

  striking

RHYTM

  broken

  irregular ( recall the colloquial speech )

WORDS

  difficult

  taken from any kind of field

  concrete

PRINCIPAL FEATURES

  conceit Is a figure of speech that uses concrete images to convey an abstract ideas

It is organically developed in his poetries

He starts from the particular, concrete, physical to general, abstract, spiritual,  

Universal

  wit ability to use strange metaphors

  paradox a statement that seems absurd, but that expresses a truth

  pun a play on words based on different meanings of words that sound alike

  simile comparison between two different elements using the words "like" or "as"

  metaphor comparison between two different elements without "like" or "as"

THEMES

  DUALITY IS FUSED IN ONE that period was full of contrasts and of development (that was faster than people's adaptation), so there was confusion and anxiety. John Donne experimented this situation and wanted to find a solution : putting all contrasts together to find a new balance through a compromise (fusion of old and new WORLD)

  A NEW CONCEPTION OF LOVE combination between spiritual and physical love, and also in holy sonnets between sacred and profane. (At first he lived a licentious life but than he converted to the Protestantism and became a dean )

Statement _ affermazione

Dean _ diacono