Many love poems are not actually about love; rather they are the objectification of a woman into a vessel for desire. John Donne’s poem ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’1 appears on the surface to be a poem celebrating the beauty of the female body and the joys of sex. However it is through a closer reading that we see that this poem is in fact not celebrating the woman at all, rather she becomes an object through which the speaker can achieve his desire.
By looking at Slavoj Zizek’s essay ‘Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing’2 and Susan Bordo’s ‘Unbearable Weight’ 3 we can see how Donne represents the mistress of this poem to be nothing but a blank canvas onto which the speaker projects his sexual desire. John Donne’s love poem ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ follows the speakers seduction of a woman as he gets her into bed. The speakers desire is evident throughout the poem, with iambic pentameter, rhyming couplets and metaphor all working together to create this heightened sense of desire.
The iambic pentameter gives the poem a steady rhythm, this rhythm allows the poem to flow easily and quickly from one line to the next, mirroring the speakers anticipation for sex. The rhyming couplets also work to create this flow. These couplets mirror the speakers desire to couple himself with the woman; he is marrying the lines together as one would marry the two in sex. The speaker’s intense desire and lust for this woman is also evident through his exaggerated language and use of metaphor. The bedroom becomes ‘love’s hallowed temple’4 and her body is ‘O my America!
The Essay on John Donne Flea Poem Speaker
dont have one Starting in the late 16 th Century and lasting throughout the 17 th Century, was a form of poetry that has come to be known as Metaphysical. Though not a poetic movement in the sense of having a manifesto (as did the Romantics), these poets explored similar themes such as love and religion, approaching them in a practical yet transcendent manner. One of the greatest of these was John ...
These metaphors demonstrate the intense lust of the speaker, the desire is being described as ‘a heaven like Mahomet’s Paradise’6, giving the impression that the speakers desire is as beautiful and intense as religion. In fact there is much use of religious imagery throughout the poem, creating a parallel between religious enlightenment and sexual ecstasy. These metaphors are so exaggerated and extravagant that the speaker appears to be almost entirely caught up in lust. The body of the woman has become his whole world.
The speaker is struggling to contain himself as he is almost overcome by his lust; ‘Until I labor, I in labor lie’7; until he has sex with her he will be in a pain and distress akin to that of a woman during childbirth. The use of labour’s two different meanings is another example of Donne’s use of coupling throughout the poem. He is connecting pain with pleasure, showing that the only escape from his pain is through sex as the two are inextricably linked. Strikingly, the object of the speakers affection is never really described. We get no impression of who the woman is.
There is much description of the clothes that she is wearing, ‘the spangled breastplate’8 and ‘girdle’9 but there is no description of her. The only description is a rather ambiguous description of her vagina, ‘the hairy diadem which on you doth grow’10. While a diadem is a type of crown worn on the head we get the impression that he is not talking about the woman’s head hair, but rather her pubic hair. The fact that the only description of this woman is of her sexual organ links in to what Susan Bordo writes in her essay ‘Unbearable Weight’.
Looking at the chapter ‘The body as a text of femininity’11 Susan Bordo focuses on the idea that a woman’s beauty is shaped around sex and childbearing. She focuses on the idea that although beauty ideals have changed throughout the centuries they are always in some way connected with the idea that femininity is ‘the ideological moorings for a rigorously dualistic sexual division of labour that casts a woman as chief emotional and physical nurturer’ 12. Even today the image of female beauty thrown at us is one of slenderness, which, according to Bordo, is because ‘the woman [must] learn to feed others, not the self’13.
The Essay on North America Women Men Society
With great pride, 35- year-old Sirhan describes the way in which he shot and killed his 16-year old sister, Suzanne. Cheerful and at ease, he is completely contented to tell his story. He shot Suzanne in the head four times last March, three days after she reported to the police that she had been raped. Sirhan fully believes that the rape was Suzanne's fault - her "mistake" - regardless of the ...
It also ‘carries connotations of fragility and lack of power in the face of a decisive male occupation of social space’14 . These ideas link in to the fact that only the woman’s vagina is described in Donne’s poem. She is not valued for anything except her ability to sexually please a man and reproduce. She is not a person but rather a vessel. This shows us that Donne is not writing about the beauty of the female body, but rather his own pleasure that will be achieved through this body. We see Bordo’s ideas echoed particularly in lines 27-29 of the poem; O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned, My mine of precious stones, my empery, How blessed I am in this discovering thee! 15 Here the woman’s body is compared to America, linking the conquest of a country with the conquest of seduction. Bordo writes that the idealised lady is one of ‘sexual passivity’16 and this sexual passivity is demonstrated through these lines as the female is allowing herself to be conquered. There is no evidence of any resistance, but nor is there evidence of any willingness. These lines shift the poem so that it becomes even more dominated by the mans desire.
In creating the idea that the woman is a conquest we lose any belief in the woman’s desire for the man. She changes from a partner in the act of sex into an object to be dominated, possessed. There is much use of the word ‘my’ in these lines; ‘my kingdom’, ‘my empery’ this shows that she is not seen as an equal human being but rather as a slave to be owned and used. Slavoj Zizek backs up this idea of stripping away a woman’s humanity in love poetry in his essay ‘Courtly Love, or, Woman as Thing’; ‘Deprived of every real substance, the Lady functions as a mirror on to which the subject projects his narcissistic ideal’17.
In fact ‘the Lady is never characterized for any of her real, concrete virtues’ 18, she is purely there for the males own enjoyment, ‘a kind of automaton’19. Her own vagina becomes his in the act of sex. One could even relate the Lady mentioned in this poem to a modern day sex doll, existing purely to fulfill the mans sexual desire and having no personality except for that which the man may project upon it. The poem morphs from one of love to a poem primarily about the sexual gratification of a man.
The Essay on Man Woman Family Sex Marriage One
Man + Woman = Family "The Catholic bishops of Alaska have urged their people to approve a state constitutional amendment declaring that a valid marriage may exist between one man and one woman." A decision made last February by Supreme Court Judge Peter Michalski opened the door to change the nature of marriage. It dismisses male and female sexuality as an important role in marriage. It eliminates ...
At the conclusion of the poem the reader gets a jolt of shock as we find that although the entire poem has been about undressing this woman, the speaker has become naked first. To teach thee, I am naked first; why than, What needst thou have more covering than a man? 20 This leaves the poem in a state of suspense, a constant state of undressing, neither naked nor fully clothed. The woman can never really be possessed because she is not real. Instead this is a kind of masochistic game according to Zizek.
The speaker ‘stages his own servitude’21 to the woman. While Bordo describes the females beauty to be found in her reproductive nature, Zizek looks more to the lust that comes before sex. The suspended reality just before sex in which a man craves the inaccessible lady, tries to conquer the unconquerable. She is inaccessible because she is not human, the lack of description renders her a ‘cold, distanced, inhuman partner’22 and because of this there can never really be a union between the speaker and his narcissistic projection.
And so the act of sex is never carried out, instead the foreplay ‘always remains suspended, as the endless repeating of an interrupted gesture’23. This is exactly what Donne does at the conclusion of his poem, the woman’s act of undressing is left unfinished. All that really exists of this mistress is the speakers lust for sex. Bordo and Zizek’s essays enable us to illuminate the true meaning of Donne’s poem. It is a poem, not of love, but rather of a mans lust and desire for sex. Bordo examines the lack of description of the female as an example of a mans desire purely for the females sexual organ.
Zizek on the other hand see’s it as the creation of an inaccessible, narcissistic projection of the males fantasies upon a blank canvas in an attempt to create the feelings of desire and sexual foreplay. While both ideas somewhat differ, both agree upon the fact that the woman is not depicted as a real human being in this poem. Rather the mistress is depicted devoid of any emotion or being, she is there purely as a vessel for the speakers enjoyment. In fact after viewing the poem in this way the question is raised as to whether we can even look at this as a love poem?
The Essay on Poem Woman Literature Fran Man
Fran Dorn, the host of our video, is an intellectual person who holds a special appreciation for all forms of literature. She graduated with a master's degree in theatre from a New York school and is now an actress who enjoys reading in her spare time. Fran views each work of literature as a gift. She states that literature is very hard to define and that although each reader must find his or her ...
While Donne may use beautiful language comparing the mistress to ‘heaven’s angels’ and the bedroom as ‘loves hallowed temple’ it becomes clear that there is no love felt for this woman. Rather this poem is one of lust and desire. Perhaps it is easier to look at the poem solely through the first surface reading, as a love poem celebrating his mistresses body. It is certainly more romantic than Bordo and Zizek’s opinions on ‘love’ poetry such as this. As Donne’s poem ends with a question to his mistress of whether she will fully expose herself to him, we too are left with a question; will a woman ever truly be equal to a man in sex?
