Chapter - 5
"Present in Absence"

- John Donne

Introduction of the Poem

John Donne, considered to be the fonder of the metaphysical poets of 17the century. In the poem "Presence in Absence" John Donne uses his words to express his metaphysical love for Anne as he leaves for one of his many business trips. For the poem "Presence in Absence" the title can define the entire tone of the poem itself; Presence, meaning being in one place and Absence meaning not being there.

This is one of the best amorous poems of John Donne celebrating the immorality of metaphysical love which is beyond peace, time and Death. This poem is a protest made in favour of Absence. The physical Absence of the beloved has not been able to change his love because his love for her is the strongest and beyond the power of destruction. Time and Death has no effect on it. The lover feels the presence of his beloved in some close corner of his heart where none except him can catch, embrace and kiss her. The absence of the beloved has become a bless for the lover because he can both enjoy and miss her.

Main parts of the Poem:

1. This poem consists of three stanzas, each stanza having six lines. In each stanza, the first line rhymes with the fourth, the second with the third and fifth with one sixth. The rhyme pattern of each stanza is a follows:

abbacc

2. John Donne begins this poem with an address to absence treating as a personified entity. His use of personification and apostrophe in this poem, is effective.

3. The poet illustrates his philosophy of love by using contraductions and paradoxes like "Absence is present'.

4. The poet expresses his belief in the metaphysical love which is untouched by Time and Death.

Substance of the Poem

In this poem, John Donne argues with his own absence. The love for the beloved is reinforced in her absence. Time and absence can not destroy true love. True lovers never worry for absence. But they become stronger, in absence. He says that after death, they will meet and love to each other. Although, the lovers might have been seperated physically in his mind's eye, the poet sees a distinct vision of the beloved. She is absoultely lives in his heart. It can be possible in her absence because it is True love.

हिन्दी सारांश

कवि अपनी प्रेमिका के लिये अपना प्रेम व्यक्त करता है। उसका प्रेम अपनी प्रेमिका के लिये अधिक सुदृढ़ है, उसकी अनुपस्थिति में भी समय और अनुपस्थिति उसके प्रेम को नष्ट नहीं कर सकते हैं। सच्चा प्रेम अनुपस्थिति में कमजोर नहीं पड़ता है बल्कि और मजबूत बनाता है। वे एक-दूसरे को मिलेंगे और प्रेम करेंगे। यद्यपि प्रेमी शारीरिक रूप से उसकी आँखों से दूर हो सकते हैं, लेकिन कवि एक महान और मजबूत प्रेम अपनी प्रेमिका को दर्शाता है। उसकी प्रेमिका उसके हृदय में रहती है और ये सब संभव है उसकी अनुपस्थिति में भी, क्योंकि यह एक सच्चा प्रेम है।

Life And Works of John Donne: In A Nut-Shell John Donne was born in 1572. His parents were pious Roman Catholic. John Donne belonged to the Elizabethan age. He gave new name and shape to the existing contemporary poetry. At the age of 42, he took holy orders and six year after this, he became deal of St. Paul's. All the poems of Donne were published.

John Donne wrote various kinds of poems in his career. He wrote lyrics, satires, religious poems and elegies. Though he belonged to Elizabethan age but he never followed the traditions of Elizabethan poetry. Donne is considered one of the greatest poet of love. the chief elements of his poetry are his obscurity, his wit, his metaphysics, and his preciseness. He was one of the chief poet of seventeenth century. He was known as the first and greatest poet of metaphysical poetry. Other poets followed him is metaphysical poetry. His "Devotions upto Emergent Occasions" were written during his illness in 1623.

Donne did not have proper poetic career because he left Hart Hall without acquiring a degree. He then decided to study law for which he joined Lincoln's Inn. After becoming secretary to sir Thoman Egerton in 1597, his career received another blow because he was dismissed from Church in 1601.

This was due to his secret marriage to Lady Egerton's niece. John Donne's poetry shows an open revolt against the set conventional poetry.

John Donne was the leader of the metaphysical school of poets. He had a very chequered career, until he became the Dean of St. Paul. Though his chief, work was to deliver religions sermons, he wrote poetry of high order. His best known works are The Progress of the Soul, An Anatomy of the World, An Elegy and Epithalmium'. His poetry can be divided into three parts: (i) Amorous; (ii) Metaphysical and (iii) Satirical. In his amorous lyric, which include his earliest work, he broke away from the Petrarchan model which was popular among the Elizabethan poets and expressed the experience of love in realistic manner. His metaphysical and satirical works, which form the major portion of his poetry, were written in later years of his life. "The Progress of the Soul' and 'Metapsychosis', in which Donne persues the passage of the soul, through transmigrations including those of a bird and fish, is a fine illustrations of his metaphysical poetry.

A good illustration of his satire in his fourth satire describing the character above. They were written in rhymed couplet and influenced both Dryden and Pope. His muse loves those sudden flights from the material to the spiritual sphere for which Dryden gave him and Johnson confirmed to him, the title of metaphysical.

With John Donne, the Elizabethan poetry closes and Caroline poetry begins. His poetry is characterized by much genuine poetic feeling, harsh metres, strained and whimsical images and turns of speech called 'conceits'. His historical importance lies in the fact that he imitated the metaphysical school of poetry, and paved the way for the New Metaphysical School of Poetry inaugurated by T.S. Eliot and others in the twentieth century.

Donne's Metaphysical Poetry

Donne in easily the greatest of metaphysical poets. He outshines all his contemporaries like Crawshaw and Cowley. He led a revolt against the conventional romaticism of Elizabethan song-writers. He introduced a number of innovations. For example:

(i) He popularised conceits.

(ii) He revolted against the sweet smoothness of Elizabethan love-songs. (iii) He employed a harsh and rugged poetic diction.

Donne is a master of the 'conceits'. His poems abound in conceits that are remarkable for their freshness and novelty. At times, however, they lapse into the fantastic or the far-fetched; but generally they are delightful. For instance, in his poem. "The Anniversary" he compares himself and his wife to two kings, each of them is also the "subject" of the other.

In "The Sun-Rising" he says to the sun that he could eclipse and cloud its beams with a wink, but he would not lose her sight so long again, he adds that the "eyes" of his beloved might blind the light of the sun. In the same poem he declares that his beloved combines "both the indies of spice and mine."

Donne set a vogue for metaphysical conceits. He influenced a number of contemporary poets like Crashaw and Cowley. Among the later poets, he exercised a strong influence on Robert Browning who was an ardent admirer of Donne. Among the modern poets he has influenced T.S. Eliot.

Donne was under-estimated by poets of the eighteenth century. They condemned his poetic style as a mark of band taste and eccentricity. Dr. Johnson ridiculed the far-fetched imagery and departure from correctness- the two outstanding characteristics of the metaphysical school of poetry. At present, Donne has been sympathetically revolved. Thomas Carew said, "A king who qualandogs he thought, the universe monarchy of wit."

'Metaphysical Poetry' has its own features and most of them are applicable to the poems of John Donne. Metaphysical poets were the men of learning and to show their learning was their chief object. Consequently, obscure references are often found in such poetry. Donne's poetry bears this feature. The poet's conceit of the compass in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' shows his learning. The next feature of metaphysical poetry is the use of cenceits. These conceits are the far-fetched comparisons. They are really the instruments by which the metaphysical poets reveal their wit. Donne's poetry abounds in conceits.

The most important conceits of Donne are found in his poem, 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning'. It is the compass conceit. The poem is a love poem. The poet says that love has fused the souls of the lovers into one. But if their souls are two, they are like the two feet of a compass. The feet of a compass seem to be separate but are really united at the top. The beloved stays at home and she is like the fixed foot of the compass. The lover is like the moving foot of the compass. It is the fixed foot which enables the moving foot to draw the circle and then return to the place from where it begins. Similarly, it is the love of the beloved which enable the lover to perform his journey successfully and then return home. Another conceit found in the very poem is known as the gold conceit. The poet says that if the lover goes a way from the beloved their souls would not be separated. On the contrary, their love would cover a larger area. This is a compared with gold which, when beaten, expands and expands but does not break.

One more feature of metaphysical poetry is the use of hyperbole. Hyperbole is the exaggeration of a situation or description. Paradox, which means contrasting or contrary items, also finds fine expression in metaphysical poetry. The fact is true of Donne's poetry.

Metaphysical poetry is dramatic in nature. Such poems are monologues or have fine dramatic quality. They contain speakers, listeners and sometimes also other persons. In "Valediction "Forbidding Mourning", it is the lover who speaks to his beloved. He speaks about his love and explains its nature to his sweet heart.

The next feature of metaphysical poetry is that it has argumentative and rugged style. Donne's poems too are argumentative in tone. 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning' shows the poet's habit of argumentation to establish some initial proposition.

Metaphysical poetry is essentially obscure and complex. This obscuring is mainly caused by the learning of the poets and their philosophical views. The imagery and conceits too make metaphysical poetry obscure. Donne, as compared to other metaphysical poets is less obscure and complex. However, his conceits, philosophical views and parodoxical elements make his poems complex.

In metaphysical poetry, one comes cross the fusion of intellect and emotion. Consequently, love is used as the subject of metaphysical poems. In the same way, the use of conceits and wit show the intellect of the metaphysical poets. Donne's poems contain fine combination of emotion and intellect.

One more feature of metaphysical poetry is its lyrical equality. All the prescribed poems of Donne are lyrical. The prescribed poem opens abruptly and colloquial way. It reveals Donne's positive attitude towards love. The far- fetched imagery of the poem is remarkable. In it, the poet glorifies the platonic love tradition. The poet uses images from astronomy, religion, philosophy, metallurgy and mathematics.

Donne's Religious Poetry

The religious poetry of Donne shows the same qualities as his other work, such as, the dramatic tone, the play of speech, rhythms against the verse pattern; the dialectical subtlety, the startling imagery drawn from common life or from intellectual pursuits and the psychological penetration. The effects of, thus japplying metaphysical wit to religius subjects are almost as varied as in the love poetry; sometimes the ingenuity predominates, sometimes Donne's religious feelings seem to be indeed, as he described them 'devout fits' coming and going like a fantastic ague. With the holy sonnets, whatever their actual date of composition, the note deepens. It is foremost part, one of torment and struggle, and the style expresses this passionate conflict with dramatic vividness.

Donne as a religious poet has three them sin, death, God and of these, the first and the greatest is sin....... for him as for all the orthodox . Christianity of his day, the warfare between the soul and the body is a daily reality, but he sees more clearly than do many of the mortalists of his time that the issue is primarily one of value... . All are familiar with those lucid confessions of past inquity in which the piety of the age delighted, and all students of the time have smiled at the very mild residue of fact which is often all that discerned beneath so much smoke and tears. The high spirits of the young Bunyan that could not resist village games and boyish tanks are a classic example. But Donne's past is a very, different matter. One has only to look at the moving and eloquent picture of the young Done which professor Grierson set as the front-piece to his edition of the poems to appreciate the first hand knowledge which Donne had of the fierce appetites of the Renaissance. In the tensely live young face are smoldering all of what the older poet was to describe as youth's fires, of pride and lust.......

Donne knew what he was talking about when he charged himself with a sinful past. The kind of man the regenerate Donne said he had been in his youth is too clearly revealed in his early poems for anyone to doubt the essential justice of his later estimate.

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