The Canonization by John Donne | Summary, Analysis, Explanation

 The Canonization by John Donne | Summary, Analysis, Explanation

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Canonization is one of the most talked-about love poems by John Donne which was first published in 1633 in the first edition of his collection Songs and Sonnets. John Donne was the pioneer Metaphysical Poet who made rich use of metaphors, conceit, paradoxes, ambiguity, and wordplay in his poems. Generally, metaphysical poets ridiculed and parodied love, especially platonic love. In this poem, however, John Donne praises his and his beloved’s love and compares it with worship. He mentions the two lovers as saints and martyrs of love. The poet addresses a friend in this poem who objects to his love affair with his beloved. John Donne was in love with Anne Moore and later married him. She was his employer’s daughter and this relationship harmed his career and brought disrepute and poverty to him but the two remained together in love, till the death of Anne Moore.

Structure of The Canonization

The poem has 45 lines in 5 stanzas. Each stanza has 9 lines. The first line of each stanza begins with the word ‘Love.’ and the last line of each stanza ends with ‘Love.’ All nine lines of each stanza are metered in iambic lines with a constant pattern. The first, third, fourth, and seventh lines of each stanza are in Pentameter, the second, fifth, sixth, and eighth lines follow tetrameter, while the last, ninth line is in trimeter. So, the metric stress pattern of each stanza is 545544543. The rhyming scheme of the poem is ABBACCCAA. The tone of the poem is sardonic, forceful, witty, and serious. The term canonization refers to the Christian process by which people are induced into sainthood. The poet suggests that he and his beloved are now saints of love.

Summary of the Canonization

For God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me, love,
Or chide my palsy, or my gout,
My five gray hairs, or ruined fortune flout,
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honor, or his grace,
Or the king’s real, or his stampèd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.

The poem begins with ‘For God’s sake’ which sets the tone of the poem as forceful, suggestive, and witty.

The poet is addressing an intruding friend or well-wisher who is objecting to his love relationship with his beloved. Apparently, his friend is complaining that the poet’s love affair is costing him his health and career. The poet is in a peevish mood and he retorts to the intruder by saying that he should do some appropriate work rather than objecting and keeping a check on him and his lover. He says that the intruder may make fun of his deteriorating health conditions and poverty, but he should not criticize his tendency to love. The poet then suggests some ways through which his friend may remain busy instead of disturbing him and objecting against his love affair. He says that the intruder may pursue some studies to improve his mind, or he may engage in making his own wealth. The intruder may get a job and a high place in society. The poet says that his friend may join the court and be acquainted with the King where he will either come to know the real face of the king, or he will get too many coins with the king’s face stamped on them. He then suggests his friend contemplate on his future action and choose one so that he may not disturb and object to the poet’s love again.

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?
What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?
Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.

In the second stanza, the poet raises some rhetorical questions to the intruder to prove that his love affair is not harming anyone, causing no disturbance to anyone. He asks, who is injured by my love? Has my love affair caused any ship to drown? Do my tears in love cause a flood on the ground? Obviously, it is outrageous to think that love will cause such disasters. He further asks, has the warmth raised by love in his blood ever caused anyone's death plague? Or, does the cold inflicted by his lover on his body forces spring to go away soon?

After putting forth these four rhetorical questions, the poet claims that though soldiers continue to fight in battles, dying and killing each other, though the lawyers continue to debate their litigations, proving a white as black and black as white, he and his beloved engage in love and their love doesn’t inflict anyone as the world continues turning as it always has. Everything is going as it is supposed to while he and his beloved continue to love. In this stanza, John Donne is parodying the professions of soldiers and litigators/lawyers.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die,
And we in us find the eagle and the dove.
The phœnix riddle hath more wit
By us; we two being one, are it.
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.

In the third stanza, the poet says that his intruding friend may call him and his lover whatever he likes. Others may criticize them in whatever way they want as it doesn’t bother him or his lover. The two lovers are confident of what they are and they appreciate each other. The poet compares himself and his lover as two flies circling around the candles that may burn and kill them. Donne suggests that existence is short and he and his lover are content with it. He then compares themselves as tapers or candles. The burning of the candles causes their own demise and the poet realizes it. He says that the two lovers can be compared as an Eagle and Dove as both of them are violent and gentle and prey on each other in love. This offers religious imagery too as according to Renaissance idea, Eagle flies in the sky above the earth in heaven while the Dove transcends the skies to reach heaven. He further offers a mythological comparison and suggests that he and his lover have become one and in this union, they have become unsexed, both are one. While they appear two bodies, they are one as when together, they become neutrally fit. The poet again is indicating Christianity as they say in Christ, there is no male or female. He further brings the mystery of phoenix and suggests that as united lovers, he and his beloved are like phoenix, whose existence may appear short but they rise again from the dead and attain eternity.

Here John Donne uses conceit as he compares his physical love with platonic eternal love. Also, Donne has begun shaping the canonization of lovers.

We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for Love.

In the fourth stanza, the poet expresses the importance of himself and his beloved. He says that if life is too difficult for them as lovers, they are ready to face death but won’t part away. The poet further accepts that after their death, they may not be considered worthy by the worldly people and may fail to get a mention in books of History (chronicles). They may also not get grand tombs and legendry fables in their memories. Yet, they will be remembered in love sonnets. The poet accepts that their life is not as fit and grand as those of great ones who end up in “well-wrought urn’ and ‘half-acre tombs,’ but love sonnets and hymns will be written for them. Those love songs, sonnets, and hymns will offer them a greater audience and the couple will be canonized for love in this manner. The phrase ‘well-wrought urn’ later became famous when John Keats wrote his poem ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’

And thus invoke us: “You, whom reverend love
Made one another’s hermitage;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage;
Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes
(So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize)
Countries, towns, courts: beg from above
A pattern of your love!”

In the fifth stanza, the poet offers future prospects that he and his beloved will attain sainthood of love. People of the future generations will remember and invoke them as saints and say that you made each other your pilgrimage as for each of you, the other was a complete world. For others, love may appear as a furious passion but for these saints of love, it brought peace and bliss. As saints of love, you did the miracle of contracting the whole world in each other’s eyes. Observing the world from each other’s perspectives offered you a greater understanding of the world and life. The future generation will epitomize this loving couple, the poet and his beloved. People across countries, towns, and courts will pray to God to enable them to love just like the poet and his beloved does. The poet says that they are setting a pattern of love that the whole world can follow.

This is a metaphysical poem in which John Donne employed witty conceit. He compares the honest physical love between him and his beloved with the canonization of unworldly saints. The poem is full of knowledge and shows the intellect of the poet as he mentions various interesting mythical comparisons. John Donne also offers his theory of sexual metaphysics which suggests that a real and complete relationship between a man and a woman unsex them and make them one.

This is it for today. We will bring forth a summary and explanation of another interesting Metaphysical poem by John Donne. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!