Excerpt
A Literary Analysis of Donne’s Poem:
Hymn to God, My God in My Sickness
Abstract: this paper analyses one of the most influential poems by John Donne, Hymn to God, My God in My Sickness. Its aim is to foreground the significance of the metaphysical conceit at the stylistic and thematic levels. One of the pivotal keywords used in this paper is the metaphysical conceit.
Hymn to God, my God in my Sickness is a devotional poem and a religious hymn probably penned around 1623 as a deathbed confessional, a period during which Donne endured a series of subsequent serious illnesses. The poem is considered as one of the most well-crafted, spiritual literary works of the Renaissance that skilfully combine the significance of religious history and the tenets of faith to explore the perishing soul of the personae in a microcosmic manner. Though purely religious, the poem is laden with conceits and elaborate images alluding to sciences such as geography and cartography, a feature reflecting Donne’s distinct poetic style and fascination with scientific allusions.
SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music ; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before ;
Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ;
[...]
- Quote paper
- Somaya Bahji (Author), 2013, John Donne's Poem "Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/267314
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