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Donne's Technique of Dissonance
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Dr. Johnson, in discussing the group of poets he dubbed “metaphysical,” defined their “wit” as “a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images … ” This discordia has been recognized ever since as a distinguishing characteristic of Donne and other poets who resemble him; but by Johnson and most succeeding critics the discordia has been considered almost exclusively as a property of the poet's imagery. It seems to me that the principle involved is much more comprehensive; that in the poetry of Donne in particular discordant imagery is only one part of a general method which involves many other elements in his poetic style, and which is responsible to a considerable degree for his most striking and individual effects.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937
References
1 Lives of the Poets, ed. Hill, i, 20.
2 Dr. W. F. Melton in the Rhetoric of John Donne's Verse (1906), collected a large number of examples tending to show that Donne had precedents for his irregularities. Even those who cannot accept Dr. Melton's “flat-iron” method of scansion will agree that parallels can be found in other poets. See P. Legouis, Donne the Craftsman, Appendix A. Such parallels have little to do with a poem's effect on the average reader. His metrical sense is geared first to general normal poetic practice, and second to the normal beat of the poem he is reading.
3 Lines 1–9.
4 H. W. Wells, Poetic Imagery (1924).
5 An impure form of the conical image occurs when the area of contact, though covering more than one point, is very limited. Since this, after all, is literary criticism, not geometry, it will perhaps be permissible to use the term conical to cover even the impure examples.
6 This image is a good illustration of one reason for my preference for the term “decorative.” “Spider,” all by itself, is quite capable of stimulating the average person's imagination—in a certain direction!
7 La Corona, 5, line 14.
8 The Progress of the Soule, lines 171–172.
9 This is a splendid example, by the way, of the concentration which Donne is capable of achieving. Crudely expanded, “burnt aire” means air as much thinner than unburnt (i.e. ordinary) air as burnt wood (i.e. smoke) is thinner than unburnt or ordinary wood.
10 A Valediction: of my name, in the window, lines 28–30.
11 To the Countesse of Bedford, lines 25–26.
12 Lines 17–20.
13 Line 24.
14 Even “mines” was decorative in Donne's mind, I think. “The use of the word mine specifically, for mines of gold, silver, or precious stone is, I believe, peculiar to Donne.” Coleridge, quoted by Norton, thence quoted by Grierson, and by this declension, etc. Donne made frequent figurative use of the word.
15 Lines 27–28.
16 A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, lines 5–6.
17 Holy Sonnets, xvii, line 8.
18 Satyre I, lines 7–8.
19 Jolly was sometimes used as a vaguely complimentary word, without any great connotation of gaiety but it has never been close to the plane of thought or feeling on which the ordinary writer uses mystic.
20 Poems, ed. Padelford, rev. ed., p. 56. The poem is an adaptation of Petrarch's Sonetto in Morte, 42.
21 The second Anniversarie, lines 23–26.
22 Lines 27–32.
23 Song, lines 1–9.
24 The Sunne Rising, lines 5–8.
25 Lines 27–56.
26 Elegie IV, line 12.
27 The Apparition, lines 11–12.
28 The Litanie, lines 28–31.