‘The
Apparition’ by John Donne and ‘Sonnet 71’ or ‘No Longer Mourn for Me’ by
William Shakespeare are poems in which each speaker imagines his own death and
its effect on an addressee. Donne’s speaker regards his own death with
satisfaction and aims to evoke a supernatural fear in a woman. He creates an
eerie, bitter tone with an irregular meter and rhyme scheme. Shakespeare, in
contrast, uses the regular meter and rhyme scheme of the English sonnet to
portray his death in stark, gloomy tones and declare a simple love with the
intention of inducing remorse and renewed affection in the addressee.
In ‘The Apparition’ Donne exhibits the
death wish which Roberts describes as a ‘permanent element in his psychic life’(1947
p959.) On this occasion the satisfaction the speaker foresees in death takes
the form of a revenge fantasy in which he haunts a woman who has rejected him.
The woman is directly addressed in tones of bitter resentment.
Despite its seventeen lines, varied meter and irregular rhyme scheme, the poem is sonnet-like with an argument in three distinct parts and concluding rhyming triplet. The irregularities are used by Donne to create a disconcerting arrhythmia which complements the bitter and eerie mood of his words.
The first five lines encapsulate the subject of the poem. It begins in iambic pentameter but the expected pattern is immediately broken by the short second and third lines. The alliteration of ‘that thou thinks thee free’ in line three make of the phrase a sinister whisper accentuated by the sibilant hiss of ‘solicitation ’in line four before a return to iambic stress in tetrameter for the fourth line. This foregrounds the rhyming lines one and four as the subject of the poem. ‘When by thy Scorn, O Murd’ress, I am dead…Then shall my ghost come to thy bed.’ The fifth line shows contempt for the woman, ‘feign’d vestal,’ and the man, ‘worse arms.’
The next five lines of the poem focus on the woman in bed with her lover and the approach of the ghost. Donne uses monosyllabic words and an alternating rhyme in iambic pentameter for lines six to eight, creating a rapid rhythm much like a fearful, rapidly beating heart but then breaks it abruptly with the four syllables of line nine ‘Thou call’st for more.’ The shock of this break emphasises the sexual jealousy at the root of the speaker’s bitterness. Line ten then appears to stand alone gloating ‘and in false sleep will from thee shrink’’
The gloating tone continues in the next section of four lines and slows with the breaks in line eleven ‘And then, poor aspen wretch, neglected thou.’ The phrase ‘quicksilver sweat’ in line twelve is argued by Douds to be typical of Donne’s tendency to insert an conflicting ‘category’ of word into a poem to create dissonance (1937 p1055 -6.) The geological term used metaphorically in a poem about spirits, sex and death may seem incongruous and yet mercury was believed to have supernatural properties, treat venereal disease and known to be poisonous which suit the themes perfectly.
The short line thirteen again creates a pause emphasising the words ‘A verier ghost than I.’ The speaker finally has the woman’s full attention as she lies terrified into a death-like state but line fourteen denies her any resolution. ‘What I will say, I will not tell thee now/ lest that preserve thee.’
This takes the poem into the concluding
rhyming triplet and a caesura. After this pause the speaker announces that his
love is spent but immediately seems to contradict himself by implying there is
still time to ‘painfully repent’ and to accept his advances. The final rhyming
words of the triplet ‘spent’, ‘repent’ and ‘innocent’ have a quasi-religious
tone. As Donne warned in several of his sermons, death can come unexpectedly
and one can find oneself suddenly facing the wrath of God or in this case, the
speaker, with all ones sins upon one.
In ‘The Apparition’ the speaker is first a martyr, then a vengeful spirit and finally god-like in his judgement. Roberts argues that ‘Donne’s model and avatar was the early Christian saint and martyr’ and relates his ‘death-wish’ to this self-ideation (1947.pp690-691.) Shakespeare too uses the image of death in a direct address but I would argue, in a very different way. Donne portrays death as a transition to a higher more powerful state and wishes to induce supernatural fear and submission. Shakespeare portrays death as an end, dwells upon the physical and psychological aspects of it and hopes to induce remorse and renewed affection.
Kirby Farrel argues that feigned death is used frequently by Shakespeare in his plays to enable characters lower down in the social hierarchy to protest against a superior and ‘move love in a hard heart’ (1983. pp76 -77.) The speaker in ‘Sonnet 71’ is not feigning death but attempting to make the addressee experience his death through the imagery and language of the poem. The plaintive tone, simple declarations of love and imagery of death create a reproach in just such an attempt to ‘move love in a hard heart.’
John Kerrigan argues that the sonnets must be read in sequence or ‘trains of meaning’ which ‘imply a narrative’ are lost (2001 p 74.) In this way ‘Sonnet 71’ is likely to be addressed to a young male patron whom succeeding sonnets will accuse of bestowing his affection and patronage on a rival. However William Nelles (2009 p 135) argues passionately against reading the sonnets this way and accepting Shakespeare as speaker partly because so many lines reappear in his plays spoken by women. For the purpose of this essay I shall consider ‘Sonnet 71’ alone. The poem is in English sonnet form in iambic pentameter and has the three quatrains and a rhyming couplet of that form.
In the first quatrain the speaker introduces the subject of his death and the first line ‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead’ brings us at once to the subject of the poem, - the speaker’s death and the addressee’s reaction to it. The iambic pentameter and regular rhyme scheme are established here and this rhythm and the enjambment of the whole quatrain accompanied by Shakespeare’s use of alliteration in line two with ‘surly, sullen bell’ create a sense of the inexorable tolling of that bell. The ‘l’ sounds are continued into lines three and four with the words ‘fled’ and dwell’ and in line four the rather difficult phrase ‘vile world and vilest worms’ forces the reader to slow down for this disturbing image of earthly death and decay.
The second quatrain begins by answering ‘Nay’ to an unspoken protest and the addressee is urged to forget the speaker although this is immediately made impossible by line six. The image of the ‘hand’ is symbolic of bonds of loyalty between men and of marriage between men and women and the caesura draws attention to the following simple words ‘I love you so’ completing the sense of an ‘honest’ loving bond which cannot so easily be forgotten. Lines seven and eight still contain the words ‘I’ and ‘me’ even whilst insisting the speaker ‘be forgot’ ‘if thinking on me then should make you woe.’ De Grazia argues that Shakespeare frequently used long Latinate words to indicate affectation and short Saxon ones to show sincerity (2001 p55.)The use of so many short Saxon words for this poem is significant and most obvious in this quatrain which includes ‘Nay’,’ hand’, ‘writ’ ‘love’ and ‘woe.’
Another exclamation, ‘O’, begins the third quatrain and is followed by ‘if, I say,’ indicating the emphatic reiteration which will follow. In line ten there is further imagery of decomposition with ‘compounded am with clay’ and in line eleven the paradoxical command to forget the speaker by obeying him. ‘Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.’ In line twelve it is significant that the speaker says ‘let your love with my life decay,’ rather than ‘body’. The impression is of an ending with no suggestion of a spiritual reunion in an afterlife. This life is the one which matters.
The ‘wise world’ which would ‘mock’ a display of grief can be understood to have no close relationship with the speaker but be in a position to hear and ‘look into’ the ‘moan’ of the addressee. The word ‘wise’ is almost certainly used ironically and therefore suggests a form of ‘wisdom’ despised by the speaker. Perhaps this is a worldly wisdom which fails to appreciate the relationship between a poet and his muse or lover or patron and the speaker would like the addressee to value that relationship a little more? Having focused upon such large emotive issues in the first three quatrains, to then imply it is all to avoid the derision of a person or persons in the addressee’s life strongly suggests that this is a reproach that such people occupy so privileged a position.
Both Donne and Shakespeare have used their
own deaths as a way to effect change in the attitude of their addressees but
whilst Donne takes satisfaction in the idea of haunting a woman who has scorned
him and aims to produce fear in her, Shakespeare presents death as an end and
uses imagery of decay and the language of love with the intention of inducing
remorse and the renewal of affection.
Bibliography
Douds.J . (1937) ‘Donne’s Technique of Dissonance’ PMLA 52(4) pp 1051-1061 JSTOR Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/458501
(Accessed on: 18th Oct 2012)
Farrell K. (1983)
‘Self--Effacement and Autonomy in Shakespeare.’ Shakespeare Studies 16(75)
EBSCOhost Available at:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7166159&site=ehost-live
(Accessed on: October 17th 2012.)
de Grazia (2001) ‘ Shakespeare and the Craft of Language’ in
de Grazia and Wells The Cambridge
Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press [2001]
Kerrigan.J. (2001) ‘Shakespeare’s Poems’ in de Grazia and
Wells The Cambridge Companion to
Shakespeare. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press [2001]
Nelles W. (2009) ‘Sexing Shakespeare's Sonnets: Reading
Beyond Sonnet 20’. English Literary Renaissance ;39(1) p128-140. EBSCOhost. Available at: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=36880385&site=ehost-live
(Accessed on October 19th 2012)
Roberts.D. (1947) ‘The Death Wish of John Donne’ PMLA 62(4) pp 958-976 JSTOR
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