Go to The Effulgence Within
- Add a comment
- Go to Why Should the Dying Breath of a Good Man be Silent
Re: Dear Sis Sea,
Again, a lovely comment so aptly describing on something you’ve not ventured forth. I respect and value your observations and understand your comments so clearly 🌺💥🌹
posted by
anib
on July 5, 2026 at 7:49 AM
| link to this | reply
I’m for once, stymied. This is such a good post but I feel inadequately informed to venture to say more than perhaps he struggled early on with women’s roles in relation to those he himself held high for men. ❓🌹
posted by
Sea_Gypsy
on July 4, 2026 at 11:21 PM
| link to this | reply
I too realize that it is difficult for women to appreciate Donnie’s poetry. Donne’s early love poetry is heavily steeped in the seventeenth-century patriarchal attitudes; the “misogynistic” feel that stems from his early erotic verses that treat women as commodities, infidels as their natural traits, predatory and fickle-natured in attitude, demeaning them as disposable objects and so on and so forth. But, later on he has depicted women with high regard on the intellectual plane - higher than men on spiritual level. The poem “Valediction” is of the time when this distinction he realized within him.
posted by
anib
on July 4, 2026 at 7:05 AM
| link to this | reply
TAPS,
What a severe irreparable tragedy you faced ! Our hearts go to you. This poem partially describes that ‘word’ Supreme test. Yes, God sometimes puts us in extreme situations to test out Faith. I find it inexplicable.
posted by
anib
on July 4, 2026 at 7:01 AM
| link to this | reply
Re: Sherri G,
You say it quite rightly.
posted by
anib
on July 4, 2026 at 6:53 AM
| link to this | reply
I've always had a problem with his poetry. I, probably no one, can not vouch for his true beliefs but I get a misogynistic feel in his poetry. I've also read that it was to challenge the idealized, idolizing poetry of his contemporaries, rather than personal beliefs. I will admit he is one of the greats in metaphysical poetry. Perhaps there could be underlying jealousy on my part because I struggle writing romantic poetry. Suffice it to say regardless of my personal feeling you have written another fine post regarding his work. As famous as his works were he lived in poverty with his works being published posthumously. I have often wondered if there would have been rebuttal poems challenging his ideas had they been published while he was alive. After all, the 17th century was famous for that. A book on rebuttal poems could have spawned from his poems, lol!
posted by
sam444
on July 4, 2026 at 5:21 AM
| link to this | reply
It definitely is a supreme test of faith when one loses one they love so much and seem to have so much to share with others as did my youngest Son David.. He died at 23 with a young wife and a three-month-old son and family and friends around him.....
posted by
TAPS.
on July 3, 2026 at 10:39 AM
| link to this | reply
Some things are best kept secret. 
posted by
Sherri_G
on July 3, 2026 at 10:26 AM
| link to this | reply