The
poem "
Air and Angels" describes a love between a man and a woman. This poem is one of the poems that Donne wrote about love, and in that poem he describes the mystical union between two souls and bodies of two lovers, this poem gives the reader a point view over Donne''s attitude for love and his experience with it. Love, by Donne, is a
spiritual experience, an experience of the soul and the
body, a religious pleasure, but merely a sexual pleasure. But when reading further into the poem we discover that in some point Donne changes his attitude and moves toward material love.
In the first
lines of "Air and Angels" the speaker
writes: "Twice or thrice had I love thee, before I knew thy face or name"(lines 1-2), the girl he aims his love for in the first lines of the poem is an unknown girl, nameless and faceless. These features has no meaning for Donne, his love is completely spiritual. The two perfect words to express his feeling about that kind of love described in line six as "
glorious nothing", this "glorious nothing" is a purely spiritual love from a purely spiritual person.
In the next lines Donne changes his attitude toward his spiritual thinking, he writes:
"But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle then the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too; (lines 7-10).
Now, Donne writes, in order for the soul to live, there is a need for limbs of flesh, the soul could not function without the body. This part contradicts the "glorious nothing". He now writes about the importance of the material body to the soul in order to perform its spiritual acts, spiritually alone is not enough anymore. In line ten Donne writes: "Love must not be, but take a body too;" Donne makes a comparison between soul and love. These two elements are both spiritual and therefore they equal. If the soul needs a material body, therefore love needs it also in a purpose to be fulfilled. Love will "…fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow."
In the next stanza Donne become more and more materialistic. He is trying to find out what is love and contradicts his "glorious nothing". In line eighteen the speaker sees his love as a substantial thing: "I saw I had love''s pinnace overfraught". He is overloaded with the notion of love and overwhelmed by the small details of her physical beauty. Every part of her makes him diffused and dazzle.
"Every thy hair for love to work upon
Is much to much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme and scatt''ring bright, can love inhere" (lines 19-22)
Donne is a part of a group of poets called "The Metaphysical Poet", the kind of poetry they wrote is an unusual poetry because it has paradoxical images. They deal with the conflicts between feelings and thoughts and the distinction between them, "Air and Angels" represents very well that kind of poetry. First you have the feelings, and the soul digests them, and there come thoughts. The first lines of the poem deals with feelings, i.e.: spirituality. The next part, when the soul reaches it''s comprehends Donne searches for a body to contain that soul, he tries to combine between the spiritual and the material, and this combination between two paradoxical elements are the essence of the metaphysical poet.
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