Group presentation: If Poisonous Minerals PDF

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Compulsory group presentation during week 7 tutorial 5 on John Donne's "If poisonous minerals, and if that tree"....

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EN3221

! Week 7: John Donne’s If Poisonous Minerals

HOLY SONNETS. IX. If poisonous minerals, and if that tree, Whose fruit threw death on (else immortal) us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious Cannot be damn'd, alas ! why should I be ? Why should intent or reason, born in me, Make sins, else equal, in me more heinous ? And, mercy being easy, and glorious To God, in His stern wrath why threatens He ? But who am I, that dare dispute with Thee ? O God, O ! of Thine only worthy blood, And my tears, make a heavenly Lethean flood, And drown in it my sin's black memory. That Thou remember them, some claim as debt ; I think it mercy if Thou wilt forget.

Summary In many of Donne’s sonnets, Donne addresses and argues directly with someone forcefully. As with this poem, it could be said that the first 8 lines are a monologue – he is merely contemplating about the idea of Grace – but shifts in tone from line 9, where the audience changes from himself to God and Donne deals more confrontationally with Him. We get the imagery of someone accusing God of being unfair. The argument he presents is urgent and appears to be petulant, yet it concludes with a dry wit. Donne’s argumentative spirituality brings Original Sin to the forefront. Several motifs are used, such as the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil and the serpent from the Garden of Eden. Two core themes are the tension between a) Knowledge – Ignorance, and b) Forgiveness – Forgetting. In a sense, Donne poses the question of whether we are being punished for our sins, or for the knowledge of our sins. Donne’s frustration here is the guilt of knowing his sins are counter to the teachings of Christianity. The circular paradox is that remorse, which is a prerequisite for repentance, must also first stem from guilt. However, on the other hand, ignorant beings are guiltless; the same sin goes unpunished in them. The shift in tone comes when Donne moves from argument to prayer. His resolution to this paradox is forgetting. It is not enough for his soul to be cleansed with Christ’s blood, as sins create a “black memory”. Fusing Christian and Greek mythology, he asks God to forgive and forget his past sins. Yet, the final ambiguous closing lines do not appear to ask God for true forgiveness. All in all, Donne deals with the dilemma of a world of sin that goes unpunished compared with the Christian guilt of sinning. Donne hints at resignation, as he moves towards compromise (asking God to simply forget his sins and move on).

EN3221

! Questions 1. There are undoubtedly many emotions that could be detected from the final couplet, or the rest of the poem. What are his primary emotions? Is he truly repentant? 2. Is the speaker attempting to convince God to forgive him through logical argument or an appeal to mercy? Is forgiving and forgetting real forgiveness (or are they mutually exclusive?), and is he confident of receiving God’s grace – “if Thou wilt forget”? Is it possible that Donne is asking God to forget him, rather than his sins?...