John Donne was born in 1572 and both of his parents were Roman Catholics and as a result religion played a very prominent part in his upbringing, and this influenced his poetry greatly. Throughout his poetry there is a strong feel of religion. He was also an educated man and this is also shows in his work with his logical arguments and thought and feeling that goes into his poems. He often uses a paradox and likens things such as love and religion to other things as well. This also shows his range and variety of language also showing his intellectual and emotional feelings. This also illustrates how much thought goes into his work as well as feeling as it is all relevant to him and personal.

Many things become apparent throughout John Donne's poetry however one theme is particularly apparent. This is his idea's towards understanding the relationship between man and God. Donne has a strong idea of how this relationship should take place and of how man is to relate to God and he often likens it to a relationship between a man and a woman. However

"Thy firmness drawes my circle just,

From these poems we can deduce many things about John Donne's poetry. The first is the intense dramatic sense that John Donne creates throughout his poems and many of his poems are dramatic monologues. An example of this is from The Flea. This is a really a speech delivered by a would be lover to an unwilling lady and her reactions can be noticed to his enquiries and A Valediction Forbidding Mourning is a speech to a tearful wife. Another characteristic is Intellectualism. From the use of imagery and referring things as something else, Donne presents his poems as though they are riddles. For example from A Valediction Forbidding Mourning you have to ask the question, How are a happily married couple like a compass? He presents them all as similes. A lot of his poems are also influenced by emotion for example A Valediction Forbidding Mourning was written when he was going away from his wife. His intellectual nature comes through in a lot of poems. For example in The Flea the complaining lover uses the messages of both science and religion to argue that their alliance is justifiable. However we can also see that even though he makes plenty of sexual and emotional references he also manages to combine this with intellectual and logical arguments without losing the two. For example in To his mistriss going to bed he does so combining sexual and logic well and in A Valediction: A Forbidden Mourning he combines emotion with intellect. The intellect also becomes prominent in his poems via his references to other things which have influenced him throughout his life. For example in To his Mistriss Going to bed when he writes "Are like Atlanta's balls" this refers to a story by Ovid, one of his inspirations.(In the story Atlanta would only marry a man who could beat her in a foot race. Hippomenes distracts her by throwing three Golden Balls down in front of her, and so won the race).

This statement is saying that if they love each other equally then their love will never die. This poem, like the first, uses a paradox or image to illustrate his point about their 'love'. This poem is bases around two central metaphors. One of the two lovers waking into a new life together and the other is of the new world created by their new, mutual love. What gives the poem a distinct characteristic is how he uses these images in an argument to reveal more about the experience of love between them which was evident from the start.

Donne believes that however strong this bond between man's relationship with God and how alike to man and women it is, he believes that the spiritual bond is much stronger. Once this bond has been made, it is difficult to break.

The third poem is The Sunne Rising. From the start the first line we can pick up a distinct

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Approximate Word count = 1881
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)