"I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I/ Did, till we loved ?" Back in the day when I sent Valentine's cards in the hope of impressing someone with my delicacy of feeling, cultural learning and amorous intentions, John Donne was always the go-to guy for poetic quotations.
Whereas Romantics such as Wordsworth and Shelley always seemed a bit, well, up themselves, the Metaphysicals – and Donne in particular – treated love poetry as a form of game-playing, the game being seduction. And so his poems seemed, to my adolescent eyes, incredibly grown up.
In praise of - John Donne.
"I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I/ Did, till we loved ?" Back in the day when I sent Valentine's cards in the hope of impressing someone with my delicacy of feeling, cultural learning and amorous intentions, John Donne was always the go-to guy for poetic quotations.
Whereas Romantics such as Wordsworth and Shelley always seemed a bit, well, up themselves, the Metaphysicals – and Donne in particular – treated love poetry as a form of game-playing, the game being seduction. And so his poems seemed, to my adolescent eyes, incredibly grown up.
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Don't show me this again.