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thesis entitled

BELIEF AND ART IN DONNE'S SERMONS

presented by

Maher Benmoussa

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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MA English

 

 

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Major professor

 

Donald M. Rosenberg
Date June 5, 1992

 

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BELIEF AND ART IN DONNE’S SERMONS

By

Maher Benmoussa

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ART

Department of English
1992

ABSTRACT
BELIEF AND ART IN DONNE’S SERMONS
By

Maher Benmoussa

In this thesis I will deal with the unity of belief and art in the
sermons of John Donne. I will demonstrate how this unity is both thematic
and stylistic, illustrating how Donne's style is an integral part of his
meaning. I will argue in the first chapter that though the doctrines of
Donne's sermons are characteristic of Anglican theology, his uniqueness is
the result of the way in which he weds his religious beliefs to his literary
art. In the second chapter where I compare Donne and Andrewes, I will
show Donne’s individuality. The third chapter will show how this unity
operates on the level of images, figures of speech, and biblical typology;
while in the fourth chapter I will show this unity in the structural design of
Donne's whole sermon, the paragraph and sentence. I will also give special
attention to the relationship between‘Donne as preacher and his auditors.
The last chapter will bring together all these thematic and stylistic features

and I will apply them to one of Donne’s sermons on the Resurrection.

To my parents

III

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My acknowledgments are to Professor D. M. Rosenberg who
directed this thesis. I appreciate his efforts in working with me for two
terms. He was a director, a teacher, and a reader with a keen mind and a
special interest in the topic. My discussions with him were always fruitful
and thought - provoking. My special thanks to my academic adviser Dr.
William Johnsen, and to all my teachers of the Department of English at
Michigan State University.

My principal debt is of course to my teachers in Tunisia, for they
have nurtured my interest in literature and encouraged me to pursue my
career, and achieve my scholarly goals. My special thanks to the
University Mission of Tunisia and Dr. Hedi Sioud for his moral and

financial support.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page
I Donne's Anglican Theology 1

II Andrewes, Donne and the Seventeenth Century Sermon 23

III Imagery, Figurative Language, and Biblical Typology 43

IV Structural Design 67
V Stylistic Analysis of a Sermon on the Resurrection 99
Bibliography 1 l6

Chapter I
Donne's Anglican Theology

Most critics who have examined the theology of John Donne1 have
agreed upon one major important fact, and that is his uniqueness does not
stem from his religious beliefs, because they are typical of orthodox
Anglican theology. These critics have also noted that Donne has written no
study of Anglican theology such as Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical
my where he systematically explains theological doctrines. Donne's
theology has become controversial for modern critics, especially on the
question of the importance of reason in his theology, and the extent of his
mysticism. If Terry Sherwood argues in his article, "Reason in Donne's
Sermons,"2 that reason is more central to Donne's beliefs than has been
realized, Bruce Henricksen has tried to refute the critics’ conclusions that
Donne was a mystical writer. According to Henricksen, Donne's orthodox
theology was "opposed to any religious position that would embrace

mysticism."3

 

Study ef the Prese Werks ef Jehn Denne (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1924) 65-

132. Itrat Husain, The Dogmatic and Mystical Theology of John Donne (New
York: The MacMillan Company, 1938). William R. Mueller, mhn Donne;
Preacher (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962).

1 Some critics who have dealt with Donne's theology are Evelyn Simpson, A

2 Terry Sherwood, "Reason in Donne's Sermons," ELH 39 (1972): 353-74.

3 Bruce Henricksen, "Donne's Orthodoxy," Texas Studies in Literature and
Language 14 (1972): 5.

However, this should not excuse us from studying Donne's theology
or his views on the religious issues of the early seventeenth century.
Understanding Donne's religious attitudes is pertinent to any stylistic study
of his sermons, for style and content are interrelated, and any separation of
the two in an interpretive analysis of these sermons would lead to
insufficient understanding. My premise is that Donne's mode of expression
is an integral part of his themes, and any separation of the two does an
injustice to the literary value of his sermons. However, it is also important
to explain that this chapter on the theology of John Donne does not
represent a full account of his religious thinking. Rather, it provides a
theological background for the more detailed stylistic analysis that will
follow. I will try to identify some of the major characteristics of Donne's
religious beliefs which may help us better understand the style of his
sermons.

The basis for Donne's themes is to be found in those Christian
doctrines which are an essential part of Anglican theology in the early
seventeenth century. Donne had preached many sermons on sin, death and
the Resurrection. What we notice is that the common basis for these themes
is the hamiony of man within himself, and the ideal reunion between Man
and God. Donne believes that through sin man has lost not only the
harmony between himself and God, but also between his soul and body.
Instead of this harmony, discordant sin predominates in every aspect of our
fallen natures. It is through the Resurrection that this lost harmony
ultimately can be regained. Therefore, these three important themes of sin,
death and Resurrection are, in fact, different facets of a larger theme:
man's separation from God, his spiritual regeneration, and his re-union

with God.

Donne argues that we all "were conceived in sinne" (V, 172)4, that
is, all human beings are subjects of the original sin because Adam and Eve,
from whom we all descend, conceived us in sin, and their sinful generative
action has been transmitted to posterity. Thus, in our life "wee become
guilty of Adams sinne committed six thousand years before" (V, 172). All
human beings are swept up by this tide of sin which hinders and deprives
us of the sight and presence of God. Sin is the cause of human suffering in
this life. Because of sin, man has lost his spiritual wholeness and closeness
to God. "Miserable man!" is Donne's woeful lament for all human beings,
whom he compares to toads and spiders. Sin has debased human beings to
the level of beasts and has turned us not only against each other, but also
against ourselves. “Man hath a dram of poyson... he cannot choose but
poyson himself..." (I, 293). Thus, the status of fallen humanity is even
worse than that of beasts because while they do not poison themselves, men
do. William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury, shares Donne's view on
sin, and argues that "Man lost by sin the integrity of his nature."5 In this
statement Laud stresses that the ultimate result of sin is that Man has lost
his unity and harmony not only with himself, but also with God, and with

the whole universe. Instead of this "integrity,' separation and disorder
prevail.

Through this sin comes man's "last enemie," death. Death has thrown
human beings into moral and spiritual disorder. Donne speaks of death as a

kind of "incest": "Miserable riddle when the same womie must be my

 

4 John Donne, The Sermons of John Donne, eds. George Potter, Evelyn
Simpson. 10 Vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press) Textual references
are to this edition, starting with volume. then page number.

5 Quoted in John New, Angliean and Puritan (Palo Alto: Stanford University
Press. 1964) 12.

mother and my sister, and bee both father and mother to my owne mother
and sister" (X, 238). He argues that this worm is incestuous because it feeds
not only upon himself, but also upon his mother, his sister and his father.
In this same worm their blood and flesh are mingled together. Donne
vividly describes a macabre vision of death: "When my mouth shall be
filled with dust, and the worrne shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me." All
human beings who now seem to be powerful shall lie in their graves one
day, incapable of preventing that "worrne which is all that miserable
penury" from "sweetly feeding upon [themselves]." However, death is not
just a final stage in our life; it is our life itself. Donne believes that our
fallen earthly life leads us inexorably towards the grave. Our life, then, is
the process of dying. For Donne, a paradox is that our birth, which we
think is the very beginning of our life, is a form of death, "and all our
periods and transitions in this life, are so many passages from death to
death." "The wombe which should be the house of life," Donne says,

1' H

"becomes death it selfe. We celebrate our owne funeralls with cryes,"
and our deliverance from "the death of the womb" is but an entrance into
another grave into "the manifold deaths of this world" (V, 232 - 233).

For Donne, death has ultimately overcome all human beings. It is the
indefatigable enemy outlasting all other hostile forces, such as poverty and
sickness, which were given life by Man's sin. In his sermon preached at
Whitehall, on the text 1 Corinthians 15 : 26, Donne states that "the last
enemie that shall be destroyed is death." He shows that death is tragic
because it has destroyed not only the perfection of our life but has also
separated us from the kingdom of Christ. This kingdom will not be in its
most perfect state as long as the bodies of men which should properly

belong to Christ, lay under the dominion of death. It is only when this "last

 

enemie," death itself, shall be destroyed that our bodies would become
again part of that heavenly kingdom, thus peace, perfection and harmony
will be restored . This is Donne's tragic view of sin which has brought
death to our lives, and has destroyed all the beauty of perfection, holiness
and harmony that our lives could have, were it not for Adam's sin. Our
union with God has been lost, and so has our heavenly kingdom where we
should belong with Christ. However, what has been lost can still be
regained, and Donne, echoing Paul, asserts that one day he "shall not only
see God face to face, but [he] shall know him, and [he] shall know God so
as that there shall be nothing in [him] to hinder [him] from knowing God"
(VIII, 235). This illustrates Donne's belief that no matter how tragic death
is, no matter how painful our separation from God is, and no matter how
lost we are, one day we shall be raised to God, and we shall find nothing to
hinder and deprive us of his sight. Redemption for Donne does not seem an
impossibility to achieve, and his sense of man's depravity is balanced by his
sense of God‘s redemptive love.

The Incarnation is a manifestation of God's redeeming love for
Mankind, and stands as evidence for us that redemption of our sin is
possible. In his sermon preached on the Biblical text "Jesus wept" (IV,
324), Donne interprets Christ's weeping for man as proof of his love,
affection and care. Through his tears, Jesus "would let the world see that he
loved them" (IV, 330). By means of the Incarnation God has displayed his
extreme love for Man, and showed how He can redeem and restore him to
spiritual purity. Moreover, the return or the reconciliation of Man and
God has been made possible through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.
His forgiveness and the sacrifice of his blood and flesh are the guarantees

of salvation; and in Christ's Resurrection, the faithful see the possibility of

the triumph over death. It is with great hope of this triumph, and this joy
in the expectation of redemption that we can bear this fallen world of sin
that we live in. It is with this hope of redemption that the whole process of
spiritual regeneration starts. Thus, it is God, through His grace, who ushers
us to the threshold of redemption and return to Him. "Such a renewing,"
Donne writes, "could not be done without God... the desire and the actuall
beginning is from the prevailing grace of God" (II, 305). In Donne's View,
God has always much love, compassion and sympathy for his human
beings. Donne turns to St Paul to confirm his belief in salvation through
Christ. St Paul says, "For if through the offence of one many be dead,
much more the grace of God, and the gift of grace, which is by one man,
Jesus Christ (Rom. 5 :15). Lancelot Andrewes, the Anglican priest, holds
the same belief. In one of his sermons, he asserts: "We are regenerate by
the rising again of Christ As to death regenerate by the Fall of the first
Adam, so to life regenerate by the rising again of Christ, the second"
(Anglican and Puritan, p.12). Laud echoes this attitude and argues that Man
is lost and "can not have light enough to see the way to heaven but by
grace. This grace was first merited, after given by Christ" (Anglican and
M, p.12). Both Andrewes and Laud confirm Donne's belief that this is
a world of sin, and death. However, regeneration is possible through
Christ's Incarnation and Resurrection. As Christ has triumphed over death,
we shall also triumph over Adam's sin and rise to God.

God‘s grace is bestowed in abundance on all human beings. It does
not come only by means of the Incarnation or the Resurrection of Jesus
Christ, but according to Donne, also by the Church and its sacraments.
Donne attaches great importance to the influence of the church, saying:

"God hath planted thee in the church, where all administered to thee, and

where no erroneous doctrine... is affirmed and held (VIII, 228). The
church is the dwelling of our Saviour, and it is so sanctified and sacred that
divine grace always flows there. The church, for Donne, is the fountain of
God's grace and mercy, the place where Christ's teaching is preserved as a
guide for his flock, and a lantern that illuminates for them their way out of
the world of sin. Thus, man needs to have recourse to the church, for he
cannot alone sustain himself, and he needs the "food" of the church (VIII,
232). According to Donne, "a man must apply himselfe to some church, to
some outward form of worshipping God" (VII, 429). The reference to the
importance of the sacraments is obvious in the two previous quotations, and
what he implies by "food" of the church and "outward form of
worshipping" are those sacraments and rituals which are observed in
church worship. Sacraments, Donne believes, are the instruments of grace.
In the larger context of worship and redemption, their effect is to purify
the soul, thereby promoting the growth of grace in the receiver. Man is
restored through the sacrament of Baptism, which cleanses him of his
original sin. This cleansing is not complete and sufficient, however, to
effect a moral purity throughout the rest of our lives. Both Baptism and the
Eucharist have the same necessity and significance, and, therefore, may be
taken to be the means of achieving the possible union and harmony with
God, which include mutual love, understanding, care and solidarity
between individual soul and divinity. The sacraments operate as seals of
God's grace. Thus clearly, they are more than outward formalities; for the
believer, they can foster the process of redemption.

Donne's attitude on the issue of the relevance of the sacraments to the
process of redemption does not differ much from that of the fathers of the

Anglican church, especially from Hooker who asserts that the sacraments

 

 

are "means effectual whereby God delivereth into our hands that grace
available unto eternal life."6 Thus, it is in these sacraments that God
embodies his grace and love for us. Andrewes was also clear on the
importance of these sacraments. Speaking about their symbolic
significance, he says: "Of the sacraments we may say Hoc erit signum. For
a sign it is and a sign for Christ in the sacrament is not altogether
unlike Christ in the cratch [manger]. To the cratch we may well like the
husk or outward symbols of it. Outwardly it seems little worth but it is rich
of content, as was the crib with Christ in it. For, what are they 'weak
and poor elements of themselves? Yet in them we find Christ" (Anglican
and Puritan. p. 62). Andrewes’s statement points to the significance of the
sacraments and their worth in the process of salvation. It is in these
sacraments, which seem to be just outward ceremonies that we can see
Christ and experience his divinity. As John New puts it, all "Anglicans
regarded the sacraments as an efficacious means of grace, or vehicles of the
spirit, ‘the proper carriages’ to grace" (Anglican and Puritan, p. 62).

One studying Donne's view of the church would notice that he speaks
about the church in general, though he might have in mind the pattern of
the Anglican church as the most ideal one. Moreover, he does not limit
salvation to any particular branch of the Christian Church, and more
specifically to the Anglican Church. In a sentence quoted previously, he
said "a man must apply himself to some church, to some outward form of
worshipping God (VII, 499).This suggests that Donne does not divest the
other churches of any religious authority. Moreover, it reveals as Simpson

observes, that "his devotion was given not to one branch of the church, but

 

6 Quoted in E.C.E. Boume, The Anglieanism of William Laud (London: London
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1947) 67.

 

to the ideal figure of the Bride of Christ who should one day be revealed
with her torn and soiled garments replaced by the stainless robe of perfect
unity" (W, p. 87). I would like to
modify this quotation of Simpson's words and adjust them to my own
understanding of Donne's attitude towards the church. That is, this "ideal
figure of the Bride of Christ" is the Church of England, which is known
for its moderate and tolerant attitudes about the controversial religious
issues of Donne's time. Moreover, Donne's hope is for the unity of all the
Christian churches into one holy, sacred, and moderate church that would
appeal to the largest number of people and would offer them what they
need of spiritual instruction, ritual, and peace through its theological
clarity, the "beauty of holiness," the decency and order of its religious
worship. The religious ideal for Donne would include all the different
branches of the Christian Churches into a vital single church that can
"enwrap all in one" (VI, 348), and which "is embrac'd and open to most
men."7 As Evelyn Simpson states, "the divisions of Christendom vexed
[Donne's] soul" (A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne, p. 87).
Because of this lack of unity in the historical Christian church, one could
not rely on it as the most perfect means of God's grace. In Donne's time,
one could be confused with the different churches and their doctrines. On
one hand, the Roman Catholic Church asserts that it is the mother church
whose theological doctrines should be observed and followed. On the other
hand, the Anglican Church argues that the Roman Church is not the

church of all Christians, and believes that England should not have its

 

7 John Donne, "Holy Sonnet XVIII (“Show me Deare Christ, Thy Spouse, so

Bright and Cleare") h P m f hn D nn , ed. Sir Herbert Grierson (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1933) 301.

 

10

church in Rome. The Puritans add more complexity to the picture and they
declare that neither the Roman nor the Anglican Church is following
Christ's teaching, for both of them have put more emphasis on ceremonial
and outward forms than on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The
result of this multiplicity of doctrines upon individuals is confusion and
uncertainty. Consequently, Donne attributed a major role to the individual
in the redemptive process and in his quest for the lost harmony with God,
because God has equipped all individual Christians and non - Christians
with faculties and abilities to discover God's nature and know His truth.
According to Donne no matter how fallen we are, and no matter how sinful
and imperfect is this world we live in, we all have these faculties. Terry
Sherwood argues, "Whether rectified or fallen; that is, the ‘common
reason’ always operates" ("Reason in Donne's Sermons," p. 359). Thus,
because of the diversity in the doctrines of the church, the individual must
resort to his conscience and rational understading to have access to God's
truth.

In one of his sermons, John Donne urges his congregation that "if
thine understanding cannot reconcile differences in all churches, if thy will
cannot submit itself to the ordinances of thine own church, go to thine own
memory" (VI, 19 - 20). What Donne is advocating here is that in order to
reach salvation, one should engage in self analysis. He believes that every
individual can cooperate with God's grace to reach salvation. In fact, he
believes that the churches, because of their conflicting views, might be
unable to initiate the process of salvation. On the contrary, this diversity
may intensify the individual's dilemma, because he / she may find it hard to
know where the truth lies. In such a case, every individual should go to his

own "memory," which Donne describes as "the gallery of the soul, hanged

11

with so many and so lively pictures of goodness and mercies of God to
thee" (VI, 20). It is in this memory, or in this gallery, where individuals
would find the mercy and grace that God has given them. Here they can
look for all the good deeds and all the hints that God has sent to them in
order to reveal His own ways to all human beings. In their memories all
individuals can find God's providence and understand God's ways to them.
What individuals need to do is study themselves both introspectively and
retrospectively. Donne asks his congregation to resort to their memories,
because he believes that "the holy Ghost takes the nearest way to bring a
man to God, by awaking his memory" (VI, 18). In fact, Donne thinks that
without this memory one cannot reach salvation, for as he asserts: "The art
of salvation, is but the art of memory" (11, 73). Donne lays much emphasis
on the memory of his congregation, an emphasis which is noticed not only
on the thematic but also on the stylistic level, as we shall see in the
following chapters. Donne is working on the memory of his auditors in
order to instruct, delight, move them, and bring them to the shores of
persuasion, redemption, salvation, and ultimate reunion with God.8

The first step in the individual's process of regeneration is to accept
the afflictions that all human beings have to bear because of their sinful
nature. Donne believes that these afflictions and sufferings can shake all
human beings and wake them out of their spiritual sleep. Afflictions would
draw their attentions away from the earthly and temporary pleasures
toward the importance of God in their lives and the permanent heavenly

glory that they hope to experience. In his famous Meditation, XVII of his

 

8 For more full discussion of the importance of the memory for John Donne.
see "Donne‘s Art of Memory" by R.L. Hickey in Tennessee Studies in Literature
15 (1950): 29-36.

12

Devetiens Donne states that every affliction or suffering should influence
the individual and awaken him to God's power and providential design. All
these afflictions should make the individual aware of this world of sin he is
living in. When Donne states that "When she buries a man, that action
concerns me. All mankind is of one author," he implies that man should not
wait for afflictions to happen to him to learn about God's power. Other
people's sufferings and afflictions are his, and he should understand them
so in order to become more fully aware of God's providential power.
Therefore, all human beings should be like Job, in having great endurance
and bear their burdens patiently in order to achieve deliverance by a full
understanding of God. It is in suffering that one can ever be near Christ,
for "adversity will be the best way to see God by" (IV, 172). Humanity can
achieve union with Christ by mutually shared suffering. God suffered for
man through Christ, and so should we suffer for God. These afflictions
would make individuals better able to resist temptation, and more aware
that these temptations are the false glamour of sin. Moreover, once these
individuals know that they are sinful and corrupt, they should start washing
away their sins with those contrite tears which accompany their confessions
of their sins to God. Those who live without afflictions and sufferings
cannot reach salvation. "Woe be unto him that hath no crosses" (IH, 166) is
Donne's lamentation for them, because they are deceived by the temptations
of the world, the flesh, and the devil. They have not acquired sufficient
faith to start their journey of reunion with God.

Faith for Donne does not exist by itself, and he shows its relation to
reason. He claims that both faith and reason can unite to form "a new
faculty" (III, 359). What is implied here is that neither faith nor reason is

by itself an autonomous faculty, for they are complementary to each other:

13

"So faith without a root, without reason, is no faith" (V, 102). Thus true
faith must be grounded in reason which is itself conclusive to faith. The
whole natural world is but a book that if we read carefully by using our
reason, we will ultimately have faith not only in God's existence, but also
in his power and perfection as the creator of the whole cosmos. Every
creature in this world "may be the glass to see God in” (VIII, 230), he says,
and "If every gnat that flies were an archangel, all that could but tell me
that there is a God; and the poorest worm that creeps tells me that" (VIII,
224). This small worm or gnat displays God's creative power, grace, and
calls our attention to all the gifts that He has given us. If He has given to
these small creatures a gift as precious and valuable as life, what then has
he offered to his creatures who are made in His own image? Man has been
given life, reason, and will, and the senses to understand and enjoy all the
gifts of God. The significance of this microcosm, Man, is that he is a
mirror which reflects in a miniature the greatness of our Creator. It is only
in this microcosm where God's grace and abundance are distilled that we
can understand our Creator. God's gift of grace is available to all human
beings, and it is for us to use our faculty of reason to understand God's
providential ways to us and understand his omnipotence and great love for
us. Without this rational understanding of the creation, there can be no
faith. Donne declares that those who "Have no understanding... it is
impossible that ever they should have faith" (IX, 371). It is impossible for
us to have faith in or to love what we do not understand. This explains why
Donne thinks that reason should be the root of faith. Advocating the use of
reason in religion, he is also aware that mere intellectual speculation
without a foundation of faith will lead man further and further from belief.

In one of his sermons, he warns his congregation: "He that searches too far

14

into the secrets of God shall be dazled, confounded by that glory" (IV, 85).
In Donne‘s view reason should be welded to faith and grace to free will.
Unlike the radical Protestant reformers such as Luther, who belittles
the importance of reason in the process of salvation when he declares that
human reason is the "enemy of God" and "the Devil's whore"9, or Calvin
who states that "in Divine things, our reason is totally blind and stupid,"10
Donne takes the middle position between grace and faith on one hand and
human reason and will on the other. He attributes a crucial role to reason
in the redemptive process, but asserts that faith is complementary to
reason. In a brief allegorical image, Donne not only summarizes succinctly
his belief concerning the relevance of both faith and reason to the
redemptive process, but also reveals their unity. Donne asserts: "Reason is
our soules left hand, Faith her right, / By these wee reach divinity."11
Hence, Donne argues the interdependence of faith and reason for our
salvation. We also notice that the fundamental dichotomy between faith and
reason in the Calvinist or Lutheran doctrines has no place in Donne's view.
For Donne, religion is not a system of dogmas that we must accept
u'nquestioningly, but all our religious beliefs and convictions are the result
of a process of reasoning. As M. P. Ramsay states”: "il ne faut pas parler

de l'esprit sceptique ", Donne is "un penseur profondement religieux en

 

9 Quoted in B.A Garrish, giraee and Reasen; A Stedy ef the Theelegy of Luther
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962) l.

10 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia:
Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936) 299.

11 John Donne, "To the Countess of Bedford," The Complete Poetry of John
Denne, ed. John Shawcross (New York, 1967) 220.

12 MP. Ramsay, Les Doctrines Medievales Chcz Donne (Oxford. !917) 2-18.

 

 

15

meme temps que fermement convaincu de la valeur de la raison humane."
What Ramsay refers to is Donne's flexibility of mind which tends not to see
dichotomies and dualisms, like those between faith and human reason, but
to bring together these apparent contradictions into a comprehensive
synthesis. More modern critics, such as Terry Sherwood, tend also to agree
with Ramsay's claim. Sherwood asserts that Donne believes that "man as
rational creature must reason before and after belief" ("Reason in Donne's
Sermons," p. 366) However, Sherwood argues that Donne is not a pure
rationalist, and his claim for the importance of reason is a sort of
"reasoned belief," that is his "spiritual experience is not free from the
restrictions of rational understanding but is dependent upon understanding"
("Reason in Donne's Sermons," p. 374).

Both Richard Hooker and John Jewel, the great Anglican apologists,
have acknowledged the authority of human reason. Jewel argues that
"Natural reason is not the enemy, but the daughter of God's truth."13
Hooker also rejects the blind obedience to God, and argues that human
beings should not be like beasts following the first in the herd. Recognizing
the authority of both faith and reason, Hooker states that human beings
should use their reason to understand the Scripture, and confirm their
faith. Reason and faith, for Hooker, "do serve in such full sort, that they
both jointly... be so complete, that into everlasting felicity we need not the
knowledge of anything more than these two may easily furnish our minds

with."14 Years before Donne said that "our supreme court... for the last

 

13 John Jewel, The Works of John Jewel. ed. John Ayre. 4 vols. (Cambridge:
Parker Society, 1845 - 50), Vol.1, 501.

14 Richard Hooker. Of the Law ef Eeelesiastiea] Eeliry. ed. Arthur Stephen
Mcgrade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1989) I, 219.

16

Appeal be faith, yet Reason is her delegate,"15 Hooker had already argued
for the marriage of reason and faith in order to understand God and to
achieve salvation.

Donne is even more inclusive, for he believes that faith and reason
are not enough to reach salvation. Free will and works should be an
integral part in this process of salvation. By attributing to reason such
importance, Donne believes that man can participate in his own salvation
by means of the rational direction of the will toward good works.

For Donne, right belief by itself is not enough. Belief must result in
action, and man must perform good works that reveal his faith in God and
his will to reach salvation. Thus, good works are not only the seal of faith,
but they also nurture it, for faith without works is totally ineffective.
Donne speaks out strongly on this subject at the end of one of his sermons:
"To have knowne Good, to have beleeved it, to have intended it, nay to
have preached it to others, will not serve, they must have done good" (VI,
278). As in the Epistle of James, Donne argues that good works should
naturally follow our faith in God. Through these works of faith, man
shows to God his readiness, willingness, and disposition to receive God's
grace.

Rather than stressing dualism and the opposition of extremes, Donne
chooses the middle way. He does not attribute too much power to man as
the Roman Catholic church did by claiming that good works like going on
a pilgrimage, helps one to reach Heaven. Nor is Donne like the Calvinists,

who believe that God has complete control of our lives by electing some

 

15 John Donne, Essays, in Divinity, ed. E. M. Simpson (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1952) 56.

17

for salvation, and predestinating others to damnation regardless of their
works. For Donne, Man is a responsible, moral agent called upon to choose
between sin and redemption, and God has equipped him with both reason
and grace so that he can make his right choice. Donne warns his
congregation that no man should feel "so secure in his election, as to
forbear to work out his salvation with fear and trembling," and assures
them that "God saves no man against his will" (I, 261). What Donne is
saying here is that God does not predestine anyone's salvation, and each
individual should work for his own redemption. It is only when we express
our repentance, show our faith in God, and are ready to receive His grace
that He will bring us to terms with ourselves and with Him. God will not
offer his grace and salvation to those who do not show readiness to accept
them.

What we notice in Donne's view regarding the whole process of
salvation is his "largeness of mind which enabled him at times to pass
beyond the narrow bounds set up by the controversialists of his day" ( A
Study of the Prose Works of John Donne, p. 83 ). This "largeness of mind"
has allowed Donne to understand that redemption can be achieved only
through the interaction of different factors. Donne believes that God has
offered us many hints through which we can understand his providence.
Christ has been incamated in our image, so that we can perceive God, see
Him with us, and actually feel his love and care for all Mankind.
Moreover, he has given us many other faculties such as reason to
understand his means to us, and his providential design of this universe;
and given us our memory to recall God's hints which are the signs through
which he reveals Himself to us. All these factors are needed to achieve

salvation, and we cannot discard one at the expense of another. It is the

18

unity of these factors operating together that would allow us to regain our
lost union with God.

In this "largeness" and "inclusiveness" which characterize his mind,
Donne stands as a typical seventeenth century Anglican theologian. The
method of Anglicanism is that of consensus which rests upon the
recognition not only of the scriptural authority, but also on the authority of
human faculties such as reason. It is through this consensus that the
Anglican theologians have managed to settle their via media between the
doctrinal extremes of the Roman Catholic and the Puritan churches. This
Anglican via media exemplifies an ideal of reasonableness, nurtured by the
spirit of moderation, tolerance and mutual understanding. As P.E. More
has argued, the Anglican via media is "a means of comprehension" as
Opposed to the exclusiveness of the Puritan theological system. It is this
comprehension that lead some religious historians like Carroll E. Simcox
to describe Anglicanism as a "complex and heterogeneous form of
Christianity."16 In his view of the redemptive process, John Donne
epitomizes the comprehensiveness and inclusiveness of Anglican theology.

Moreover, Donne in his view of redemption has already pointed to
the union between man and God. God does not work alone in heaven, nor
does man live alone on earth. There is a dialogue between God and man, a
mutual interest in one another. God never forsakes his human beings when
they ask him for help, and never allows us to forsake ourselves. But our
reunion with God is not achieved till we reach the last step where "the last
enemie that shall be destroyed is death." Paradoxically, it is death, our last

step in this world of sin that will usher us again to that heavenly world.

 

16 Carroll Simcox, The Historical Road of @glicanism (Chicago: Henry
Regenry Company, 1968).

 

19

When man reaches his total dissolution, his "body dissolved into atoms and
grains of dust," and every part is scattered in different parts, that he starts
the process of regaining what has been lost, and thus becoming reunited
with God. Thus, death is not the end for the faithful because God's grace
has already initiated their own redemption. This death cannot be truly
tragic, for upon their death, they reach their heavenly world to regain the
spiritual purity of their prelapsarian state, and their lost harmony with
God. It is for these faithful people who believe in God's grace and salvation
that death itself dies and is not a force that casts them from this world, into
the grave, but becomes "the anteroom to Heaven." In a very personal tone,
Donne states that death is "the gate, by which I must enter into
Heaven"(VII, 359). Death, the consequence of sin, becomes, paradoxically,
the actual good, and the very means of our salvation and redemption. These
afflictions and tribulations of sin, which seem so evil at the time they are
experienced, may actually purge us of our sin, and make our reunion with
God more possible. Thus, what we call evil, sin, death and suffering may
well be the means of our salvation. As Simpson and Potter assert in their
introduction to Donne's sermons (volume VI), "Donne believes that
goodness will ultimately triumph, and that it does not simply blot out evil,
but makes use of it and incorporates it in the finished design" (VI, 20). Sin
is not merely depravity, but an integral part of the divine and perfect order
where "even disorders are done in order even our sins some way or
another fall within the providence of God" (VI, 20 ). "As God brought
light out of darknesse," He also "raises glory out of sin" (H1, 166). God has
this power to make good out of evil because "only the Lord knows how to
wound us out of love" (VI, 212). As Michael L. Hall argues, stressing

Donne's flexibility of mind, that in Donne's belief "'God not only brings

 

 

20

calamity as well as happiness, but can transform adversity into prosperity
and make worldly suffering a means to heavenly comfort.”17 Donne's
flexibility of mind enables him to perceive and understand this power of
God. In death, the reunion with God comes within our reach." That which
seems to our dissolution, [our death], is the strongest band of this union
when we are so united, as nothing can disunite us more" (V, 169).

This union with God, as described by Donne, resembles the rapture
or ecstasy of the mystical writers. Speaking about his reunion with God,
Donne says: "The blood of my saviour runs in my veins." The union of
Donne and God, of the material and the spiritual, has finally occurred, and
both of them are partakers of the same blood. Donne has achieved this
mystical union with his saviour because he has surrendered to God's will:
"I know I must die that death, what care I ?" (VI, 221). Donne does not
despair because he knows that this death will ultimately bring him spiritual
rapture and ecstasy. In this death, Donne is "already made one spirit with
[God]" and his "Soule is united to [his] Saviour." This mystical union brings
serenity and harmony to Donne's soul, and gives him "a present, an
immediate possession of the kingdom of Heaven" (VI, 96). It is in this
heaven that the soul is restored to its prelapsarian state of serenity and
peace, and finds its perfection again in its reunion with the body which is
the natural home of the soul. Finally the soul is wedded again to the body,
and the union with God is regained as well. All human beings who have
been saved through God's grace, by means of their own faith and good

works, will enjoy a state of eternal perfection and beauty in heaven instead

 

17 Michael Hall, "Searching the Scripture: Meditations and Discovery in
Donne's sermons," New Essays on Donne. ed. Gary A. Stringer (Mississippi:
University of Southern Mississippi Press, 1977), 235.

 

21

of the ugliness and disorder of the world of sin. The sense of separateness
will totally disappear and thus self - consciousness is swallowed up. Instead
love, perfection and unity will prevail. Only in this reunion do we achieve
our full divinity, recognize a sense of sublime, and feel that we are really
made in the image of God. There is no longer a disparity between words
and actions, or man and God, for God is inside him, and he is inside God.
In this reunion, no one would feel that his prayers would not go up to God
because trivial things such as the "noise of a fly," the "ratling of a couch",
or the "whening of a door" can separate him from God. On that day of
reunion, there is no need for words or prayers to communicate with God,
because our feelings flow naturally to God. On that day, Donne states,
"there shall be an end of that kingdom; no more church; no more working
upon men by preaching, but God himself shall be all in all" (VIII, 233).
God will be our kingdom, our church, our hearts, our prayers and our
words. It is on that day that God shall "enwrap all in one" (VI, 348). The
great company that will gather together and stand before the throne is
beyond our imagination. Preaching on the text of Revelation 7:9, Donne
says: "I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people and tongues, stood before the throne"
(VI, 159). Although these people come from different nations, and tribes,
and speak different languages, they form a united multitude not only
because they are all "clothed in white robes," but because they all have
faith, and all have worked for their own salvation, and they are all
rewarded for their faith and good works. In this diversity, we see unity,
harmony, fusion, and synthesis. In this vision of regeneration and reunion
with God, Donne reveals himself as a mystical writer, because he not only

attempts "to realise the presence of the living God in the soul and in

 

22

nature," but he also tries to come "into immediate relation with the higher
powers." It is this mystical aspect in Donne's theology which Evelyn
Simpson thinks gives Donne's sermons "a peculiar intensity, and bringing
unity out of the diversity of his many and apparently contradictory
qualities" ( A Study of the Prose Works of John Donne p. 98 ). This notion
of reunion with God, the erotic images through which it is conveyed, as I
will demonstrate in the third chapter, and the state of rapture and ecstasy
that Donne expresses, all point to the mystical nature of this reunion, and
the error in Henricksen’s claim that “an examination of what Donne
actually preached in his more than fifteen years in the pulpit will offer
little to support the contention that he was a mystic” (”Donne’s
Orthodoxy," p. 5).

It is this spiritual unity in these sermons which I have emphasized in
my study of Donne's theology. However, this unity on the theological level
does not explain fully Donne‘s uniqueness, because seventeenth-century
Anglican theologians share with Donne these beliefs and ideas. In the
following chapters, my intention is to stress his uniqueness. Comparing
Donne to Lancelot Andrewes, his contemporary, I hope to shed more light
on Donne, and show his distinctive characteristics of thought and language.
I hope to demonstrate how Donne's uniqueness is also built in large part
upon relating together what is theological and what is aesthetic. In Donne's

art, style is wedded to meaning, and they are both inseparable.

 

Chapter II
Andrewes, Donne and the Seventeenth Century

Anglican Sermon

Because of the cultural atmosphere of the early seventeenth century
in England, much literary genius was channeled into the writing of
sermons and devotional works. The Renaissance view of language allowed
preachers freedom in writing their sermons in a complex, flexible style.
This was part of the legacy of a theory of rhetoric which governed all
compositions, whether oral or literary. Indeed, the seventeenth century was
the golden age of preaching in general and of the Anglican sermon in
particular. The interaction of these factors contributed to the emergence of
the Anglican sermon as a work of literary art, and the preacher as literary
artist. The two most distinguished Anglican metaphysical preachers of the
first half of the century are Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne. In this
chapter, I propose to compare and contrast them in order to demonstrate
Donne's characteristic stylistic features that contribute to his uniqueness. In
order to make this comparison more focussed and specific, I have selected
sermons on the Nativity by Andrewes and Donne. The Biblical text for
both of these sermons is "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel" (Isaiah 7: l4). Andrewes's sermon was preached on Christmas
of 1614, and Donne's at St Paul on the same occasion in 1624.

It is perhaps expected that Donne and Andrewes tend to show many

stylistic similarities in their sermons because of several reasons. First, they

23

 

24

are both Anglican priests, and they were influenced by the same theological
doctrines of their church. Moreover, both of them are contemporaries who
were influenced by the same rhetorical method of preaching and the
"metaphysical style" characterized by embellished sentences and
metaphysical conceits. Their method is mainly drawn from the medieval
conventions of preaching that was itself influenced by classical theories of
oratory and draw much from Cicero's rhetorical principles. In the
Ciceronian Ad Herennium. the author states that any orator "should possess
the faculties of Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery."1
Both Anglican preachers were aware of the importance of these factors in
their preaching. Usually, they begin by introducing their Scriptural text.
Based on their own understanding of the text, they proceed to the exordium
in which they contextualize the Biblical passage. The composition of the
sermon includes invention, disposition, application, and elocutio. Invention
includes analysis of the natural divisions of the Biblical text. Disposition
consists of amplification of these divisions with arguments and illustrations
from the Bible and the Church Fathers. Application of the text can be
general or specific. In the case where it is general, the preacher may appeal
to the congregation to avoid or to apply what has been said to their own
lives or behavior. The preacher may reach a more dramatic effect by
applying the text to himself or to a persona he creates as an exemplum.
Elocutio is inclusive in that it is a term that includes many diverse elements
of styles, ornateness or simplicity, citation of authorities, copia, and

figurative language. Delivery deals with factors outside the text; it denotes

 

1 Cicero, Ad Hercnnium, (London: William Heinemann LTD, 1989) 7.

 

 

25

the manner the sermon should reach the ears of the hearers, and it includes
voice and gestures.

These were, in fact, the most common rhetorical principles of the
seventeenth-century Anglican sermon and both Donne and Andrewes
observed them. They start by quoting a Biblical text, then placing it in a
context. After this exordium, they proceed to the statement of the theme of
their sermon, and they frequently provide an outline of their structural
organization. Explicatio verborum, or explication, follows, in which they
explain the denotations of the words in their Biblical text. 'Amplification'
is the development of the text, and is analogous to confirmation or
confutation in classical oratory. However, for Donne, 'Application' had a
special significance. In this application, he attempts to apply the text to the
present moment of his auditors especially their beliefs and attitudes. It is
through this effective application that Donne makes his way to his auditors’
minds and hearts. Andrewes adopts the same traditional oratorical "form,"
but with slight differences. He breaks his text according to its periods,
which are the phrases that make up the Biblical text, and he breaks these
periods into subdivisions according to the words in these periods. These
periods and words provide a basis for the disposition of the whole semion.
Andrewes's amplification is made up of his analysis of every single word in
the text. In his application Andrewes, unlike Donne, does not apply the text
to himself. For instance, in his Nativity sermon, Andrewes divides his
Biblical text into three parts. In the first part, he deals with "Christ as
embryo," that is in his conception; the second part is "the new born babe
without a name;" and the third part is focussed on the significance of the
name "Immanuel." This division enables Andrewes to establish the frame

of his sermon so that he can analyze every single word of the text. Not only

26

does Andewes focus on the Nativity story, but also on the relevance of each
word in the Biblical text he has introduced. Donne, on the other hand,
accepts the broader principles of this homiletic method; that is, he includes
in his sermon these parts. Thus we find the exordium, the introduction to
the sermon, the invention, the disposition, and the application, as in
Andrewes. However, in the disposition, that is the amplification of this
division, we begin to see the differences between Andrewes and Donne.
Andrewes, as his division foretells, remains as close as possible to his text,
while Donne seizes the Nativity story as a pretext to preach on God's love
and grace. In Donne's exordium, he states that his sermon is going to
include three parts: "This therefore, shall be a first part of this Exercise
that God takes any occasion to shew mercy; And a second shall be, the
particular way of his mercy, declared here And then a third and last,
what this signe was" (VI, 168). We notice that the key phrase in Donne's
division is "God's mercy", and if he places any importance on the Nativity
story in his sermon, it is primarily because it illustrates God's mercy and
love. Though it might seem that there is a standard form of the Anglican
sermon, this form varies in Donne and Andrewes. Their own views of the
act of preaching and the effect they want to achieve give shape to the form
of their sermons.

Another characteristic that Andrewes and Donne share with the other
Anglican preachers is their fascination for the paradoxical nature of
Christian revelation, especially the Incarnation of the divine spirit in the
form of human nature. Andrewes declares: "The Holy Ghost began it here

at his birth... to couple low and high together, and to temper things mean

 

   

 

27

and usual with others as strange every way" (IV, 204).2 Anglican
preachers, especially Donne and Andrewes, try to imitate this supernatural
and paradoxical phenomenon in their own metaphysical style and bring the
'high' and 'low' together, usually in elaborate and far-fetched, or
metaphysical, conceits. An example from the sermon of Andrewes clearly
illustrates this. He describes the miraculous pregnancy of the Virgin Mary
as follows: "The light cometh through the glass, yet the glass is not
perished. No more than the light of Heaven passing through breaketh the
glass, no more did the God of Heaven by His passage violate any whit the
virginity of His mother“ (I, 139) In another instance he compares Mary's
womb to a vessel, and Christ to "the liquor that is put into it" (I, 140).

9'!

Here, we notice that Andrewes brings together the ‘high, God of heaven,"
with the ‘low,’ the light that "cometh through the glass" by a comparison of
dissimilar things.

Donne follows the same practice. He unites the ‘high’ and the ‘low’ in
his attempt to recreate the Incarnation on a stylistic level. In this semron on
the Nativity, he compares God's salvation to the act of building. God is the

builder of that "spiritual building, which is made up of three parts: the
"story of Creation... another of vocation, and another of Sanctification"
(VI, 175). God's sacred acts of creation, regeneration, and redemption are
compared to daily life activities. This comparison of the "high" with the
"low" does not debase the holy works of God, and thereby divest them of
meaning. On the contrary, it 'incamates' what is abstract and gives flesh to
what is spiritual. All God's acts of creation and sanctification are not

treated as abstract concepts, but are like a "building" that the congregation

 

2 J. P. Wilson and James Bliss. eds., The Werks ef Leneelot Andrewes, Vols 11,
Oxford, 1841-1854.

 

 

 

28

can see and admire for its loftiness and magnitude. In another instance, he
compares God's 'mercy' which precedes his judgment with the grass for
beasts. He states: "As God made grasse for beasts, and beasts for man,
before he made man; As in that first generation, the creation, so in the
regeneration, our re-creating, he begins with that which was necessary for
that which followes Mercy before Judgement" (VI, 170). Upon hearing
such a comparison, the congregation are invited to see the necessity of
God's grace in this world. God's grace is the "food" that enables us to
survive in this world of sin. Both Andrewes and Donne use the conceit in
order to help their auditors better understand what is abstract and spiritual
by means of the concrete and physical. In Andrewes's and Donne's
metaphysical conceits the word becomes flesh.

Moreover, Donne’s and Andrewes’s style show their verbal or
rhetorical wit. This verbal wit is sometimes shown by their rhetorical
embellishment. For instance, in both Nativity sermons we find
paronomasia, the use of words of almost similar sounds but different
meanings. In Andrewes's sermon, we find: "To conceive is more than to
receive" (1, 139), "If it be not Immanuel, it will be Immanu - hell" (I,
145), or "Neither womb nor birth, cratch nor cross, cross nor curse, could
pluck him away from us" (I, 147). In Donne's sermon, we find: "Till the
end of the World, in his Word," (VI, 184), and “The name of mercy out of
misery” (VI, 179). The inevitable pun on the pairsun / son is also found in
both sermons. Andrewes uses an image from Psalm 19: 5 and compares
Christ’s coming to this world to "a Bridegroom out of His chamber, or as
the sun from His tabernacle to run his race" (I, 142), and Donne declares
that "Though [he is] buried from the sight of the sun, yet in Constantines

time, the sun shall see me againe" (VI, 180). However, we notice that

 

29

Donne uses such rhetorical devices more frequently than does Andrewes.
In Donne’s sermon, we find more instances of words with common ending.
He constructs his sentences and phrases in a rhythmic pattern. For instance,
we find: "The consecration, in the administration," (VI, 184) or "If he be
thee, he will make thee see that he is with thee" (VI, 185). It is a common
practice for Donne to use alliterations as in "Hee directed the Jesus to
Christ, by signes, by sacrifices, and Sacraments, and ceremonies" (VI,
175).

This ornate metaphysical style has a functional role in the sermons of
Andrewes and Donne. They did not gratuitously use these rhetorical
devices, schemes, and tropes. Donne thought of rhetoric in the dialectical
sense, as a means of persuasion, not as mere literary embellishment. His
aim was to persuade his auditors to accept Christian belief and behavior,
and any means which enabled him to achieve this aim was legitimate, so
that whatever obscured his message was to be avoided. Donne's aim in
preaching was not to perplex the mind of his congregation. About his
method of preaching he writes: "With succinctness and brevity, as may
consist with clearness, and perspicuity, in such manner, and method, as
may best enlighten your understanding, and least encumber your memories
I shall open the meaning of the text" (III, 179). Andrewes also expressed
his attitude against the vanity of embellishment for its own sake. He
declares that "the music of a song, and the rhetoric of a sermon, all is one.
A foul error, even in the very nature of the word for that is a law, a
testament and neither song nor sonnet"3 In another sermon, he states that

"it is the evidence of the spirit in the soundness of the sense, that leaves the

 

3 Ibid., Vol. 5. p.198.

30

true impression... The rest come in passion" (V, 200). Both Andrewes and
Donne believe that form without content is a sort of vanity, and what the
preacher should secure in his sermons is a style that gives expressive
significance to his content. Andrewes never denied the importance of an
appropriate style, for he was eager to convey his message expressed in an
appropriate style to his sophisticated and learned congregation in which sat
a king. In a word, the Anglican preachers were aware that form and
content should be inseparable, and words without matter were an example
of vanity.

However, these similarities between Andrewes and Donne are
somewhat superficial, as the differences between them are important and
striking. One important difference is their sentence structure. Andrewes
shows a tendency towards short, sometimes clipped, sentences. This stylistic
feature is sometimes seen as an asset because it frequently contributes to
clarity and precision of expression. TS. Eliot, for example, expresses his
admiration for Andrewes's prose style, asserting that “no one is more
master of the short sentence than Andrewes” (Selected Essays, 306).
Andrewes's prose style illustrates the Senecan, as opposed to Ciceronian,
style. The structure of Andrewes's sentences are typical of his style. For
instance, in one sentence Andrewes succinctly reveals Christ’s love for us,
and the sacrifice he made in order to wash our sins and secure our
salvation. Andrewes states “This honour is to us by the dishonour of Him”
(I, 141). Though this sentence is simple and brief, it recapitulates the whole
mystical nature of the Incarnation of God in Man’s image to redeem sinful
Mankind. A key passage in this sermon reveals other aspects of the Senecan
style. In this passage he speaks about Christ being with us: “So ‘with us’ in

concipiet, conceived as we; ‘with us’ inpariet, born as we” (I, 143). This

 

31

period is typically Senecan in that there are no conjunctions to link its
constituents. As Croll has argued in his discussion of the Senecan style, this
period “has the appearance of having been disrupted by an explosion
within.”4 The structure of Andrewes's Senecan period does not seem to
follow a logical order; rather it reveals the imaginative flow of the
preacher’s mind and thus the spontaneity of his thoughts.

Donne’s style displays some of these Senecan characteristics but it
also has some major features of the Ciceronian style. Donne gives more
emphasis to the beauty and order of the sentence by providing a parallel
structure and rhythmical order. For instance in Donne’s sermon, we find
balanced phrases: “Thou have been benighted till now, wintered and
frozen, clouded and eclypsed, damped and benummed, smothered and
stupified till now” (VI, 172). This period reveals a greater sense of order
than we find in Andrewes. Such an order is associated with the Ciceronian
style, which focuses on formal symmetry and the rounded completion of
ideas. Donne’s style, however, also reveals some Senecan characteristics.
For instance, in Donne's period quoted above, we notice the brevity of the
constituents that make up the whole period, and also the progress of
Donne’s “imaginative apprehension” (“Attic” and Baroque Prose Style. p.
219). His sentence, “We begin with what is elder then our beginning, and
shall over live our end, the mercy of God” (VI, 170), where he manages to
describe the eternity of God’s mercy shows the same succinctness as
Andrewes does in his brief definition of Incarnation.

The differences between the two are deeper than that, however,

because they are part of their homiletic methods. Though they operate with

 

4 Morris Croll, “Artie” and Baregee Prese Style, Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1969), 209.

32

the same method, as I have demonstrated, the way they adopt this method
to their own practice varies considerably. Clearly, these two preachers
have different approaches to preaching. Though we speak of them as
belonging to the metaphysical school of preaching, the personality of each
preacher has played a major role in his shaping homiletic practice.
"Personality," and what it includes with regard to individual temperament
and sensibility, instead of "school" is crucial in our understanding of the
differences between Donne and Andrewes. This involvement of the
personality, or its opposite; the impersonal, affect the style of both
preachers in how they treat their themes or the Biblical text. Andrewes's
method is 'objective' in that he is intellectually detached from his material
as well as the distance he keeps between himself and his congregation.
Donne's method, by contrast, is 'subjective'. Donne is more personally
involved in the sermon, and the relationship between the preacher, the text
and congregation is completely much closer and interdependent.
Andrewes's use of the first person pronoun, for example, occurs
only to announce his plan for what is coming next, or to summarize a point
he has already mentioned. Andrewes's "I" is neutral, flat, and of little
dramatic or characterizational significance. We find it in phrases like "I
say," "I named," "I would clear a doubt," or "may I not add this?" It is
enough, for the moment, to quote Donne's confessional statement, "111 a
man I was," to demonstrate the difference between Donne's and
Andrewes's use of the "I". Donne tends to involve himself in his sermons,
and become both the preacher and a dramatic persona.
In this sermon on the Nativity, Donne creates a passionate, puzzled,
and questioning persona. Those passages where this persona is revealed are

like internal monologues or dramatic soliloquies in which a character

 

 

 

33

reveals his dilemmas, beliefs, and makes confessions. This persona becomes
the object of Donne's contemplation, and he finds in the text on which he is
preaching an appropriate occasion to express his feelings in response to it.
W. F Mitchell refers to this characteristic of Donne's preaching when he
says: "The greater part of his [Donne's] material is derived directly, or
after undergoing a peculiar manner of distillation in the alembic of his
personality."5 For instance, in the following passage the preacher can see
an analogy, or a similarity, between himself and Ahaz (2 King 16). This
similarity is that both can misinterpret or even deny the signs that God
sends them: "I resist that signe, I dispute against that signe, I tume it
another way, upon nature, upon fortune, upon mistaking, that so I may goe
mine owne way, and not be bound, by beleeving that signe to be from God,
to goe that way, to which God by that signe calls me," and Donne concludes
his statement with "And this was Achaz case" (VI, 176). This statement has
a highly dramatic effect. The identification of the speaker with king Ahaz
makes the auditors see vividly Ahaz and his unwillingness to accept God's
sign, for the use of the "1" makes it with dramatic immediacy. The "1"
takes the story of Ahaz from the pages of the Old Testament and brings it
before the congregation so that they can see the drama acted before them.
Donne's "I" is frequently confessional and thus, becomes a highly dramatic
means of expression. In the following rhetorical passage where Donne
provides some autobiographical details, while declaring that he should not
do so; "If I should declare what God hath done for my soul, where he
instructed me for feare falling, where he raised me when I was fallen,

perchance you would rather fixe your thoughts upon my illnesse, and

 

5 W. Froser Mitchel, English Pulpit Oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson (New
York: The MacMillan Co. 1932), 172.

 

34

wonder at that, then at Gods goodnesse, and glorifie him in that; rather
wonder at my sins, then at his mercies, rather consider how ill a man I
was, then how good a God he is" (VI, 171). In this confessional statement
the purpose of Donne's use of the dramatic "1" becomes more clear. The
"I" is used as a device to move as well as teach the audience. He does not
want his congregation to "wonder at [his] sins." Instead, he wants them to
focus on God's love and grace. Though sinful and fallen the speaker was,
God has given him grace and light within him so that he can see God. The
rhythmical, parallel structure of "rather Consider how ill a man I was, then
how good a God he is," helps Donne transfer the attention of the
congregation from the sinful speaker standing before them to the
comprehensive mercy of God. This contrast belittles the speaker and
glorifies God. The speaker is a small creature before God. He is a man, and
"ill a man I was," while all the "mercies" and "goodnesse" that God has for
every one makes us feel wonder at "how good a God he is."

Andrewes did not write personal and dramatic passages like these,
for his homiletic method is different from Donne's. Andrewes chooses net
to put much emphasis on the preacher himself. As TS Eliot mentions in his
essay "Lancelot Andrewes," Andrewes is "self-effacing."6 The literary
strength of Andrewes's passages is not drawn from the use of a dramatic
persona, but it is achieved by other means. In a passage from the Nativity
sermon, Andrewes states: "This is the great ‘withus’; for of this follow all
the rest ‘with us’ in His Sacrifice on the Altar of the Crosse; ‘with us’ in
all the virtues and merits of His life; ‘with us’ in the satisfaction and satis-

passion both of His death; 'with us' in His Resurrection to raise us up from

 

6 T. S. Eliot, Seleeted Essays, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950),
302.

 

35

the earth; 'with us' in His Ascension, to exalt us to heaven..."(I, 147). Here
we notice that Andrewes's object of contemplation is different from
Donne's. Donne concentrates on the self, but in Andrewes, the object of
contemplation are the events of Christ's life: His birth, life, death,
Resurrection, and Ascension.

Andrewes, because he does not pay much attention to the "I" persona
in his sermons, becomes totally focussed on and very close to the text. He
seems to be describing his own practice when discussing Christ's first
sermon: "He took a text to teach us thereby to do the like. To keep us'
within: not to fly out, or preach much, neither without or besides the book"
(VI, 361). Clearly Andrewes's homiletic method shows a strong
commitment and closeness to the text. He believes that the preacher should
never leave his text. The preacher starts from the text, and to the text he
should return.

In the sermon on Nativity, Andrewes shows his refusal "to fly out"
from the text. He displays all the facets of the Christmas story. He divides
his text, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and she shall call
His name Immanuel," into three parts. Consequently, the congregation
understands that Andrewes's intention is to examine and amplify a given
span of time in the Nativity story. Moreover, he develops his text piece by
piece and word by word, starting from the word "behold," interpreted as
an announcement of a coming sign from God, and ending with an elaborate
dissection of the word "Immanuel" and all the possible meanings it might
have. This witty dissection of the word "Immanuel" covers over ten pages
of the sermon, and Andrewes exploits all the meanings of the different
parts of the word and the meaning of all the combinations we can form

from all these parts. This intellectual and literary sensitivity to language is

36

described by T. S. Eliot: "Andrewes takes a word and derives the word
from it, squeezing and squeezing the word until it yields a full juice of
meaning which we should never have supposed any word to possess"
(sew, p. 305). Andrewes seizes the words "Immanuel," "god
with us" and "squeezes" out their full meaning.

Andrewes's closeness to the Biblical text is also seen on another
level. His images grow out of the text, and he rarely elaborates as does
Donne, on an image or metaphor. When Andrewes states "No more than
the light of Heaven passing through breaketh the glass, no more did the
God of Heaven by his passage violate any whit the virginity of His mother"
(I, 139), the auditors are aware that this image is related to the text because
the words he uses, and the words in the Biblical text of his sermon are in
the same semantic field, that of motherhood and birth. Nor does Andrewes
develop the image, "the light passing through a body, the body yet
remaining whole." He chooses to leave his images in a state of embryo. In
the image "a vessel is not said to conceive the liquor that is put into it," his
use of both the "vessel" for the womb and the verb "conceive" based on
the Biblical text give evidence of his closeness to the text.

It seems that Andrewes sometimes decides to break the bars of
confinement of his text and "flies out" from it, as in the following passage:
"So that this when he came forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, or as
the Sun from his tabernacle to run his race... thence an angel cried Ecce
and proclaimed it from Heaven, poets in the west write of it; and wise men
in the East saw it, and came a long joumey upon it to see him." Here, the
readers feel that Andrewes is flying away to a visionary world, of stars and
angels, a world of music where beautiful sounds and music echo one

another. In this respect Andrewes resembles Donne in this flight from the

37

material world to a heavenly one. However, with the sentence, "No sooner
born, but a multitude of heavenly soldiers sung 'Peace to the cart ,"
Andrewes reverses the whole situation, and brings this heavenly world
down to the earth. Instead of ascending from this earth to the visionary
heavens, he descends from that harmonious world back to earth. This
exemplifies how Andrewes always has his eyes on the text, and he is not
willing to abandon it by following his imagination. In the same way that
each image or metaphor should refer to the text, each vision should also
return to earth. Andrewes is unwilling to fly away too long from either the
text or the physical world.

Andrewes's style has elicited from some readers negative views of
his art. It has been argued that his style is artificial. Those who have been
critical of his style agree upon this 'artificiality.‘ Bishop Felton, a
contemporary of Andrewes, refers to the latter's style as the “artificial
amble."7 What causes this artificiality is the distance that Andewes
maintains between himself and his text. This focus on the text causes not
only a detachment of the preacher from his sermon, but also that of the
congregation from both the preacher and the sermon. That is, the
congregation may not see any emotional interaction between the preacher
and his sermon. The problem, then is how an audience can be moved by a
preacher who seems not personally involved in his sermon. Andrewes does
not probe, as does Donne, into the consciences of his hearers by dramatic
means. In Andrewes's sermon there is no sense of Donne's interrelationship
of preacher, congregation and sermon. In the absence of the speaking

persona, the reader and congregation become aware of the artificiality and

 

7 Quoted in Horton Davies, Wership and Theelegy in England (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1972) 147.

38

cold intellectuality of the etymological and syllable-by-syllable analysis of
the text. Richard Baxter criticizes Andrewes's style when he states: "When
I read such a book as bishop Andrewes Sermons, or heard such kind of
preaching, I felt no life in it, methought they did but play with holy things”
(Worship and Theology, p. 147). Scots Lord remark to King James that
Andrewes "cannot preach. He rather plays with his text than preaches on
it", resembles Baxter's. Modem critics such as Davies Horton illustrates
that the problem raised by this homiletic method is that it "never allows the
reader to relax even for the purposes of deeper meditation on the meaning"
(filer—511W, p. 148). Andrewes produced such a defect in his
style because as Horton says, "he was no expert in human psychology."

By contrast, Donne was very aware of the importance of the
psychology of the congregation, and he knew that he must work on this
psychology in order to teach and move them. Donne often identifies
himself with his audience, and they stand together to face God, confess
their sin, pray for his mercy, and ask for salvation. Although Donne is the
preacher, he is also aware that he is a member of the congregation as well.
Prevalent pronouns in this and other Donne sermons are "I" and "we." He
manages in this nativity sermon to make his own concerns, fears and hopes
those of his congregation as well. In the same way as he stands helpless
before the greatness of God, and the plenitude of God's eternal mercy, so
do his auditors: "We know the compasse of a Meridian, and the depth of a
Diameter of the Earth, and we know this, even of the uppermost spheare in
the heavens: But when we come to the Throne of God Himselfe we have
no balance to weigh them, no instruments to measure them, no heart to
conceive them" (VI, 174). This direct and passionate address to his

congregation makes Donne more emotionally persuasive than Andrewes.

 

 

39

The congregation may be persuaded and moved when they hear him
reassuring himself of God's Grace: "1 cannot doubt of his mercy in any
distress: If I lacke a signe, I seeke no other but this, that God was made
man for me; which the church and church-writers have well expressed by
the word Incarnation" (VI, 178). The congregation share their preacher’s
his faith when he states: "I must nor aske how God took this way, to
Incarnate his Son; And shall I aske how this was done?" (VI, 179). John
Donne stands before his congregation not only as a preacher, but also as an
exemplum who has experienced God's mercy. Izaak Walton, who had been
Donne's parishioner, refers to this characteristic in Donne's preaching: he
preached "The word so, as shewd his own heart was possest with those
thoughts and joys that he laboured to distill into others: A preacher in
earnest; weeping sometimes for his auditory, sometimes with them, always
preaching to himself like an Angel from a cloud."8 In this description,
Walton draws our attention to the sincerity of Donne's preaching, and to
the close relationship he has with his audience. Through his preaching
Donne does not only move his congregation, but he is himself moved. He
weeps when his audience do so, and he feels exactly what they feel. There
is a unity between the preacher and his congregation. He identifies himself
with them to the extent that they both become a single entity. He does not
stand by himself isolated in his pulpit, but he is with them, "preaching to
himself‘ and also "weeping with them." In a word, Donne was not just a
preacher, but also "a husband to his congregation" (John Donne: Preacher,
p. 26)

 

8 William R. Mueller, John Donne: Preacher, (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1962), 26.

 

40

The text for Donne becomes a pretext to illustrate the glory of God,
and to move his auditors to Christian faith and works. Unlike Andrewes,
Donne does not stay with the text, but he flies away from it. In Donne's
Nativity sermon, for example, we realize that he does not dwell on the
Christmas story. The text, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and beare a
son, and shall call his name Immanuel," does not lead Donne's imagination
to the story of Christ's birth, as it does with Andrewes. Instead, Donne's
imagination dwells on the idea of God's mercy and grace. In no place in
Donne's sermon do we find the etymological analyses of some words as we
find in Andrewes’s sermons.

Nor does Donne's imagery originate from the text. His images are
often completely independent of the Biblical text. Most of the images in this
sermon are not related to the story of Nativity, but to the broader concept
of God's mercy. He compares God's mercy to the "cloud of Quailes which
hovered over the host of Israel," and our prayers to the "net" that will
catch these "quailes." He further explains this metaphor or image by
another one, and illustrates that as the air is "full of Moats, of Atomes" so
is the church of God's mercy. Donne turns to the world of nature to bring
home to his congregation the quality of divine love. God is abundant in his
love, mercy, and grace for us. Though "God made Sun and Moon to
distinguish the seasons , and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of
the earth but in their seasons... God hath made no decree to distinguish the
seasons of his mercies" (VI, 172). Donne concludes this elaborate image
with "all times are his seasons." Moreover, the analogy,"The Sun is not
weary with sixe thousand years shining; God cannot be weary of doing
good," shows that God's mercy is endless and everlasting. We can see how

far Donne has departed from the literal text. Not only does his imagination

 

41

seize the concept of God's mercy, but he also draws his imagery from
sources totally remote from the Nativity per se or the Biblical text on
which he is preaching. J oan Webber argues that Donne begins with a text
from the Scripture or a given scene, and then "he spirals outward and
upward until from... the present moment he has arrived at a celebration of
eternity,"9 finds an excellent example in this Nativity sermon.

If Donne enjoys certain eminence over Lancelot Andrewes and other
Anglican divines of his age, this eminence lies in his personal involvement
with the religious experience communicated in his sermon. Unlike
Andrewes' sermons which "died almost with the man himself," and thus
stood as "a cold memorial of the early struggles and growth of the
Anglican Church,"10 Donne's sermons will stand as a memorial of this
highly personal visionary preacher, and will always reveal the curious,
doubtful, passionate, and assenting spirit of Donne. Donne's sermons will
survive not only because he is the most famous preacher of the Anglican
Church in the seventeenth century, but because he is the greatest poet of

the English pulpit.

 

9 Joan Webber, “Celebration of Word and World in Lancelot Andrewes'
style”, Seventeenth - Century Prose. ed. Stanley Fish, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1971), 345.

10 Maurice Reidy, Bishop Laneelet Andrewes, (Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1955), 218.

Chapter III
Imagery; Figurative Language and
Biblical Typology

About the influence of John Donne on his congregation, Joan
Webber says that "according to contemporary accounts," among those who
heard Donne preach, "children dropped their toys, old men crept from
their corners, women fainted, and brave men wept."1 Although these
accounts might seem hyperbolic to us, they reveal the control Donne while
preaching his sermons had over his congregation. This control stems not
only from Donne's belief that a preacher should edify the lives of his
auditors, but also from the powerful imaginative and emotional impact that
his sermons produced on the congregation. Simpson seems to have
explained in large part the congregation's reaction to Donne's preaching
when she asserts that "his sermons are the work of an orator and poet,
whose strength lay in the reality of his own personal religious experience
and in the power of imagination by which he bodied forth things unseen
and made them almost visible to his hearers” (A Study ef the Prose Works
of John Donne, p. 111). In this evaluation of Donne's sermons, the crucial
phrase is "almost visible to his hearers." This statement calls our attention
to the vividness of Donne's prose style, especially the effectiveness of his
imagery, his figurative language and typological symbolism. Thus without

overlooking the importance of the doctrinal side of Donne's sermons, much

 

1 Joan Webber, Contrary Music (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1963) 90.

42

 

43

emphasis should be put on the analysis of these sermons as "the work of an
orator and poet."

In this chapter, I intend to explore the literary side of Donne's
sermons. I will start with an analysis of his use of imagery and figures of
speech, and conclude with a discussion of Donne's understanding of biblical
typology. My aim in this chapter is to show how Donne's visionary view of
his reunion with God influences not only his imagery and figures of
speech, but also his interpretation of the Bible, and his relationship as a
preacher with his congregation. From this perspective, I will argue that
Donne's expression of the mystical vision of reunion with God is achieved
by means of language and style. A key word in my analysis is 'unity', and
its implication is that there is a correspondence between the theological
doctrines and literary style of John Donne, a correspondence which reveals
integration, unity and harmony between his belief and his art. The basis of
this argument is drawn from Joseph A. Mazzeo's essay, "Metaphysical
Poetry and the Poetic of Correspondence," in which he argues that
metaphoric language in metaphysical poetry is not merely a means of
rhetorical embellishment. The metaphysical poets, according to Mazzeo,
believed that "God created a world full of metaphors, analogies and
conceits," which are "the law by which creation was effected."2 This
suggests that all creatures are involved in a whole net of relationships in
which they an inseparable part. Mazzeo refers to this relationship as "the
poetic of correspondences." According to this view, "the universe"

becomes "a vast net of correspondences which unites the whole multiplicity

 

2 Joseph A. Mazzeo, "Metaphysical Poetry and the Poetic of Correspondence,"
Seventeenth - Century Prose and Poetry. eds. Alexander M. Witherspoon and
Frank J. Wamke (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982) 1098.

44

of being" (“Metaphysical Poetry and the Poetic of Correspondences,”
p.1098). Though this notion in Mazzeo's essay is explicitly related to the
metaphysical poets, I think that it is of a great relevance to Donne's prose,
especially in the analysis of his metaphors and analogies. The focus of this
"vast net of correspondences" is on Donne's quest for unity.

The circle is an archetypal image of unity, wholeness and harmony.
Donne turns to this image of the circle when he wants to express integrity
and perfection. As Rugoff points out, when "the theme is perfection,
completeness, infinity the circle is its symbol."3 This explains why the
symbolic image of the circle is much related to the divine nature, God's
actions and love, for it is in God that we see 'perfection', 'completeness',
and 'infinity' Donne states that "one of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks
of God is a Circle, and a Circle is endless" (VI, 173). God is like a circle,
"God is all Center, as that hee looks to all, and so, all circumference, as
that hee embraces all" (VII, 247). It is in God's circle that we all meet.
Moreover, Donne perceives everything pertaining to God in terms of
circles. All his creation and actions are circular: "God hath made all things
in a Roundnesse God hath wrapped up all things in Circle" (VII, 396-
97). All the spheres are circles, the sun is a circle, the moon too, and so are
the stars. Furthermore, God "loves to the end: as a Circle is printed all at
once, so his beginning and ending is all one" (IV, 96). Donne often uses the
circle to symbolize the eternity of God. He exhorts his congregation, for
example, to "fixe upon God anywhere, and you shall finde him a Circle; He
is with you now...and he will be with you hereafter, for He is yesterday

and today, and the same forever" (VII, 52).

 

3 Milton A. Rugoff. Donne's Imagery (New York: Russel and Russel, 1939) 64.

 

 

45

Everything divine, in Donne's view, becomes a circle. He speaks of
David's Psalms as 'circles of prayer, and praise to the eternal and more
perfect circle of God. For Donne, the Psalm is a prayer, and "as the Prayer
is made to him that is Alpha, and Omega, first and last; so the Prayer is
Alpha and Omega," and it is David who "makes up his Circle" (II, 50). The
Psalm is an infinite "Circle of praise" (V, 271). Christ is also a circle.
Donne's image of Christ being a circle is interesting and worth noticing.
Righteous men, because of their sanctified and moral lives, are'referred to
in Donne’s sermons as the sun, but Christ is the larger and more
comprehensive, circle. He is our "Zodiake" In him we move, from the
beginning to the end of our circle" (VI, 68). The time from Christ's first
coming to His second coming at the Day of Judgment is also referred to as
a great circle whose diameter no man knows. Moreover, Donne sees in the
figure of the circle characteristics of inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and
integrity. To explain these characteristics, Donne uses the image of a map,
and relates it to the circle. For example, Donne states: "Take a flat Map
and here is East, and there is West, as far asunder as two points can be
put." Donne continues to explain that no matter how far these two points
are from each other and how much different they are, once we "reduce this
flat Map to roundnesse then East and West touch one another, and are all
one" (II, 199). Through the opposition of "here" in "here is East," and
"there" in "there is West," which was possibly made more vivid by Donne's
gestures at the pulpit, he puts both "East" and "West" at the greatest
possible distance from each other. However, no matter how far the "East"
is from the "West", and no matter how much the distance is that separates
them, the circle unites them, and narrows the distance between the two.

The circle can make the west east, east west, and both can meet at a given

 

 

 

46

point. In a circle, there is no separation,"the West is East," (VI, 59). They
become one single entity. "In a flat Map, there goes no more, to make West
East, though they be distant in an extremity, but to paste that flat Map upon
a round body, and then West and East are all one" (VI, 59). The circle has
the power to unify what seems to be paradoxical and diverse in one
harmonious synthesis.

However, if we stop at this point in explaining Donne's
understanding of the figure of the circle, then we do not tell the whole
story. The use of the circle is even more complex and paradoxical than it
first seems to be. Donne does not always use the figure of the circle to
symbolize perfection and harmony. He uses it also to describe mortal man's
life. The circle symbolizes man's life from the womb to the grave:
"Consider mans life aright, to be a Circle In this, the circle, the two
points meet, the womb and the grave are but one point, they make but one
station, there is but a step from that to this" (II, 199 - 200). That imperfect
circle of mortality is not made by God, for it is Man who traced it when he
committed his original sin. If the other circle is the circle of perfection,
comprehensiveness and integrity, because "our great and good God" is the
"Mathematician," this circle "we make up our selves" is a circle of misery,
mortality, and sin (II, 200). It is the circle of our life. From the "grave,
our mother's womb, we come," to the "grave, the womb of the ground" we
shall return. However, in the midst of the wretchedness of our fallen lives,
Donne always finds intimations of hope. He argues that by completing this
mortal circle by our death, we begin a second and new circle: the circle of
immortality and perfection. The day of our death is but the last arc of the
imperfect circle of this life, and at the same time the beginning of another

are of a more perfect circle, the divine circle of harmony and love, where

47

we achieve divinity and perfection. Paradoxically, the last arc in the
imperfect circle is the beginning of the first, more perfect, and divine one.
The very end of imperfection and mortality marks the beginning of
perfection and immortality. Thus Donne manages to reveal the theological
paradox of life and death on the level of imagery. The circle is not used
just as an archetypal image of unity, but also as a vehicle which conveys
Donne's theological paradox of death and rebirth. As Schleiner puts it:
"The fact that a field of imagery can be viewed as spelling out a concept
shows the interdependence of vehicle and subject matter and makes it
impossible to exclude theological questions entirely from rhetorical
analysis."4 Schleiner is referring here to the integration of style and
meaning, and their mutual dependence. He also states clearly that
theological matters tend to color and influence Donne's choice of imagery
and rhetorical devices. Donne has succinctly used this archetype of the
circle to express his vision of unity and perfection which ordinary,
discursive language might fail to reveal.

The same reason which prompted Donne's choice of circle imagery
to express integrity, perfection and wholeness also attracted him to the
topos of the microcosm - macrocosm. Accordingly, he sees a
correspondence between all the entities that exist in this universe. Indeed,
the whole world becomes “a net of Correspondences” where the small
contains the large, and the detail the whole. In Donne's view, the whole
world becomes a microcosm of the greater macrocosm, God. Several of
Donne's most frequently used images, the book, the mirror, and the

theatre, are used to show the relationship between the microcosm and the

 

4Winfried Schleiner, The Imagery of John Donne's Sermons (Providence:
Brown University Press, 1970) 202.

 

48

macrocosm. For example, he shows how the world is a book. He says that
"There is an elder booke in the world than the Scriptures it is the World
it selfe" (III, 264). Through the image of the book as a metaphor for the
whole world, Donne manages to reveal the coherence and order that we
can find in our world. Just as a book is made of different paragraphs,
sentences and words, all of them contributing to the unity of the book, so is
our world made up of different, frequently paradoxical, components. If we
meditate upon all these diverse components and features, however, we
notice that they make a coherent whole. According to Donne, in spite of its
differences, dichotomies and paradoxes, "this whole world is one Booke"
(IX, 373). It is in this topos of microcosm - macrocosm that the whole
world becomes a “net of correspondences” as Mazzeo argues.

Another recurring image in Donne's sermons is the mirror, which
reflects everything upon its surface, and he uses it to convey the idea that
the detail can reveal the whole, the low the high, and the small the great.
The image of the mirror for Donne is a means for us to see God whose
power of creation and greatness are reflected upon its surface. Thus, both
the images of the book and the mirror become vehicles for us to gain
greater knowledge of God. These two images seem to have a similar
function in Donne's mind, because at times he uses them interchangeably in
his sermons and unites them in a single metaphor. For example, he states,
"Our medium, our glasse, is the booke of Creatures, and our light, by
which we see him, is the light of Naturall Reason" (VIII, 220). Everything
in this world becomes a glass in which we see the perfection of God. God
has made all the glasses such as "the sun, and Moon, and stars, glorious
lights for man to see by." (IV, 171). For Donne, God's Word and all the

sacraments become the microcosm which both reflect and embody the

49

macrocosm, God: "See him in the preaching of His Word; see him in that
seal, which is a Copy of him see him in the sacrament." Thus, God
reveals himself in miniature to his creatures as that they can understand and
know him. Then, it is our duty to look into this mirror, or read this "book
of creatures" carefully in order to decode the meaning of God's book. The
mirror is the place where we can see the whole world condensed and
brought together.

The theatre is also another place which displays such condensation
and allows for the concentration of vision. The theatre "is the Whole
World, the whole house and frame of nature" (VIII, 220). When Donne
states that "the whole frame of nature is the Theater, the whole Volume of
creatures is the glasse" (VIII, 224), it becomes apparent that Donne uses the
theater as a related vehicle for his microcosm - macrocosm imagery. Thus,
"the world is the theatre that represents God, and everywhere every man
may, nay must see him" (VIII, 242).

Moreover, Donne draws upon the commonplace topos of man as a
microcosm. Man is a microcosm containing within himself all that the
greater world is composed of. Although man is fallen and sinful, he is still
the 'temple of God'. Donne believes that man is made in God's image, and
though we live in a world of sin and corruption, we can still see the divine
image in man. Man himself has become a mirror which reflects the divine
nature and the power of God's creation. "This body is an Illustration of all
Nature; Gods recapitulation of all that he had said before" (VII, 272).
Thinking of the whole universe as the volume of a book, Donne states that
"Gods abridgement of the whole world was man. Reabridge man into his
least volume as he is but meer man, and so he hath the Image of God in

his soul" (IX, 83). Thus in Donne's view, the whole world is a volume,

 

50

man is the abridged version of this volume, and God is the author who in
these two volumes has revealed to his readers his love and his reason. It is
in the perfection, coherence and completeness of these two volumes of man
and the world that we see the perfection and wholeness of the divine
author, God. Thus, man is not just a part of this world, but he is the whole
world itself. In man's relationship to God, and his immortality in heaven,
Donne sees man as a "great thing, a noble creature," who is not a piece of
the world, but the world itselfe," and the whole glory of God (VI, 298).
Thus the image of man expands further in heaven. He is no longer the
microcosm, but becomes the whole macrocosm. The relationship between
man and the world no longer reveals two disparate entities, for the fusion
of man and the world has finally occurred. According to Donne, when
"man extended in the world, and the world contracted and abridged into
man," (IX, 93), then the two become one, and man "is all" (VI, 297). In
Donne's imagery of microcosm - macrocosm, everything is transformed.
"The small containing the large, the lower mirroring the higher, the one
becoming another," and most importantly, "the two becoming one."5
Through these imagistic variations of the microcosm - macrocosm
topos, Donne makes order out of disorder, finds similarities in
dissirnilarities, create infinitude in a world of finitude, and establishes unity
in the midst of multiplicity. He understands that all the duality, diversity
and multiplicity we see in this world are but the exterior appearance behind
which there is a unifying, transcendent force at its center, and that is God.
Through Donne's diverse and multiple imagery we are allowed,

paradoxically, to see harmony and unity. The components of the universe

 

5 Toshihko Kawasaki, "Donne's Microcosm," Seventeenth Century Imagery,
ed. Earl Miner (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) 34.

 

 

51

become drawn into a unified vision, and all the dissirnilarities are woven
into one intricate "net of correspondences." Man is a correspondent to the
universe, and the universe to God, who is the creator of all. Thus, the
universe is no longer the place of tension or clashes between opposing
forces, but a place where there is harmony and unity. As Mazzeo states:
"By seeking out and establishing correspondences, the ingegno makes order
out of disorder and brings clarity where there had been only darkness, and
mystery" (“Metaphysical Poetry and the Poetic of Correspondence,”
p.1099). Through his imagery, Donne enables the reader to perceive the
harmony, beauty, order, of the unity that he shall receive one day in God's
heavenly world. In fact, as Webber states, "One theme that remains
constant through Donne's writing is the search for unity in a world that
manifests disunion, and disproportion everywhere" (Contrary Music,
p.80). As we have seen, Donne's eagerness to discover this unity or 'net of
correspondences‘ is noticeable in many aspects of his figurative language
The most apparent characteristic related to Donne's metaphors,
analogies, and conceits is the diversity of sources from which he draws
them, and the similarities he finds between things which seem to be totally
dissimilar to the audience. Donne often turns to secular areas to clarify by
analogy and metaphoric language that which is abstract and spiritual. Many
of his conceits and analogies, for example, are drawn from agriculture.
Through georgic imagery, Donne describes the relationship between man
and God. God is the great landlord and we are his tenants, or sometimes his
crops. The influence of the Scripture upon our reason and feeling is "his
ploughing upon our hearts," and the "seed of his word." The relief and
assurance we receive from God is "the dew of his grace," while the

rewards we get because of our sanctified life are "the fruites of

 

52

sanctification" (I, 241). God becomes a gardener separating flowers from
weeds, or planting his seeds in our cultivated hearts to produce the finest
spiritual harvest. Donne describes the whole redemptive process and life of
sanctification using georgic imagery. Speaking about David's faith in God,
and his readiness with which he received God's truth, Donne says: "David
understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it, to
manure, and cultivate it well; he knew what ploughing, what harrowing,
what weeding and watering, and pruning it needed, and so perhaps might
be trusted with himself‘ (VIII, 197). In this passage, Donne demonstrates
how he can make use of the georgic imagery to express effectively the
conditions of man's conscience, thus making the abstract concrete. The use
of these georgic images, as I will demonstrate later, recalls different
instances from the Gospels where Christ in his teaching uses the same kind
of images to communicate to his auditors. Such a technique, as I will
demonstrate, has a great effectiveness upon the audience.

Because of the familiarity of the audience with images of clothing,
either from the Bible or from their daily life, Donne draws many images
from this field. Clothing is another subject that provides Donne with
metaphors to instruct his congregation about his abstract theological
doctrines. Speaking about Christ as a garment, Donne states that we must
"put it on so, that it may cover us all over, that is, all our life; because it is
not in our power, if we put it off, by new sinnes, to put it on again" (V,
156). More explicitly, he states that "this garment, which is Christ Jesus,
that is our sanctification should be entire and uninterrupted" '(V, 156).
Donne uses the metaphor of a garment to suggest the closeness that we shall
enjoy with Christ when we believe in him, and have faith in him. As our

garments are very close to our bodies, so will Christ be. It is only our

I

53

dressing ourselves in the garment of Christ that will enable us to share with
him his very divinity, and to "be of the same nature and substance as he is"
(V, 156). It is only this garment that we need in order to reach salvation.
When we have Christ with us, as close to us as our garments are to our
body, then we will have salvation and unity with God. In several sermons,
Donne describes the sacrament of Baptism as the appareling of ourselves
with the Lord, a metaphor based on the Scriptural text: "for as many of
you...that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27).
Donne also uses metaphors and analogies to describe his visionary
reunion with God. In order to describe his own view about life after death
and how mankind is going to be reunited with God, Donne uses the
metaphor of marriage. Human love is used to describe Christ's love for the
individual soul, and Christ's loving relationship with his church. Christ is
the husband, and his church is his wife. Donne speaks about the
"widowhood" of the Bride after the Ascension of Christ. The Church
"mourned, and lamented his absence," and she must "mourn now in a more
vehement manner, when she was to be his widow" (VI, 315). Christ is the
lover, and the church is the beloved who shall always be devoted to her
husband even after his death. These elaborate metaphors, or conceits, of
marriage are used to describe the relationship between Christ and man.
When Donne says, "There is a marriage, and Christ marries me," or
"Christ Jesus has married my soul" (III, 251), we notice that Donne
sometimes develops these metaphors in a rather sexual and erotic way. For
example, describing his intimate and close relationship with Christ, Donne
states: "His left hand is under my head, and his right embraces mee...and
good night to Christ then... Beloved, every good soule is the spouse of

Christ (IX, 292). Donne's flexible wit allows him to use the same metaphor

54

in different contexts and situations. This use of the ‘marriage’ conceit
enables him to bring home to his congregation the mutual eternal love
between Christ and ourselves. Donne is aware that his congregation will
have to use their imagination in order to understand Christ's love and care
for them. Therefore, Donne helps the congregation by using details from
their daily life in order to help them see Christ not as an abstraction or a
person who is remote and far away from them, but as the divine which can
live among and in them.

In some other instances, he compares our eternal love to Christ with
death. He declares that "Love is as strong as death," and he explains this
idea in a metaphysical conceit that examines the relationship between love
and death: "As in death there is a transmigration of the soul, so in this
spiritual love, and this expressing of it, by this kisse, there is a transfusion
of the soul too," and he continues "much more is it true in this heavenly
union, expressed in this Kisse" (V, 231). Donne still varies the fields from
which he draws his metaphors and conceits. For example, the reunion with
God is not only described in terms of erotic love or of death, but it is
compared with a healthy digestion: "For good digestion brings always
assimilation, certainly, if I come to a true meditation upon Christ, I come
to a conformity with Christ" (11, 212). We notice that Donne does not miss
the opportunity to use any field for his metaphors and conceits, and draws
from it images that express his vision of wholeness and unity.

One thing that a reader can infer from hismetaphors, conceits, and
analogies is that Donne uses his audience's familiarity with the fields from
which he draws them. Donne does not use very learned metaphors with
which his audience might be unfamiliar, because such metaphors would

cause an estrangement of the audience from their preacher and his sermon.

55

For Donne, the interrelationship of congregation, preacher, and text is of
great importance. Donne rejects the practice of overcharging the sermons
with figurative language unintelligible to his congregation. Instead, he
advocates simplicity and clarity. Schleiner has argued that Donne is
considered a learned preacher because of the diversity of the fields from
which he draws his metaphors, and his ability to appeal to different
authorities in his sermon. Donne, as Schleiner demonstrates, never
sacrifices clarity for the sake of embellishment or ‘1eamedness’.6 Donne
states his stylistic principle clearly: "The weakest understanding might
comprehend the highest points and the highest understanding not be weary
to hear ordinary doctrines so delivered" (I, 216). Here, Donne is
advocating a via media mode of sermon, a mode which stands between the
high and the low, the ornate and the plain styles of preaching. It is a mode
that would comprehend all tastes, all expectations, and offers edification to
every individual in the congregation. Though the members of the
congregation might come from different social classes, the sermon should
appeal to all of them and give them the hope, faith, and spiritual
instruction. The sermon itself becomes the circle in which all the
congregation is unified. As Schleiner points out, in Donne's "avoidance of
excesses, he explicitly links style and doctrine" (The Imagem of John
Donne's Sermons, p. 60). In other words, Donne has applied his theological
doctrine of the Anglican via media to his figurative style, and has made it
not only a theological, but also a "stylistic doctrine."

Another important characteristic of Donne's metaphors, conceits and

analogies is their diversity. In the examples that I have examined, I noted

 

6 For fuller discussion of the learned style in John Donne, see The Imagery

ef Jehn Donne's Sermens, 51 — 59.

I"

56

I? I!

that he draws these figures from the world of "farming, clothing," as
well as "love and marriage" as he develops one of his major themes: man's
relationship with God. In fact, the diversity of fields from which Donne
draws his figurative language is encyclopedic. By this diversity, however,
he creates unity. This diversity fits well with Donne's "stylistic doctrine" of
the via media. By varying his fields of his figurative language, he manages
to comprehend in his sermons the attention of all the congregation of
differing backgrounds, whether age, gender, or learning. It is this reason
which explains why "children dropped their toys, old man crept from their
comers, women fainted, and brave men wept."

In his metaphors, Donne has managed to express another sort of
unity. It is the unity of the abstract and the concrete, of the spiritual and the
material, of heaven and earth. For instance, where he uses georgic
imagery, speaking about the conditions of man's conscience, he transforms
the abstract into the concrete, because his auditors are already familiar with

"ploughing, weeding," "harrowing" and "manure." He achieves the same
effect upon his congregation when he speaks of "the wetting of our foot in
sin" (II, 109) or of mercy "as good a pillow to rest our soule upon after a
sinne" (IX, 127). Donne tends to bring the worldly, even earthly, things
into his religious and theological explanations, and thus shows that the
spiritual and the secular are inseparable. As J oan Webber has illustrated in

her discussion of Donne's sermons, we find "mountains and valleys of

V' I! '1 ll

presumptive sins, a cloud of poverty or death, north of adversity," and
"a west of despair" (Contrary Music, p.94). Using such a technique, Donne
attempts to incarnate what is abstract so that his audience might see it, and
actually live with it. The metaphysical conceit, which M. H. Abrams

defines as the “Figure of speech which establishe[s] a striking parallel...

57

between two very dissimilar things or situations,”7 has a function similar to
the analogy. To borrow Mazzeo's phrase, the metaphysical conceit becomes
"a means of vision" in Donne's sermons. Indeed, this figure of speech
reveals Donne's quest for unity. It is in these conceits that the physical
unites with the abstract, the material with the spiritual, and the fusion of all
the apparently dissimilar entities occur. In this figure, the "apparent
disharmony becomes actual harmony"3 , and the "couplings of dissirnilars
become expressions of the underlying unity of all things" (Contrary Music,
84). Thus, metaphor becomes symbol through which he conveys his
mystical ideas, by embodying the unseen and making them visible to his
auditors. As A.C Partridge argues, the metaphysical conceit "expresses the
discordia concors of superhuman forces that Donne could not reconcile
except through metaphysical speculation."9 The effect of his comparison of
the physical with the spiritual compels his listeners to become more
involved in his preaching, because of the appeal to their memory.

Webber states that Donne's "purpose is to get at the memory of his
congregation," and she explains that his "analogy helps to bring together
the scattered experiences and images dormant in the memory" (Contrary

Music, p.22). The way Donne achieves this end is again through the

 

diversity of his metaphors. His references and allusions are drawn from all

possible fields of knowledge; his analogies, conceits and piling up of

 

7 M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (Toronto: Holt, Rinerhart and
Winston, Inc., 1988) 31.

3 Michael Smalling, "Donne's Medieval Aesthetics and His Use of Morally
Distant Personae: Two Questions, One Answer" New Essays en Denne, ed. Gary A
Stringer (Mississippi, 1977) 84.

9 A. C Partridge, John Donne; Language and Style (London: Andre Deutsh,
1978) 227.

58

metaphor upon metaphor are the result of his effort to evoke the memory
of each listener. No matter how different are the members of his
congregation, Donne wants to reach individual's memory, probe into it,
and lead his auditors ultimately to self-examination that would start the
process of spiritual regeneration. Thus, Donne devises his style in a way
that enables him to stimulate the self-examination of his congregation
through the use of figurative language. For Donne, what is theological can
be achieved in large part through what is stylistic. Donne, as I have argued
in the previous chapter, has attributed a major importance to the role of the
individual's memory in the process of salvation, and now he is appealing to
the same faculty of his congregation in order to edify and move them.
Again, Donne's theological doctrines and his beliefs about style and use of
language overlap to the extent that they become inseparable. As he believes
that the memory is the faculty that one can use to help achieve salvation,
the preacher's metaphor and style in general should also appeal to this
memory. When he states that "the art of salvation is but the art of
memory," (H, 73), he suggests that he sees the process of salvation in terms
of art. In Donne's statement, the combination of 'art' with 'salvation' and
'memory' may seem at first strange to readers. But when we understand
Donne's principle that what is theological is relevant to what is literary and
stylistic, we see that he unites art and belief. What is imaginative and
literary, that is, can activate the process of salvation. Thus, Donne uses
stylistic means for theological ends.

The correspondence between what is theological and what is stylistic
is observed not only in Donne's adoption of a via media mode of
preaching, and the appeal to the memory, but also through his figurative

language in his appeal to reason. The analytical structure of his analogies

59

epitomizes Donne's language of formal logic and argumentation, and
illustrates his appeal to the reason of his congregation through syllogistic
analysis. Thus as Terry G. Sherwood argues, "Donne's analogical metaphor
is an important element of reason in the sermons" (“Reason in Donne’s
Sermons” p. 346). Though other critics10 have regarded Donne's figurative
language primarily an appeal to the congregation's emotions, I think,
however, that Donne logically argues by means of these figures of speech,
especially his analogies. Indeed, to understand these analogies one needs
intellect. These same critics have apparently overlooked Donne's assertion
that "the Holy Ghost is a Metaphoricall, and figurative expresser of
himselfe to the reason and understanding" (IX, 328). We notice that,
according to Donne, the Holy Ghost uses figurative language, and the
ultimate aim of such language is to appeal to the intellect. Thus figurative
language is not used gratuitously, but it has an intellectual as well as
aesthetic function. In this statement, Donne illustrates that the ideal mode of
expression is a figurative language which appeals to reason, and is a means
of achieving our intellectual understanding. Many of Donne's analogies
illustrate this principle. These analogies follow a logical structure. He starts
his analogy usually with "As..." In this first part he introduces the physical
vehicle that he uses in his analogy, and the second part usually starts with
"so ....", and brings up the spiritual tenor which is then compared with that
physical vehicle. For instance, when comparing the tenor, God's justice,

with the vehicle gold, he says: "As gold whilest it is in the mine, in the

 

10 Joan Webber states that Donne's analogical structure is emotionally
effective, (see Contrary Music, 22, 140—42). Dennis Quinn argues that this
analogical structure appeals directly to the conscience rather than the
understanding of the congregation" (see "Donne's Christian Eloquence," ELH
27 (1960) 283).

60

bowels of the earth so whilest Gods justice lyes in the bowels of his own
decree and purpose, and is not executed at all, we take no knowledge that it
is any such thing" (III, 148). In an other sermon, speaking of the necessity
that faith be based on understanding, he states "As howsoever a man may
forget the order of the letters, after he is come to reade perfectly so
through faith be an infinite exaltation above understanding yet by our
senses we come to understand, so by our understanding we come to
beleeve" (IV, 165). Such analogies which diSplay this analytical structure
are found in almost each of Donne's sermons. The study of Donne's
analogy shows us how this figure of speech exemplifies Donne's theological
beliefs regarding the relationship between reason, belief, and salvation

To conclude this section, I want to emphasis that Donne has made it
clear that style is an integral part of meaning, and as I have argued, there is
no clear or rigid distinction in his sermons between what is theological and
what is stylistic. His circle and microcosm - macrocosm imagery reveal the
unity and the harmony he longs for, while his metaphors, conceits, and
analogies reflect his comprehensive understanding of our need to reunite
with God.

Donne is deeply influenced by the literary style of King James
Version of the Bible, and he turns to it as the model that he wants to imitate
in his sermons. Often Donne praises its eloquence, for "there are not in all
the world so eloquent books as the Scriptures," (VI, 56) and comments on
the musicality and the harmony of its language and tropes. He declares
that the Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself not only with
a propriety, but with a delicacy, and harmony, and melody of language"
(VI, 55). Donne is influenced especially by Biblical metaphors, and he

argues that no rhetorician has ever produced such vivid and effective

61

metaphors: "In all their Authors, Greek and Latin, we cannot finde so
lively examples of those tropes and those figures, as we may in Scriptures"
(2,170). Thus it follows naturally that Donne emulates tropes and figures
on the Biblical model. Donne's metaphors drawn from daily life are found
throughout the Bible. For instance, when speaking to his disciples, Jesus
compares those people who are ready for redemption to the harvest, while
the disciples who are going to preach the word of God to the labourers.
When Jesus sees the multitude of people, he says to his disciples "the
harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few," and asks his disciples
to pray to "the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into
his harvest." (Matthew 9:36-7). In another instance, Jesus says that he is
"the true vine," his "Father is the Husbandman," and his disciples and
followers "are the branches" that cannot bear the fruit unless they are part
of the vine, for "as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in
the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." (John 15: 1-5). It is
needless to mention all the occasions in the New Testament when Christ is
referred to as the Shepherd, and his followers the flock. Moreover, God's
love in the Old Testament is described figuratively in terms of Marriage.
Isaiah says that "as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry
thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God
rejoice over thee." [Isaiah 62: 5]. In the Bible we also find some analogies
such as "I am the door of the sheep" [John 10 : 7], or "as a jewel of gold in
a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion"
(Prov.1l:22). The effect of this figurative language is not to confuse and
perplex the reader, but to clarify through analogies and metaphors what
otherwise may be obscure. I also notice that in many of the metaphors

which I have quoted from the Scripture, there is the analogical structure

 

62

"as so" that Donne uses. I believe that Donne notices this reasoning tone,
and the instructive effectiveness of the structure of analogies in the Bible,
and imitates this pattern in his sermons so that he can achieve the same
effect upon his congregation. Donne's eloquence, then, is based in large
part on the biblical eloquence.

Moreover, the Bible provides Donne with another sort of unity for
his sermons, the unity between the Old and the New Testament. This unity
is the result of the typological interpretation of the Bible. The main
characteristic of this typological interpretation is 'reconciliation'. M. H.
Abrams defines typology, as "a way of reconciling the Jewish history and
laws of the Old Testament with the Christian revelation of the New
Testament." (A Glossary of Literary Terms, p. 98) Thus a person, action,
or event in the Old Testament is seen to "prefigure" a person, action, or
event in the New Testament. In this way, the two holy books correspond
with each other. As St. Augustine has argued; "In the Old Testament the
New Testament is concealed; in the New Testament the Old Testament is
revealed" (A Glossary of Literary Terms, p. 89). All actions, events and
persons in the two books become what Mazzeo has called "a net of
correspondences" in which one is understood by means of reference to the
other. In other words, the Old and New Testaments become just a single
book of reconciliation and unity.

Donne reads the Old Testament typologically as a foreshadowing of
the New, and thus sees a symbolic connection between them. This
typological reading is based on his belief that Christ is central to the whole
Bible. Christ is eternal, and thus cannot be limited to the pages of the New
Testament or to the time of his Incarnation. Donne embraces the

theological principle that Christ is everywhere in every time. He is with

 

63

God the Father at the creation; he is incamated to show God's love and
Grace; he is still with us as a guide to God's salvation; and he is with the
Father until our resurrection. Typologically speaking, Donne saw Christ in
Genesis, in the Psalms, in Isaiah and in every book of the Old Testament. It
is expected, then, that every event and every book of the Old Testament is a
prophecy of the coming of Christ. From this perspective, the Old and the
New Testaments form one fundamental unity, and each can be understood
only through reference to the other. For instance, Donne following Paul,
refers to Christ as "the second Adam." In an other instance, Donne tells his
congregation that the Psalms must be considered "historically, and
literally... of David... and we shall consider them in their prospect, in their
future relation to the second Adam, in Christ Jesus" (11, 75). However,
Adam and David are not the only types of Christ, for many other Old
Testament figures also prefigure Christ. In a sermon preached on a text in
the Psalms, Donne explains that the person mentioned in Isaiah's prophecy
as treading the wine press alone is Christ "apparelled in our flesh, and his
apparell dyed red in his owne blood" (III, 297). Elsewhere, The Church
and also the Sacrament of Baptism have also been prefigured in the Old
Testament. Donne believes that circumcision, a token of the covenant of the
Jews with God, is a type of Baptism, which is another token for the
covenant between Christians and God. He argues: "When my reason tells
me that the seale of that covenant, Circumcision is gone my reason tells
me too, that in the Scriptures, there is a new seale, Baptism" (V, 103). As
circumcision is a type of Baptism, so the Ark of the Covenant for Donne is
a type of the Church. "In the Ark, which was the type of our best condition

in this life, there was not a single person" (H1, 246).

 

64

Donne's typological interpretation is even more inclusive and more
unifying than it might at first appear. That is, his view is not limited to the
interpretation that the Old Testament foretells what is in the New, because
in his typological view he incorporates his audience and argues that we take
part in this interpretation. As Lewalski argues, as an audience "our lives in
this typological reading, become assimilated to the large typological
design."11 In other words, the events and characters of the Old and New
Testaments become symbols for our human condition, and our lives a
recreation of the lives of those Biblical figures. Donne's audience become
participants in those events since they represent a continuation or an
expansion, and a present version of the lives of those Biblical figures.
Donne explains that "David's confessions and lamentations, though they be
always literally true of himself yet David speaks prophetically and to
us that which David relates to have been his own case, he foresees will
be ours too, in a higher degree" (11, 75). Thus David's 'calamities',
'confessions', and 'lamentations' are ours, and so is his 'case'. It "concem[s]
Mankind collectively." By extending David's case to all mankind, Donne
finds a correlation between David's story and our history, a correlation
which stresses not only the similarities between our history and David's,
but makes them one unified history. Thus the history, the calamities, the
lamentations, the sorrows, the joys and the agonies of our ancestors are
"actually recapitulated in our lives" ("Typological symbolism," p. 82).
Their fate becomes ours, and we "become perfect embodiments of [their]

same salvation history" ("Typological symbolism," p. 82). Donne says, of

 

11 Barbara Lewalski, "Typological Symbolism and "the Progress of the Soul

in Seventeenth - Century Literature," Literary Uses of Typolegy, ed. Earl Miner

(Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1977) 82

 

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David that he "was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ Himselfe, but a
prophet of every particular Christian; He foretells what I, what any shall
do, and suffer, and say" (VII, 51). The audience, consequently, become
antitypes of the Old Testament types. When Donne declares to his auditors,
and to us, that our lives are "a repeating again in us, of that which God had
done before to Israel" (111, 313), he stresses that our lives are a
recapitulation of the sons of Israel, their process of salvation is ours, and
also reveals his own view of history. He does not perceive history
chronologically, made up of one temporal event after another; rather he
perceives it as a circle and "a repeating again" of what has happened. In
this view there can be no separation between the present, the past and the
future; for the present is just an extension of the past, and the future an
extension, or a repetition, of the present moment. What had happened in
the past happens in the present, and what takes place now will take place in
the future. Every moment becomes a re-enactment of another, or a
repetition of the previous one. Again, the differences between time periods
collapse in this typological interpretation, and the audience is led to live an
'etemal now' in the moment of preaching which encompasses the past, the
present and the future: All "these three parts of Time shall be at this time"
(VII, 52). The sermon becomes a means by which Donne creates a unity of
time, and represents what is infinite in the space of an hour. In Donne's
hour of preaching, "we are then upon the contemplation of the joys of
heaven, which are everlasting, and must we wring them into the discourse
of an hour" (VI, 151). It is this hour of the sermon that embraces all man's
life from Genesis to Revelation, from the beginning to the end. The sermon
becomes a microcosm itself which embodies and comprehends an eternal

Spin of time. In this microcosm, the congregation lives in the eternal now

 

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ranging from Adam's history to their future salvation through Christ's
Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection. As Frederick A. Rowe has
argued, Donne's hour of preaching is a "journey... eventually an adventure,
and sometimes he penetrates where none has been before."12 It is a journey
of Donne's quest for unity and harmony. Donne wants not only to achieve

this harmony with God, but also to re-create it in his text.

 

 

12 Frederick A. Rowe, I Laaneh At Paradise (London: The Epworth Press.
1964) 177.

Chapter IV

Structural Design in Donne’s Sermons

Donne expresses the vision of his reunion with God on the level of
images and figurative language, and in his structural design. When Webber
asserts that Donne's “sermon becomes a spiritual literary adventure,"
(Contrary Music. p. 148) her description resembles Rowe's statement that
Donne's hour of preaching is a " journey eventually an adventure that
penetrates where none has been before" (Wig, p. 177).
Indeed Donne's sermon is a journey which he takes with his congregation
from Genesis to the Revelation, at the end of which they will reach unity
with God. This journey becomes a "literary adventure" which includes his
audience in the experience of the whole sermon, the paragraphs, and his
sentences. I propose that the structural design of these three units is
circular.Through the use of different rhetorical devices, he achieves unity
on the level of the whole text, and with his auditors as well. At first, my
discussion will start from the largest unit, the sermon as a whole, to the
smaller one, that is, the sentence. Then I will conclude by discussing the
unity of the preacher with the congregation. That is, I will start with
textual unity, and then move to a unity which is outside the text: of the
speaker and his auditors.

In order to create unity and harmony within his sermons, Donne
adopts different techniques. His congregation will notice, for example that
the whole text is frequently based on a single metaphor which he examines

from different perspectives. For instance, in his sermon preached on

67

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Canticles 5:3, "I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?" the word
"washed" is central to the text, and the entire text is built around different
types of "washing." He starts with the sacrament of baptism which is our
washing from sin, and ends with the cleansing of others to make them
ready for their process of reunion with God. In another sermon preached
on John 1:8, "He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that
light", the word light becomes the central image developed throughout the
whole sermon. The opening of this sermon asserts that the light of the
scriptural text refers to Christ's divine nature. In the second part, Donne
argues that the light signifies the supernatural light of faith and grace. The
end of the sermon stresses the idea that this light comes only from God.
Another example illustrating how Donne's sermons are built around
a single metaphor may make my claim clearer. "The net" of the sermon on
Mat. 4:18, 19, 20, is of special significance for it holds together both
different parts of one sermon, and it creates unity and coherence between
two sermons preached on the same text. Donne displays a greater flexibility
of mind in this sermon than in any other one. In the first sermon, the "net"
has some worldly connotations; it stands for those daily activities that can
separate us from the spiritual life. This explains why Peter and Andrew left
their nets behind them when they followed Christ. Donne suggests that in
order to be reunited with Christ we "must leave [our] selves without nets,
that is, without those things, which, in their own Consciences they know
retard the following of Christ" (H, 286). In this semron, the 'net' is used as
a symbol for what keeps us away, separates us from Christ, and hinders
our reunion with Him. However, the connotations of the "net" in the second
sermon change because Peter and Andrew are no longer "fishermen", but

"fishers of men." The Bible becomes their "net", for it is in this holy book

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that the wisdom of God, His love for us, and His grace are woven all
together.

Because Donne focuses on a metaphor he derives from the Biblical
text, examines it from different perspectives, develops it throughout the
whole sermon, and always returns to it for greater enrichment and
clarification, Webber asserts that "The words of the text give the
sermons...a central unity, around which the associative pattern of his
thought can flow...they present Donne with a very congenial basis for a
coherent prose" (Contrary Music, p. 20). In fact, "the entire text becomes
a metaphor" (The Imagery of John Donne's Sermons, p. 166).

The unity of the sermon can also be perceived in the circular and
closed structure of the sermon. At times he closes his sermon by a return to
the Biblical text in the concluding sentence. The sermon, then, becomes a
closed unit with the same opening and closing phrases. For instance in the
sermon preached on Gen. 1:2, "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face
of the waters," Donne incorporates his text at the end of his sermon (IX,
92). Speaking about the state of “assurance” that one should feel after
death, he asserts that we “shall be re-united in a blessed Resurrection; And
so the spirit of God moved upon the face of the water” (IX, 108). At other
times, the question which is asked at the beginning of the sermon is
answered at the end of it. This is seen in Sermon IX (vol. H). The question
with which the sermon starts is "What man is he that liveth, and shall not
see death?" The answer comes at the end of the sermon with Christ's
words: "I am the man, in whom whosoever abideth, shall not see death" (H,
212). The effect of such a circular Structure is that the sermon closes where
it begins. By means of this technique, Donne gives his sermons a shape of

integrity, completeness, and unity. In addition he reminds his congregation

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of what he has done with the text through the whole hour of preaching, and
shows through the overall structure of the sermon how he has analyzed the
scriptural text.

The circle as the archetype of perfection has made itself clear again.
Donne both uses the image of the circle as a symbol of perfection,
completeness and unity, and often builds his sermons with this circular
structure. That is, Donne achieves a symbolic design of circularity. Often
he refers to his sermons in terms of a circle. In one instance, he declares:
"This is the last word of our Text: but we make up our circle by returning
to the first word" (IV, 130). At other times, he refers to the sermon as a
globe that embodies and includes all. "Consider our text then as a whole
Globe, as an intire spheare, and then our two Hemispheares of this Globe,
our two parts of this text, will bee" (VH, 416). The sermon is like a globe
in which multiplicity and diversity are united and 'harmonized' into a
Single entity.

Donne creates similar patterns in constructing his paragraphs. Their
structure is circular, and many of them end with what they begin. For
instance, in one of his sermons, a paragraph opens: "Here then Salvation is
etemall Salvation; not the outward seals of the church upon the person, (II,
266) and concludes, "This unspeakable, this unimaginable happiness is this
Salvation, and therefore let us be glad when this is brought neer us" (11,
266). Donne starts this paragraph with the theme of salvation and ends with
a circling back to that same theme. Salvation is the point from which the
circle starts and in which it ends. Though the paragraph ends where it
begins, we notice that there is a progression within it. It has started with
the idea of "etemall Salvation," and has been modified to an "

unspeakable" and "unimaginable happiness" of salvation. With the closure

 

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of the paragraph, the auditors have been brought to a deeper understanding
of salvation. The modifiers associated with salvation mark the progression
that has been made within its circular structure from the opening to the
ending of the paragraph.

Another instance of the circular structure of the paragraphs is worth
noticing. Because of the length of this paragraph, (H, 306) I will not be
able to quote it all here, but I will quote enough of it to give the reader an
idea of its circular structure.The first thing I notice about this paragraph is
that it includes the same words that have been used in the previous one.
One paragraph ends with "The world is a sea, and our net is the gospel,”
and the nextparagraph begins with "The world is a Sea in many respects
and assimilations.” The two paragraphs are linked together through the
repetition of the same phrase in both of them. Such a phrase is a center
around which the whole paragraph rotates. The phrase "The world is a Sea,
as it is..." is repeated five times, and it becomes the refrain of the whole
paragraph and the center around which it is constructed. Indeed, Donne
seems to form other circles within this same paragraph. With each return
to this refrain, Donne makes up a circle and links it to the previous one
until the whole paragraph becomes a chain of five circles. A linked chain
of circles describes the structural design of this paragraph. This structure
enhances its coherence and unity. The sort of progression in this unit is
what Croll calls "a progress of imaginative apprehension”. That is, for
Donne one metaphor suggests another, and this metaphor of "the world is a

sea" is explained by means of other closely related metaphors. The whole

 

1 Morris Croll, “Attie” and Baregtte Prose Style (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964) 215.

72

paragraph becomes a cluster of metaphors that exhaustively exploit the
similarities between the sea and the world.

There are other instances in Donne's sermons when he includes not
only the last idea in a given paragraph into the following one, but he also
uses the same words. For instance, speaking about sin as Sickness, he starts
his paragraph with "It is true, that is bodily Sickness," and closes it with "It
is a sickness, and an evil sickness." In the following paragraph he takes
again the idea of sickness and starts with "Now this is not such a sickness"
(IH, 56). In another sermon, one paragraph ends with "but to fall out of
the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our impression, beyond
our imagination," and the following paragraph starts with "That God
should let my soule fall out of his hands into a bottomless pit" (V, 266).
One could argue that it is still a common practice to start the paragraph
with the last idea of the previous one; however, what Donne adds to this
practice is his use of the same words and phrases like "fall out" and
"hands". In such instances, Donne contributes to the unity and harmony of
his paragraphs a step further. The two paragraphs, when read together,
constitute a complete circle, for one begins where the other ends.

In addition to using refrains and repetitions to create unity and
coherence, Donne uses questions and answers to achieve the same purpose.
One paragraph ends with a question, and the next begins with the answer.
Closing one paragraph, Donne asks: "Are there not yet Treasures of
wickednesse in the house of the wicked, whenever they, who have no
Houses, but lie in the Streets have these Treasures?" and he starts the
following one with the answer "There are" (IX, 183 - 84). In another
sermon, Donne asks at the end of the paragraph "And what then shall we

say, but this?" and the answer is introduced in the next: "Blessednesse itself,

73

is God himselfe" (IX, 127). At other times, one paragraph ends with a
question which can be part of the previous paragraph. Donne asks; "What
get I but my knowledge of Christ in the Father, and of us in Christ so, if I
finde not Christ in me?" and in the following unit, he asks another part of
the question : "How then is Christ in us?" ( IX, 248 ).

The effect of all these devices is both to create coherence and unity
within the same paragraph, and also between different paragraphs. This
coherence or unity is achieved because Donne makes one paragraph
dependent on an other, and sometimes one paragraph does not make sense
without the other. The two paragraphs are welded together, and one stands
only by reference to the other. '

The means by which Donne achieves unity on the level of his
sentences are different. These can be classified as repetition and parallel
structure. One way of binding sentences and phrases together is by using
the same sound at the end of some constituents of these phrases or
sentences. The rhetorical term for this technique is homoioteleuton. In
every sermon, we find Donne using this technique for different purposes,
but its general effect is to Show the relationship and the unity between two
concepts which seem different or even antithetical. Speaking about his
reunion with God, Donne says: "I put mine eyes upon his and receive a
sovereign tincture, and a lively Verdure" (H, 300). The use of this
technique supports the main idea in that paragraph. Donne reaches unity
with God, and his phrases become united with each other. Donne's
harmony with his creator is also reflected in his phrases and sentences. The
use of homoioteleuton is multi-functional for Donne, for example in the
opening of his Sermon IV (volume 7): "Wee shall consider the right use of

the time, and the natural], the native and genuine, the direct, and the

74

literal], and uncontrovertible sense of words" (VH, 120), he skilfully uses
the repetition of the "L" sound to hold the constituents of the phrases
together, to highlight the important words which he develops in the course
of his sermon, thus helping his congregation remember these words.
Through the use of like-ending words that give a rhyming effect to his
sentences, Donne tries to establish unity out of multiplicity and variety.
Such is the case when he speaks about the curse of God that "flings, and
slings, and stings the soul of the sinner" (I, 174). The aspects of God's
curse are different, but the end result is one: God's damnation of the
sinner. Phrases are also united by the use of alliteration, as in "behold God
hath Walled us with mud walls, and wet mud walls" (11, 83), or in "that
thou wilt have a fellow feelings of their imminent afflictions, before they
have any feeling" (V, 235 - 36), or in "gladnesse, and glory" (VHI, 185)
of the "heavenly Jerusalem."

The other sort of repetition that Donne makes use of in order to
achieve harmony within his sentences is the repetition of words. Such
repetition at the beginning and the end of his phrases or sentences give
them some rhythm and unite their constituents. When the sentence ends
with what it begins, such as in "Thy soule, thy weake soule, thy Sicke, and
foule, and Sinfull soule" (VI, 158), Donne achieves unity through
circularity. The rhetorical scheme, known as anadiplosis, which makes use
of repetition is of special significance in revealing Donne's visionary view.
Through his device, he manages to give his periods, or sentences, a circular
structure. Because in anadiplosis the final word of a phrase is repeated at
the beginning of the following one, the audience would get the impression
that every phrase is an are that makes part of the circle which is the whole

sentence. For instance, when the auditors hear sentences like "He doth not

75

irnpoverish and dishonour his children, and then leave them, leave them
unsensible of that Doctrine" (II, 183), they notice that the first part ending
with "leave them" makes half of the circle, whereas the second part starting
with "leave them" makes the second half which starts in the same point
where the first has stopped. More revealing is Donne's use of this device at
the end of the sermon preached on "He that Beleeveth not, shall be
damned" (Mark l6: 16). At the end of his sermon Donne asserts: "To him
that beleeves aright, and overcomes all tentations to a wrong belief, God
shall give the accomplishment of fulnesse, and fulnesse of joy, and joy
rooted in eternity, and this eternity is God" (V, 267). Here we notice
that the "fulnesse of joy" is leading to "glory" which would lead itself to
"eternity" and this eternity is God. In this ascending order, the audience
can move from a happy step to a happier one, until they reach the happiest
one in their reunion with the eternal God. Donne adds a climactic effect to
his use of anadiplosis and makes it a sort of gradatio. Through this
modification, the sentence itself has become the very means of ascending to
God, and its structure a means of seeing this ascent and final unity. The
combination of anadiplosis and anaphora produces the same effect in we
"shall meet at once, where, though we were dead, dead in our several
houses, dead in a sinful Egypt, dead in our family, dead in our selves, dead
in the Grave, yet we Shall be received, with that consolation, and glorious
consolation, you are dead, but are alive" (VI, 364). The anadiplosis here
not only joins together the two parts of the period, the one ending with
"dead" and the other starting with the same word, but also focuses on death
which is the step that man has to take in order to achieve unity with God.
The anaphoric repetition of "dead" increases the heaviness of the obstacle

that separates man from God. Thus Donne tells us we "must depart,

 

 

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depart by death before [we] come to that rest" (H, 307). Death is then the
last step from which we depart to reach our reunion with God.

Unity is achieved through other devices which give Donne the
occasion to intensify the condensation and compression that characterize
this mystical reunion with God. Through the use of some rhetorical
devices, Donne manages to express the maximum of meaning through the
minimum of words. Another effective device that allows Donne to achieve
this effect of condensation and compression is the use of puns, because in
the use of one word that recalls the meaning of another, he reveals many
meanings. The sentences in which Donne makes use of word play or puns
become microcosmic, since they can embody two different meanings at
least. The most common pun in Donne's sermons is his play on the
homonyms "son" and "sun" to describe Jesus Christ. He also uses "edify" to
suggest to his audience that the inward raising of the spirit through the
word of God is like an outward building in its magnitude and loftiness.
Through the use of one word, Donne can bring together two different
meanings. So is the case in his sentence, "the Lord would refresh him [the
sinner] with the beams of his favour" (V, 341). In this sentence the word
"favour" is used to refer to the grace of God, whereas in the same
paragraph it is used for the favours that kings and rich worldly people
offer to those allied with them. Speaking about the church, Donne says:
"She is not compared with her own state in Heaven, she shall have a better
state in that State" (VHI, 341); "state" is used to refer to the position of the
church in this worldly life whereas the "State" with capital "s" is used for
the heavenly world. In one word, Donne can unite different meanings.

Words of almost the same sounds, but with different meanings, are

used to achieve this effect of condensation and compression. Donne

 

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frequently uses the rhetorical device known as paronomasia. It is the use of
words with almost the same sounds but with different meanings. Speaking
of God's damnation Donne says, "He cast me away, as though I cost him
nothing" (V, 267). Donne stresses two important ideas here. The first is
that we "cost" God much for we are made in His own image, and the
second is that of God's judgment which Donne perceives as a kind of
abandonment or “casting away”. In fact, were it not for our original sin,
we would have been His representatives on earth. However, in spite of the
greatness and the beauty of the image in which we are created, God can
"cast" us away when we abuse all His qualities that He has bestowed upon
us. Thus, through using the similar sounding words "cast" and "cost,"
Donne has related these two important ideas, and condensed them in a
single sentence. Donne also uses the rhetorical technique known as
adnominatio, the repetition of a word in a slightly different form through
addition or omission of prefixes or suffixes. In the following quotation, the
repetition of "glory" is not redundant, as it has a stylistic relevance to the
whole theme of the sermon preached on the text "And I will marry thee
unto me forever" (Hosea, 2: l9). Donne expands the meaning of this verse
to the marriage of Christ to the Church. More specifically, in this part of
the sermon where he speaks about Christ as a symbol of integrity, unity
and harmony, he uses this technique as a vehicle for his vision. Donne
asserts: "When I consider Christ in his circle, in Glory with His Father,
before he came into this world establishing a glorious church when he
was in this world, and glorifying that church with that glory which
Himself had before" (H1, 250). Donne has revealed this idea of Christ's
glory through the symbolic image of the circle, and also by means of the

variation of "glory," which creates not multiplicity as much as unity. The

78

idea of Christ’s glory becomes central to the paragraph since in every part
of the period the word "glory" is repeated to echo the idea of glory in the
previous phrase. In this period, we see clearly how the image of the circle
and the syntax of the sentence express its theme. As glory is central to
Donne’s theological doctrines, it is also central to the period which
describes this glory.

Condensation and compression are also produced on a larger scale,
the whole sentence. Donne attributes to a word or a verb in his period
different roles to play, and uses the minimum of language to reveal the
maximum of meaning. The rhetorical device known as zeugma in which
one verb serves for two or more subjects or objects, contributes to the
harmony and unity within the period. Thus, no matter how many subjective
or objective phrases we have in the period, they all depend upon one verb
which becomes central to the period. Keeping in mind that Donne perceives
so many things in temrs of circles, we can argue that just as a circle needs a
central point upon which it depends, so a period also needs a central verb,
or a word upon which all the phrases depend or rotate. Donne can
construct the whole period around one single word as in the case of "glory"
or he can construct the whole period around a single verb. In the period "I
had Shut out the eye of the day, the Sunne, and the eye of the night, the
Taper, and the eyes of all the world," "shut out" is the verb of five
objective clauses. It is the center around which all parts of the period
gravitate.

Another form of repetition in Donne's sermons is the parallel
structure of his sentences. Repetition now does not occur on the level of
words and phrases, but rather on the syntactic level of sentences.Through

this parallel structure, Donne creates a sense of order within the sentences,

79

and imposes similarity upon what seems to be dissimilar. Sometimes,
Donne writes the whole paragraph, or a long period using just two or three
kinds of sentence structure. For instance, speaking about the conformity of
man to Jesus Christ, Donne states: "When I conceit, when I contemplate
my saviour thus, I love the Lord, and there is a reverent adoration in
that love, I love Christ, and there is a mysterious admiration in that
love, but I love Jesus, and there is a tender compassion in that love, and
I am content to suffer with him, and to suffer for him" (H1, 308).
What we notice is that part of Donne's eloquence stems from his sensitivity
to sentence structure. The readers or the audience, upon hearing this
sentence, feel the serenity and the melody they shall hear in the heavenly
world where they will achieve conformity with Christ. As he argues in this

statement, Donne would feel "love, reverent adoration," and "mysterious
admiration," because there will no longer be the multiplicity and diversity
of the world of sin. Conformity with Christ, and all its associations with
unity will prevail. Donne produces this same conformity on the syntactic
level. One sentence conforms to the other in its structure, and the ultimate
effect is that of unity and coherence. This effect is achieved by means of
structural repetition, as in "I love and there is ..." three times in the
same period. This coherence is further enhanced through the anaphoric
opening of the period. The first phrase opens with "when," and so does the
second. Moreover, the period closes on the same technique of condensation
with which it starts. This condensation is achieved through the repetition of
"to suffer with him." The change of "with" in "to suffer with him," by
"for" in "to suffer for him" closes the period with the same condensation

and parallelism with which it begins. Thus the stylistic effectiveness of the

sentence goes hand in hand with its theme. The theme of the period is the

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conformity of the speaker with Christ, and the phrases of this period
conforms with each other in their structure. Such instances where style is
an integral part of meaning are numerous in Donne's sermons. In another
sermon, Donne reveals his eagerness for the Day of Judgment, saying:
"Hasten that Day, 0 Lord, for their sakes, that beg it at thy hands
Hasten it for our sakes, that groane under the manifold incombrances of
these mortall bodies; Hasten it for her sake, whom we have lately laid
downe; And hasten it for thy Son Christ Jesus sake" (VH1, 62). Again
Donne produces parallel structure through the anaphoric repetition of
"hasten" at the beginning of four phrases of the period. The effectiveness
of such repetition with such a frequency in a fairly short period is to
increase the tempo of this period. The quick pace is further increased by
the short phrases that make up this period, and also by the repetition of
"for" and "sakes." However, the introduction of the conjunction "And" and
the displacement of "sake" at the end of the period modify somehow this
parallelism and the quick pace of the period, and give the reader a sense of
completion and achievement. It seems as if the Day of Judgment has finally
arrived, and the audience have ultimately come to the "son Christ Jesus
to whom then all things shall bee absolutely subdu'd" (VIII, 62).
However, one possible complaint against Donne's frequent use of parallel
structure is that he has produced monotonous sentences that display too
much parallelism and therefore sacrificed variety. The answer to this
complaint is that although there is parallelism and conformity, there is also
variety in Donne's prose. In the quotation on the Day of Judgment, I have
noticed the change in the rhythm of the parallel structure by the
introduction of the conjunction "And," and the displacement of "sakes".

Donne does not allow his parallel phrases to be monotonous and

 

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predictable, for he knows how to avoid a too regular rhythm of sentences.
The parallelism of the sentence quoted above on the conformity of the
speaker with Christ is also carefully saved from monotony. The repetition
of "I love" is preceded by no conjunction in the first two instances.
However, its third occurrence is preceded by the introduction of "but."
Moreover, in the last clause Donne makes some changes. He keeps the
pattern of "I love and there is ..." but changes the verb "love" to " am
content," and uses "to suffer" after "and" instead of "there is" as he did in
the previous phrases. Donne does not always follow his auditors’
expectations, because he is aware that if he is going to meet all the
expectations of his audience, everything would be predictable, and thus the
sermon would be monotonous. Donne manages to create order, similarity
and variety at the same time. He proves again that his flexibility of mind
allows him to see unity in diversity, similarity in dissimilarity, and order in
disorder. Donne manages in his prose not only to weld style to themes, but
also to reconcile and unite seemingly opposite stylistic features. In Donne's
prose we see the unity of style and meaning, and also the synthesis of
diversity and order, discord and harmony.

Repetition in all its variety becomes for Donne the means of
condensation and compression. It is used as a technique of binding the
periods together, creating a sort of rhythm and harmony. In this way he
achieves those effects of harmony and unity that he has achieved through
his topos of microcosm - macrocosm, and other figures of speech. Donne's
syntax is a means by which he expresses his visionary view of his reunion
with God. It reveals the order, the beauty, and the unity that he shall find
one day in his reunion with God. As Donne perceives this reunion in terms

of a circle, he also tries to construct his sentences after the same pattern.

82

The circle becomes not only the archetype of Donne's visionary view and
images, but also the archetype of his sentence structure. As Webber asserts
about Donne, "In his dealings with language as such he achieves a real
unity of vision” (Contragy Masic, p. 123).

The fact that Donne is highly rhetorical in his sermons, as I have
argued, does not mean that he should be classified as a Ciceronian writer.
Croll recognized that though the Senecan style aimed at rendering the
movement of the mind while thinking, without embellishment,
modifications, and ornaments, it was a highly rhetorical style. Indeed, he
rejects the concept of "Anti - Ciceronian" because it implies opposition to
the Ciceronian style, while the truth is that Senecan writers still saw Cicero
as the father of rhetoric and eloquence. Although Donne is highly
rhetorical in his sermons, and uses different devices from classical
rhetoric, his prose at the same time displays some characteristics of the
Senecan Style.

The circularity characterizing Donne's period fits Croll's description
of the Ciceronian period by the figure of the circle, because all members
point back or forward to a central climax, or because a sentence ends
where it begins. As Croll argues: "In the oratorical period [referring to the
Ciceronian period] the arrangement of the members is "round" or
"circular"... This order is what is meant by the names periodos, circuitus"
("Attic" and Baroque Prose Style, p. 224). Croll also refers to this circular
structure as the "round composition." His definition of the Ciceronian
period fits well Donne's practice. Thus one can identify Donne with the
Ciceronian style easily. In addition, the oratorical style is usually
Ciceronian, and it is meant to be a style that makes use of different

rhetorical devices in order for the speaker to persuade the audience. This

 

83

explains why in every oratorical style we find embellishments, formal
language, and symmetrical sentences used as a way to delight and move the
audience. However, if one stops at this point, the description of Donne's
period will not be complete.

Apart from the circular structure that characterizes Donne's period,
there are other features which are worth noticing. Some of these features
tend not to be associated with the Ciceronian style as much as with the
Senecan. One of these features is that many of Donne's sentences "begin
at le demier point, the point aimed at. the first member exhausts the mere
fact of the idea; logically there is nothing more to say" (“Attic” and
Baroque Prose Style, p. 202). What Croll means is that the Senecan writers
often start with the most important point in their argument. This is a
common practice with the Senecan writers because they reject
prearrangements and preparations, and their aim is to reveal the idea as it
comes to their mind without giving the audience or the readers the
impression that this idea has been revised before it comes to them. Reading
or hearing some of Donne's periods, one would realize that they display an
apparent spontaneity and other characteristics of the Senecan style. About
his own suffering because of Adam's sin, Donne states: "Adam sinned, and
I suffer; I forfeited before I had any Possessions, or could claime any
Interest; I had a punishment, before I had a being, And God was displeased
before I was I; I was built up scarce 50. years ago, in my Mothers womb,
and I was cast down, almost 6000. years ago, in Adams loynes; I was borne
in the last Age of the World, and dyed in the first (VII, 78). What we
notice, following Croll's description of the Senecan style, is that Donne
starts with the most important point, and right from the beginning he

draws the connection between Adam and the "I" of the speaker. It seems

 

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that after the first sentence, "Adam sinned, and I suffer," "there is nothing
more to say," for everything has been announced. The first sentence is
clear enough for the auditors to understand that the speaker suffers because
of Adam's sin. They already sense the horrible feeling of the speaker
because he is held guilty for something he did not commit. However,
Donne starts to elaborate on this sentence and develops it further, by
expanding on this first part of the period. The movement of this period is
sort of "a progress of imaginative apprehension," which Croll associates
with the Senecan Style.

One of the other features which is worth noticing in this period is the
brevity of its constituents. Most of the parts that make up this period are
composed of very simple sentence structures such as subject - verb, "Adam
sinned," or subject, verb and object such as "I had a punishment."
Moreover, Donne frequently uses the conjunction "and," but without giving
it a major role to play in linking the constituent parts of the period. As in
the Senecan style, Donne uses the conjunction "and" in a "characteristically,
loose and casual manner" (“Attic” and Baroque Prose Style, p. 210). The
period can stand, and the auditors can understand its meaning, without
having this conjunction which seems in this period to have "no logical plus
force whatever" (“Attic” and Baroque Prose Style. p. 215). This period
displays many other characteristics of the Senecan style: brevity of its
constituents, the "hovering imaginative order," and the use of conjunctions
in a loose way. Many more of Donne's sentences show all the
characteristics of the Senecan style. Of the individual's conscience once he
is saved, Donne states: "That brightnesse, that cleamesse, that peace, and
tranquillity, that calrne and serenity, that acquiescence, and security of the

Conscience, in which I am delivered from all scruples, and all

 

85

timorousnesse, that my Transgressions are not forgiven, or my sins not
covered" (IX, 263). This period has the same characteristics as in the
previous example. It is made up of short constituents linked together with
loose conjunctions that have "no logical plus force whatever" (.ALLILM
Barogae Prose Style, p. 215). Moreover, readers are led to observe the
meditative movement of Donne's mind. One idea evokes another until he
accumulates enough attributes to describe the state of conscience he wants
to convey to his audience. At first glance, it seems that this effect of
spontaneity is jeopardized by the rhythmical parallel structure of the
period. This parallelism stems from the repetition of "that" before each
noun. However, the parallelism is broken by the omission of "that" and its
replacement by the conjunction "and" before "tranquility," "serenity,"

"security.’ Moreover, the adjectival phrases do not have the same length;
sometimes they are just made of "that" and a noun, such as "that
brightnesse," "that calrnnesse," and other times it is made of "that" and two
nouns: "that peace, and tranquility," or "that calrne and serenity." Thus,
within the parallel and symmetrical structure of Donne's sentences, we find
an asymmetry which is another characteristic of the Senecan style. As Croll
argues, asymmetrical sentences "reveal that constant novelty and
unexpectedness that is so characteristic of the 'baroque' in all the arts"
( "Attic" and Baroque Prose Style, p. 228).

Donne's prose presents to the modern readers a mixture of stylistic
characteristics. On one hand, we find the structure of balanced parallel and
circular sentences, the rhetorical embellishments, and the formal beauty, of
the Ciceronian style; on the other, we find asymmetrical, short phrases

which give the effect of spontaneity. The conjunctions used in a rather

loose way, and the movement of ideas suggest that Donne, while preaching,

 

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is just following the flow of his imagination. His syntax does not seem to be
very Ciceronian, because he adopts the Senecan as well as the Ciceronian
styles. This has an explanation. Donne believes that a sermon is a sort of
meditation, and he should Show his audience that while he is preaching he is
indeed meditating. The Senecan style is the best vehicle for producing the
effect of meditative spontaneity. However, Donne wants also to convey to
his audience a sense of completion and beauty. He believes that the
preacher's language should be manifested in an aesthetically pleasing
ceremonial order. It is in the Ciceronian style that he finds this sense of
order, completion and beauty, because formal beauty was the major
concern of the Ciceronian movement (“Attic” and Baroque Prose Style, p.
207). As Webber states: "Donne is not Ciceronian in syntax, but in
affective intent he is" (Contrary Music, p. 31). In his prose, Donne
manages to wed the expressiveness and spontaneity we find in the Senecan
prose style to "the formal beauty" of the Ciceronian movement. Donne
wants to convey his ideas and feelings as spontaneously as he can, but he is
also interested in the beautiful expression of these ideas. It is only through
this welding of the Senecan and the Ciceronian prose characteristics that he
can achieve this aim. That is, Donne was not Ciceronian in that his prose
displays gratuitous adornment. The rhetorical devices that he uses do not
primarily play an ornamental part in the sentence, but they have a thematic
function. Donne attacks eloquence for its own sake, arguing that "language
must waite upon matter, and words upon things" (X, 112). This is clearly a
major principle in Senecan writers, including Francis Bacon.

Donne uses classical rhetoric not to embellish his style and fascinate
his audience, for he believes that the sermon is not merely rhetoric,

musicality, and beautiful arrangement of words. That would be a sort of

 

87

vanity for Donne. He reproves the man who "hears the Rhetorique or
the poetry of the sermon," and urges him to hear above all the sermon of
the sermon" (VH, 293). Donne urges his congregation to appreciate not
just the beauty and musicality of the language of their preacher, but to
understand the theological doctrines of the sermon and try to apply them to
their attitudes and behavior. However, all these aspects of embellishment
should be integral parts of the meaning of the sermon. According to
Donne, the sermon should not be austere and plain, for he believes that
God is holy, divine, and beautiful, and so must be the expression of all
these qualities. "The beauty of holiness," to use a phrase taken from the
Psalms in the King James Version of the Bible, and frequently quoted by
the Anglicans,2 should also characterize the language of the preacher who
is preaching God's Word.

Following the Bible, Christian theologians believe that the whole act
of creation was God's imposition of order upon chaos. The opening verses
from Genesis state that "the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep... And God said Let there be light,
and there was light" (Genesis, 1:2). Here we see how the creation is an
ordering of what was chaotic. Moreover, this form was beautiful, for
everything that God creates "was good." Thus the whole world is not
simply an arbitrary collection of bits and pieces, but harmoniously unifies
its various parts. It is the imposition of a single form upon all the diversity
that makes this universe one. The unity of being lies in its order and it was

this order which brought light out of darkness, life out of chaotic matter,

 

2 For more full discussion of "the beauty of Holiness" see E. C. E. Bourne, WM
William Laud (London: Society of Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1947); and James Alfred Martin,
Beauty and Heliness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

 

88

and made this beautiful and harmonious universe. Form and matter are
inseparable, and they are interrelated. Matter by itself is nothing, and
cannot exist by itself. "Form" has to be imposed upon matter in order to
become an entity. Without form, matter is simply an abstraction. It is only
in the imposition of order upon chaos that we can see the beauty of the
universe, and the holiness of God's creation. Thus, form is the very heart
of the matter, and the beauty of the whole universe.

Donne accepts the concept of the beauty of holiness. In one of his
sermons, he states that all the "Cerrnoniall things are due to God Himself,"
and adds "for, indeed, all that which we call by the generall name of
Religion, as it is the outward worship of God, is Ceremoniall, and there is
nothing more morall, then that some ceremoniall things upon the
Ceremoniall, much of the Essentiall depends too" (IV, 315). The reason
why Donne puts such emphasis on what is ceremonial is the inward truth
that it might reveal. Donne believes that the preaching of God's word
should be observed in a form which reflects that ordered beauty of the
universe, and God's creation which the preacher imitates in his sermon.
The way available for Donne to reflect God's Glory was for him to create
a work of decency and order, a work of beauty that will imitate God's
beauty in his creation. As a preacher, Donne finds in classical rhetoric a
way to re-create "the beauty of holiness" in his sermons. It is with language
and structural design that Donne recreates this beauty and holiness, and
imposes a beautiful form upon his matter. When Donne states that St. Paul
makes a fine marriage of content and expression: "...in elegant language, he
incorporates, and invests sound and important Doctrine" (X, 112), he also
reveals his own belief and practice. For Donne, the expression of

theological doctrines should be dressed in a beautiful and holy vestment.

 

89

"Let us put on lineaments and apparel upon our Devotions," Donne says,
"and digest the Meditations of the heart, into words of the mouth, God
came to us in Verbo. In the Word for Christ is, the Word, that was made
flesh" (VIH, 338). This statement does not only explain why Donne puts
such emphasis on language, but it also reveals his sacramental view of
language. It is through language that we can understand God and see Him,
for it is through language that God has conveyed and revealed himself to
his human beings. The sermon, then, becomes a point of connection which
unites God and man. It is in the sermon that we see God, and the sermon is
a means of receiving God's grace that can edify the hearers and initiate
their process of regeneration. The sermon has become a sacrament which is
not less important than baptism or the Eucharist. If we respect and observe
its conventions, as we do with the rituals of Baptism and the Eucharist, it
can show us the way to our salvation, and the beautiful pattern and order of
God's creation. As these sacraments have to be observed in holiness, order
and gratitude to God, so must the sermon. In the sermon the preacher has
to incorporate the beauty, the holiness and the order of creation. God
"gives us our instruction in cheerful] forms, not in a soure, and sullen, and
angry, and unacceptable way, but cheerfully, in Psalms not in Prose, but
in Psalms; which is such a form as is both curious, and requires diligence
in the making, and then when it is made, can have nothing, no syllables
taken from it nor added to it" (1], 50). Thus God's truth comes to us in
harmonious and beautiful songs, and so must be our expression of God's
truth. In a sermon, the language of the preacher Should imitate the
beautiful language of the Psalms. The Holy Ghost who "hath chosen an
eloquent, and powerful manner of expressing himselfe" is Donne's model

in his sermons ( VI, 56 ).

 

90

However, although Donne believes that God's Word should be
preached in a highly ceremonial and thus rhetorical way, he always
believes that the sermon should be directed to the congregation. A sermon
is not a sermon if it does not change and edify the life of the auditors. It
should be preached to the congregation and not for the preacher himself. A
highly rhetorical sermon preached to a congregation which does not
appreciate and understand what the preacher is doing is not a good sermon,
for it is "left in a vacuum." A sermon, according to Donne, should "fit our
Doctrine to the apprehension, and capacity, and digestion of the hearers"
(II, 276). For Donne, these rhetorical devices and schemes are only the
means that he uses to reach his auditors, expose them to the Scripture, and
bring them God's grace. Though "the Scripture phrase is as ceremoniall
and as observant of distances, as any, and yet still full of this familiar word
too, Tu and Tuus, thou, and thine" (IX, 358). Donne is drawn to the
personal address of the Scriptural language as well as the ceremonial
aspects of Church worship.

The most common device that Donne uses in order to establish
rapport with his audience, and create an affinity between the preacher and
the auditory, is the use of the "I'. Donne believes that the personal
experience of the preacher is not irrelevant to the mode of preaching. The
preacher can draw from his own life examples to illustrate the points he
wants to make. Personal experience is relevant for its didactic effectiveness
and universal applicability. Donne can make his audience identify with the
speaker, feel what he feels, and find in his dilemmas, doubts and fears an
expression to their own. The "I" is important for Donne, because it

illustrates every individual's case; it is a general, universal and timeless "."I

 

91

The simplest use of the word "I" is when Donne uses it to illustrate
an example from his own experience. In one of his sermons, he describes
his difficulty in concentrating on his prayers. He says: "I lock mydoore to
my selfe, and I throw my selfe downe in the presence of my God. I devest
my selfe of all worldly thoughts, and I bend all my powers, and faculties
upon God and suddenly finde my selfe scattered, melted, fallen into vain
thoughts" (V, 249). The effectiveness of such a highly dramatic confession
is to encourage the audience to acknowledge their own failure to pray to
God, and thus to be indistinguishable from the speaker's "".1 Thus, the
preacher and his congregation share the failure to concentrate and be able
to pray to God. Donne's self-accusation involves his auditor's self-
examination. At other times Donne uses the "I" to encourage his audience
to follow his own example: "When I pray in my chamber, I build a Temple
there... when I cast out a prayer in the street, I built a temple there" (V II,
291). Here, Donne uses the "I" as a representative of all men in a very
comprehensive sense. When Donne says, "God found me nothing, and of
that nothing made me, Adam left me worse than God found me" (VII,
125), it is clear that everyone hearing these words can identify himself with
the speaker. In this statement, the "I" speaks of the tragic guilt that all
mankind suffers as a result of Adam's sin. The feeling of the account here
is not peculiar to a particular individual, for it comprehends the feelings
and sufferings of every auditors. In all these instances where the "I" is
used, Donne turns to himself as an example illustrating the process of guilt,
repentance and salvation. His sins become all men's sins, his sufferings
theirs, and his self-accusation a model for their own. Donne asserts that
"when the Preacher preaches himself, his own sins, and his own sense of

Gods Mercies, or judgements upon him, as that is intended most for the

 

92

glory of God, so it should be applied most by the hearer, for his own
edification" (IX, 280). Thus what seems to be peculiar to the speaker is in
fact general for all the auditors. The personal includes and involves each
member of the congregation. The "1" becomes a sort of microcosm that
condenses and comprehends not only the experience of the speaker, but also
that of all human beings. It is in this "I" that all the auditors and their
preacher meet and become united. They share the same experiences and the
same feelings. Through his use of the "I", Donne assumes a unique role. He
becomes the subject and the object, the speaker and the spoken of. It is a
duality which reveals the fusion of the preacher and the congregation. The
demarcation line between the preacher and his congregation is blurred.
Donne 'steps' from his pulpit, and becomes one of them, sharing with them
their experiences, their sense of sin, and their hope of forgiveness. As
Webber asserts, "Other preachers extinguished themselves in their subjects.
Donne is his own subject, becomes his own prose" (Contrary Music, p. 28).

One further instance that exemplifies the comprehensiveness,
inclusiveness and the unity of all the members of his congregation with the
preacher's "I" is illustrated in a sermon preached on the Psalms (32; 10,
11). The "I" persona confesses: "In such a place as this, I sinned thus, That
he cannot heare a clock strike, but he remembers, at this hour I sinned
thus, That he cannot converse with few sins thus, that he cannot converse
with few persons, but he remembers, with such a person I sinned thus" (D(,
395). Here, the "I" of the speaker adds immediacy and vividness to this
dramatic scene. The auditors become a part of what they hear. He gives
personal details about his persona and makes it as particular as he can. yet
he is trying to make it a "universal" "I" who can appeal to all the members

of his congregation. Donne creates an "I" who seems to be highly personal

 

 

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and unique, but appeals to the whole congregation. He manages to solve this
seeming paradox. His persona is just like every human being in that he has
his own life, walks into his own chamber, communicates with people, and
even hears the striking of the clock. However, Donne knows the extent to
which he should individualize his persona, and he leaves room for his
audience to identify themselves with that persona. When Donne says "in
such a place as this," and "with such a person," he introduces the element of
"universality" to his story. The chamber is not a specific one, and the
person with whom the persona sinned is not specific either. Moreover, the
lack of precision of "at this hour" introduces an infinite time-dimension to
Donne's story since "this hour" can be any time. Thus the story becomes
the story of every hearer. It is the net where every one of Donne's
congregation is caught. The "I" is Donne's device that unites all in one.
Donne does not choose examples which Show uniqueness and
particularity, but he uses examples that are general, universal and can
include all people's experiences. It is on this basis that Donne does not use
Christ as an example to illustrate certain points in his sermons. The very
singularity of Christ's example makes it ineffective. Donne argues that
Christ's "actions are more than Examples, for his Actions are Rules" (IX,
281). As Son of God, Christ is supernatural, and although he assumed the
form of human being he is divine. Christ is not the example that we can
imitate in this life, but he is the ideal that we want to achieve in our
heavenly world, in our state of reunion with God. Christ is "rather an
amazement, an astonishment, an extasie, a consternation, then an
instruction" (1], 132). However, if Christ is an "astonishment," and an
"extasie" for us, other figures like David, Job, and Paul are used by Donne

as examples to edify the congregation and appeal to their fallen, but

 

 

94

potentially regenerate, nature. What is of importance to Donne in these
examples is that they are real human beings with whom his congregation
can feel affinity. They are Biblical figures who have known the world of
sin and the threat of God's damnation, but they have also found God's way
of salvation. Thanks to their potential power of regeneration, these figures
have managed to come to terms with themselves and God. As Jeanne
Shami states "They are exemplary not for the image of God in them, but
for the way in which they have worked to rectify that image, not entirely
depraved but yet stained in a fallen world."3 The human nature of these
Biblical characters, and their suffering, regeneration and redemption that
everybody can follow is the reason why he frequently uses these examples.
Speaking about David, Donne says: "His example is so comprehensive, so
generall Davids history concern and embrace all. For his Person
includes all states, between a shepherd and a king, and his sinne includes all
sinne, between first Omissions, and complications of Habits of sin upon sin"
(V, 299). Donne uses David's example for its general appeal and
inclusiveness of all people's experience. He compares David's example to a
picture placed in a gallery; it can look upon everybody no matter in what
comer he stands. Every hearer can see himself in David's example. In the
same way as the "I" of the speaker incorporates and unites all the members
of the congregation, so do these examples of David, Job and Paul. The "I"
or any other character becomes the mirror or the glass in which every

member of the congregation can see himself.4

 

3 Jeanne M. Shami, “Donne’s Protestant Casuistry: Cases of Conscience in the Sermons,” i in
Philelegy 80 (1983) 66

4 For full discussion on Donne’s use of examples see: Jeanne M. Shami, “Donne on Discretion,” Eli.
47 (1980), 48 - 76; and Paul W. Harland, “Dramatic Technique and Personae in Donne’s Sermons” ELH, 53
(1986), 709 - 725.

 

95

The unity between the preacher and his congregation is achieved
through the use of other stylistic devices. The most obvious one is the use
of the pronoun that includes the addresser and the addressee: the plural
pronoun "we”. In this plural pronoun, the fusion of the speaker and the
auditors is totally and explicitly achieved. There is no longer the difference
between the "I" and the "you," the preacher and the congregation, the
addresser and the addressee, for all become just one single entity: "we".
Through the use of this device, Donne 'leaves' his pulpit, and becomes just
one of the members of the congregation. He is no longer speaking to the
congregation, but he is speaking with the congregation. In expressions like
"we waighed downe," "we are swallowed up" ( VH, 57 ), "We kill her that
gave us our first life" ( X, 232 ), " We are taught cruelty" ( X, 232 ), "We
must sail through a sea" ( H, 249 ), "we must look to this East" ( IX, 49 ),
and "We have all passed the gate of death" ( II, 248 ), the preacher and his
auditors share the same human conditions. If he accuses them, he accuses
himself too; and if he relieves them, he relieves himself too. His hope is
theirs, and their agony and suffering are his. Donne becomes both the
preacher and the congregation.

Donne assumes the role of the congregation through many other
rhetorical techniques. The most striking one is his use of exclamations.
Exclamations such as "O blessed reflexion! 0 happy reciprocation! O
powerful correspondence!” (IX, 269) or “how contagious and pestilent are
the sinnes of man," (IX, 389) Show how Donne incorporates his auditors'
reaction into his text and make them seem as if they too explained his own
reaction. Donne seems to foresee the reaction of his congregation, and
integrates these reactions into his own prose. Sometimes Donne asks

questions which seem to be reactions of the congregation to his own

96

preaching. These questions can be viewed as the reaction of the
congregation who need fuller explanation of the religious doctrines on
which Donne is preaching. Such questions are numerous in Donne's
sermons: "What can I doe in a prayer?" (III, 165), "How then is Christ in
us?" (IX, 248), or "Are all these prayers acceptable?" (IX, 319). Such
questions show the dilemma of the congregation who are eager for more
explanation and clarification. These techniques Show us how Donne plays
some of the function of his congregation. He does not only preach, but he
hears what he is preaching. He exclairns and wonders at his own words as if
he hears them for the first time. The result of this is unity and harmony
between the preacher and the congregation. This unity is further enhanced,
because he pierces their minds, and foresees their own attitudes and
reactions. Moreover, such commentaries and exclamations add a tone of
spontaneity and immediacy to his sermon. Avoiding a sense of artificiality
and remoteness, and by creating spontaneity and immediacy, Donne secures
more of his auditors’ involvement with the text, and establishes a rapport
and even an intimacy between himself and the audience. The sermon is no
longer a ready - made product that comes from the preacher in the pulpit
down to his congregation, but it is a product of the interaction between the
speaker and auditors. Donne wants the experience of his audience to be part
of the sermon.

Preached on the text Lamentations 3:1, Donne's sermon begins with
"You remember in the history of the Passion of our Lord and Saviour
Christ Jesus... " (X, 192). In this opening, we notice that Donne is trying to
secure the attention of his audience right from the beginning. The direct
way of addressing his congregation opens the channel of communication,

puts him in touch with them, and stimulates a certain response from the

 

 

 

97

other partner in this dialogue, which is the congregation. The verb
"remember" is accurately used here since it tends to reinforce the
communicative effect that the mode of address has produced. The verb
"remember" appeals directly to the memory of the congregation and
requires some effort from them to recall what the preacher is asking them
to remember from the "history of the Passion of our Lord." Thus, Donne
brings his audience into the text, and invites them to contribute to its
construction through their memory and recollections. Donne manages to
find many ways to communicate with his audience, and bring them to the
pulpit with him. He secures the interaction of his congregation and makes
sure that the channels of their communication are open right from the
beginning.

In the same way that Donne tries to foresee the reaction of his
congregation to his preaching, he gives his audience some hints that would
allow them to understand the points he has in mind, and to foresee where
he is leading them. Rhetorical questions are Donne's means to achieve this
end. By means of these questions, the audience anticipates what is coming
next. Moreover, these questions would function as sign posts that would
help them discover their own way into the preacher's mind. Donne foresees
that his congregation will know the answers to questions like "But where '5
our remedy?" (V, 172), or " What need the Church a learned instructor?"
(X, 149) or "Is fraud, and circumvention so sure a way, of attaining God's
blessings, as industry, and conscientiousnesse?" (IX, 118). However, Donne
asks these questions to Show his audience where he is leading them so that
they understand their preacher's procedure and arguments. Sometimes
Donne does not answer these questions, and he leaves it to his

congregations to look for these answers. In this way he offers his

98

congregation a creative role in the sermon. For instance in a sermon on
Christ's coming into the world to save the sinners, Donne says: "He cals us
birds do their young, and he would gather us as a Hen doth her chickins"
(I, 312). Donne does not explain his simile, and does not mention anything
about the Similarity between the vehicle and the tenor, Christ's love and
care for us. Donne allows his audience to supply the interpretation needed
to complete the image. Thus, the congregation share with the preacher his
role in constructing the sermon. The preacher assumes the role of his
audience, and also involves his congregation with him in his creative role.
The ultimate result is that the difference between the two overlap: Donne
steps down from his pulpit and becomes one of the audience, while the
audience leave their comfortable seats in the pew and help the preacher
construct his sermon. The sermon itself becomes like a dialogue in which
the two interlocutors assume the role of the speaker and the bearer.
Different factors seem to point to the possibility of reading Donne's
sermons as a dialogue between the preacher and the congregation. The
mode of address, the use of the pronouns "you", "I" and "we," the creation
of a feeling of spontaneity, and familiarity between the preacher and the
congregation, the questions and answers, are all factors that point to this
interpretive reading. Donne himself calls the sermon "a holy conversation"
(H, 167). Moreover, Donne states that a sermon can be "but 3 Dialogue yet
it is a sermon" (V, 305). It is in this holy, sacramental dialogue that the
preacher and the congregation can be united together, and acquire a single
entity, and all the differences between them disappear. As in all dialogues,
the speaker in Donne's sermons can assume the role of the auditor and the
auditor that of the speaker, and each interlocutor assumes both roles at the

same time.

 

Chapter V

Stylistic Analysis of a Sermon on the Resurrection

In his book WM, Stanley Fish argues that John
Donne's sermon, "Death's Duell" in particular, and all his sermons in
general, are "self-consuming." By "self-consuming," Fish means that these
sermons are seventeenth - century works that somehow annihilate
themselves: they state a positive case, yet at the same time state its opposite,
thus negating whatever it was that they set out to achieve. Accordingly,
Donne's sermons achieve nothing and the hearers or the readers would get
"zero meaning" from the sermon, because every meaning is negated and
annihilated. Stanley Fish's attitude stems from the style and the structure of
Donne's sermons. Because Donne repeats what he has stated before, and
that the sermon has a circular structure lead Fish to argue that there is no
progression in Donne's sermons. They end as they begin. "The forward
movement has become deprogressive or retrogressive”. It follows
naturally, then, that form and content never exist in harmony, and never
form unity together. By investigating a sentence in Donne's, "Death's
Duell," Fish attempts to prove that sense and syntax nullify the efforts of
the other (Self-Consuming Artifaets p. 43), and thus contribute more and
more to the perplexity of the reader. The result is that Donne's sermon
initiates in the reader's mind "an uncomfortable and unsettling experience
in the course of which the understanding is denied the satisfaction of its

own operation" (Self-Consuming Artifacts, p. 47).

 

1 Stanley Fish, Selt-Qensaming Artifaets, (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1972), 56.
99

100

In this thematic and stylistic analysis of Donne's sermon on the
Resurrection (IV, I, 45), I will try to prove that there is unity in the
sermon on different levels, and I will show that Donne's sermon is not a
"self-consuming" artifact, but, rather, a self-sufficient sermon. Indeed, it is
this very aspect, the structure and the style of the sermon, that Fish focuses
on to support his argument, which I will also use to support my thesis. But,
at first, I would like to start with the theme of the sermon itself, a theme
which stresses the necessity of achieving a harmonious vision through the
Resurrection.

The Resurrection is a central idea in Donne's sermon. The theme of
the sermon is "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." The
Resurrection symbolizes the meeting of the body with the soul, the earth
with heaven, the purification from sin, the restoration of God's image, and
the expansion of time into eternity. This Resurrection is a return to the
prelapsarian state where we find "glorified bodies that make up the
Kingdom of Heaven, bodies that partake of the good of the state that make
up the state, bodies, able bodies, and lastly; bodies inanimated with one
soul" (IV, 50). However, in order to achieve this state, man has to face
death, and pay for his sins. The very moment of death becomes also the
moment of the soul's transfer from an earthly to a heavenly existence.
What seems to be an end is just a beginning of a life of harmony and unity.
The moment of death becomes a moment of rebirth ushering us into an
eternal and joyful life where there is no confinement like that of the world
of sin. "The breaking of prison is death, and what is our birth but a

breaking of prison?"

 

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The reason why the Resurrection is a central idea in Donne's
theology is that it restores the harmony which human beings have lost
because of their sin and the disorder which death brought upon man's life.
Without our belief in the Resurrection death would be a very powerful and
overwhehning enemy. It separates man from God by drawing him away
from heaven, and stands against man in achieving eternity and immortality
because it defaces the image of God in man. Donne thinks that death is "the

worst, the powerfullest," and "the fearfullest" enemy, because it feeds
upon the human body and causes its dissolution. Thus, it creates disorder in
the natural order of creation. Because of the ugliness, cruelty, distortion,
and disorder, God saves his creatures from death through the Resurrection
which brings eternal serenity, divine order, and harmony for which Donne
longs. Then death should be patiently endured and joyfully welcomed for it
is paradoxically the only gate to eternal life. The time of its striking, we
must leave to God. It is clear that our bodies are food for the worms, yet
we must know that death is not really a force that casts us out of this world
and into the grave. Rather, it is an “anteroom to heaven.” Therefore, "it is
an advantage to die," and "death is good " (IV, 54). God would remove his
punishment, "In sweat and in sorrow shalt thou eat thy bread" only "till
man return to dust" (IV, 62). Thus human beings have nothing to fear
because there is another, eternally happy life of harmony and unity,
immortality beyond this earthly, mortal, and limited life.

Donne describes the Resurrection in terms of a circular movement.
"And of all forms a circle is the perfectest. And thou 10th to make up that

circle with returning to the earth again?" (IV, 52). It is the Resurrection

which allows the individual Christian to pass from the limited finite circle

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of birth-to-death, and from cradle to grave, to God's infinite and perfect
circle of immortality. It is through faith in Christ and in the Resurrection
that man can be restored to his proper celestial sphere and determine the
full circle of Christian experience.

Donne's view that human beings make their own way back to God in
a circle enables him to stress further the idea of unity and harmony. In a
circular world, there can be no separation between different parts, between
God, Christ, man, and the universe. All the parts are like arcs which are
necessary for the formation of that harmonious view, and if one are is
missing, the circle is no longer a circle. All the arcs share the same
characteristics, and all of them are needed to form a circle. Donne is
fascinated by the great continuum and sense of inclusion that characterize
the circle. However, besides implying continuity, the circle also suggests
integrity of parts, joining the last to the first, the mortal to the immortal,
the worldly to the divine, and the material to the spiritual. Thus we know
not which is the first and which is the last; what we know is the fact that the
circle returns to the first point and joins it to the last one so that all the
points become related to one single circular line, where no distinction or
separation can be made. Donne's comparison of the Resurrection to a circle
reflects the integrity, continuum, and the harmony that human beings
would achieve with God after their death. Donne evokes this unity of vision

when he describes his life in heaven: .
"as soon as my soul enters into heaven I shall be able to say to the
angels I am of the same Stuff as you, spirit and spirit, and therefore
let me stand with you and look upon the face of God and my God;
so at the Resurrection of this body, I shall be able to say to the angel
of the great council, the son of God, Christ Jesus himself, I am of
the same stuff as you, body and body, flesh and flesh...” (IV, 46)

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Therefore, a human being becomes an immortal spirit who reaches
harmony with the angels and God. All of them "partake" of the same
qualities.

The conclusion to which I would like to draw attention is that it is
obvious on the thematic level that Donne's interest is to achieve and build a
unity of vision in his sermon. Stanley Fish's argument is more questionable
and vulnerable to criticism when we prove this unity on the stylistic level,
and Show that the different meanings do not cancel each other out and thus
produce “Zero meaning,” but rather produce both harmony and unity. My
intention, then, is to show the unity of the sentence, the paragraph, and the
whole sermon, by paying attention as well as to the relationship between
the preacher and his congregation, and to the unity of time in Donne's
Sermon on the Resurrection.

The concept of continuity and unity which I dealt with as a theme
and which is so clearly bound up with the image of the circle finds
expression elsewhere, mainly on the stylistic level. The images, the words,
the sentences, the paragraphs, the sermon, and the whole act of preaching
become another aspect of this roundness and circularity.

Donne's images suggest this circular notion. Their main
characteristic is compression and inclusiveness. For instance, his message to
his congregation is to "Let the whole world be in thy consideration as one
house; and then consider in that, in the peaceful harmony of creatures, in
the peaceful succession and connection of causes and effects, the peace of
nature" (VI, 47). In this sentence Donne urges his congregation not only to
consider "the peaceful harmony of creatures," but he also brings, through

the use of the image of the house, this harmony to their perception. Heaven

 

104

and earth or the "whole world" and the "kingdom of God," are condensed
into just one house. In the development of the sermon, this house is going
to hold the cosmos is every individual's heart. Donne remodels his sentence
"peace in thy house" and narrows it down to "peace in thy heart." The
heart becomes the small place which is required to hold the cosmos, and the
peace of God. It is the microcosm that holds all the macrocosm.

In the same way as the two poles of humanity and divinity become
just one pole with nothing to separate them, so does the style of the sermon
which suggests this unity. Donne's prose style is not ornamental; rather, he
uses language economically. He uses a minimum number of words to
suggest a unity between words. We notice that Donne's words echo each
other and seem as if they were themselves two poles united together. To
achieve such an effect he uses a variety of rhetorical devices. His use of the
parechesis, "song of Solomon," and the most elaborate one in "the places
perfect happiness and perfect glory in perfect peace" allow him to express
his ideas through words which are related harmoniously, a harmony which
is achieved through the repetition of the same sound in different words. In
his parechesis, "glory pre-assuming the body of Christ to that glory"
and in the alliteration ‘Glory' and 'God', Donne manages to relate the
subject, glory, to its origin, God, as well as to its object, body (IV, 61).
The adnominatio 'consider' / 'consideration' (IV, 61) and the paronomasia,
'weep' / 'wipe' enable Donne to express his ideas through an economic
language, which serves his purpose of condensation and compression. This
paronomasia sets the mutual and close relationship between human beings

who 'must weep these tears" and "God who "will wipe all tears" (IV, 45).

 

105

Donne does not leave this mutuality only on the level of meaning, but also
reflects it on the level of style.

On the level of sentences, we also find compression and unity. The
most prevailing syntactical structure in this sermon is the structure where
the last word of one line or clause is repeated to begin the next one. This
kind of structure is known as anadiplosis. Through the use of such a device,

John Donne gives his sentences a circular structure. For instance, in "you

must weep these tears, tears of contrition,‘ or in 'you must die this
death, this death of righteous," we notice that the first parts of these
sentences are like half circles which end in a point which is the very point
from which the other half circle begins to form the whole circle. This
practice is very clear in the following example. "If the rulers take council
against the Lord, the Lord Shall have their council in derision; if they
take arms against the Lord, the Lord shall break their bows and cut
their spears in sunder" (IV, 58). The structure of this sentence is like a
circle which can be divided into four parts, equal to four arcs of a circle,
and each is related to the point where the last are finishes. "The Lord" is
the starting and ending point in these clauses.

Donne makes this 'syntactical roundness' through the use of
epanalepsis, and thus a sentence or a clause ended with the same word with
which it begins, such as in "it will not perform a sin when and where thou
would have it" (IV, 48), or "God shall not give another, a better body at
the Resurrection, but the same body made better" (IV, 57). The effect of
such a device is to give a sense of roundness and inter-dependency to the
sentences. Every sentence or clause draws its meaning from the previous

one, and each part sheds more light on the other. Though the sentence

 

106

"there is but one lamentation" seems to have a kind of completeness,
"there" can be identified only through recourse to the previous sentence,
"in the book of God there are many songs" (IV, 45). Donne uses other
cases of zeugma with the same effect such as in "for God hath made us
under good princes, a great example of all that, abundance of men, men
that live like men, men united in one religion." The unity of religion that
Donne is arguing for in this sentence is revealed through the use of zeugma
and also anadiplosis.

Donne can resort to simpler techniques such as diacope, consisting
of the repetition of a word with one or a few words in between, to produce
no less important effects. We find many phrases like "Heaven of Heaven,"
"spirit and spirit," "God and my God," "body and body," "flesh and flesh."
Such phrases used to describe Donne's vision of the Resurrection leave the
hearers with the impression that Donne is already united to the spirit and
God, and he is ultimately "of the same stuff" as them.

Another characteristic of Donne's sentences is their parallel
structure, one which suggests sameness and unity more than diversity and
multiplicity. Donne's isocolonic and anaphoric sentences as in "peace with
the creature, peace in thy church, peace in the state, peace in thy house,
peace in thy heart," or "let the whole world be in thy consideration... let
this kingdom where... Let thine own family be... let thine own bosom be..."
make the sentences flow together without any thing to separate them from
each other (IV, 49). Donne's aim is to preserve a sense of continuity,
fluidity, and unity on the level of syntax as well. Donne refuses to join his
clauses with conjunctions where he wants his sentences to reveal his vision

of unity. In the following parataxic and isocolonic phrases, "where God set

 

107

the prophet in a valley of very many and very dry bones and invites the
several joints to knit again, ties them with their sinews and ligaments,
clothes them in their old skin, and calls life into them again" we how the
omission of the conjunction "and" makes these phrases flow together
without any thing to separate them (IV, 57).

On the level of paragraphs, Donne follows the same technique. He
incorporates into different paragraphs the thought that ends the preceding
paragraph. The idea expressed at the end of a given paragraph is what he
begins to build upon in the following one. To illustrate this idea more
clearly, one can give as an example the third, fourth, and fifth paragraph
in the sermon on the Resurrection. The third paragraph opens with a
question "who then is this enemy?" and then develops around the idea of

6

the enmity of death, and ends with ‘...the last enemy." The fourth
paragraph opens with "we have other enemies" and closes with the idea of
the destruction of this enemy. In Donne's sermons the reader cannot
separate one paragraph from the other, and he/she can read three or four
paragraphs as if they were just a single paragraph. Taking this fact into
account, we see that the rhetorical unit, for Donne, should complete a
circle, ends with what it begins and thus brings unity to the sermon.

Apart from using repetition, Donne achieves the same unity between
paragraphs by using interrogatio. The paragraph that closes with the
question, "And art thou 10th to make up that circle with returning to the
earth again? and the one that opens with the answer, "Thou must, though
thou be loth," are welded together, and the auditors are led to assume that

the existence of one paragraph without the other does not make sense. In

the dependence of one paragraph upon the other, the reader is invited to

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see the unity between them. Donne uses this technique not only to bind
paragraphs together, but also to relate together parts of the sermon larger
than the paragraph. To illustrate this practice, one can give the example of
the question "Who then is this enemy?" which Donne asks at the beginning
of the sermon, and he repeats almost the same question, "But who is this
one enemy in this text?" later in the sermon. More significant is Donne's
invocation of the idea of God's glory at the beginning of the sermon: "Let
us be content to humble ourselves forty days to be fitter for that glory
which we expect," and his prayer at the end of the sermon "that we with all
others departed may have this perfect consummation, both of body and
soul, in his everlasting glory. Amen." It is now clear enough that Donne is
using the circle as a rhetorical figure on the level of sentence, paragraph,
and the whole sermon in order to create unity and harmony between every
part of his text. Donne uses the image of the circle not only as a pattern of
his thoughts, but also as a rhetorical figure of expression.

What Donne accomplishes by the use of these techniques is a sermon
with a fully round structure and unity. According to this view, I think that
Fish’s argument that in an Anglican sermon, and in Donne’s in particular,
“one is asked to do more than one can .. and to undo what has already been
done” (Self-Consuming Artifacts, p. 72) needs modification and
readjustment. Moreover, Fish seems to have missed Donne’s intention when
he declares that references backward in Donne’s sermon are “complicating”
and “unsettling” and thus prevent the readers from understanding the
sermon. On the contrary, Joan Webber understands Donne’s intention in

his using structure and language in such a way, and states that “in [Donne’s]

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dealing with language as such he achieves a real unity of vision”
(Contragt Masic, p. 123).

It is this characteristic of Donne’s rhetorical circular structure which
prevents Fish from seeing any sort of progression in Donne’s sermon and
leads him to argue that the “forward movement has become deprogression
or retrogressive” (Self-Consuming Artifacts, p. 56). However, although he
uses repetitions and his sermon has a circular structure, Donne is careful to
create a sort of progression in his sermon. In fact, every repetition is not
merely circular, but it is explanatory, adding a new meaning, and bringing
new insight or at least a renewal of vision. One or two examples from this
sermon on the Resurrection will suffice to illustrate how Donne creates a
sense of progression within his repetitions. When the auditors hear the
following sentence, “all is but an image, all is a dream of an image,” they
realize that through the repetition of the first part of the sentence and the
addition of “dream,” Donne is modifying the “image,” and thus adding a
new meaning. With this addition, it becomes clear to the auditors that
Donne perceives the Resurrection in terms of a dream-like vision.
Sometimes, Donne uses repetition to develop an idea, clarify what has
already been stated, and remove any sort of ambiguity. Describing death,
Donne states: “It is not an enemy that invades neither, but only detains. He
detains the bodies of the saints which are in heaven.” We notice that the

9

second sentence begins with the last word, “detains,’ of the previous
sentence. The purpose of repeating “detains” at the beginning of the second
sentence is to capture the auditors’ attention and give them hints that the
second sentence is but the development of the previous one. With this

repetition the auditors are invited to see the ugliness and the cruelty of

 

110

death in a more detailed and clearer picture. Therefore, even though
Donne’s repetitions are anaphoric, they refer to what has been said, their
reference in meaning is cataphoric because, as we have seen with “detains,”
they explain the previously stated meaning more clearly. Each recurrent
cycle, then, brings to the auditors a greater understanding and clearer
vision. The repetition of an image, a word, or a phrase of a text not only
draws a circular form, but also marks stages in a progression towards
broadening the auditors’ understanding of the Biblical text upon which the
sermon is based. When Donne evokes the idea of God’s glory again at the
end of the sermon, he does not hint that he ends where he begins, but
demonstrates what has been done with the Scripture text during the course
of his preaching, and stressing the progressive Steps he has taken while
explaining the his auditors the Biblical text.

The relationship between the preacher, Donne, and the congregation
is another surface upon which we see that this notion of integrity and unity
is reflected, and reveals more about Donne's vision of harmony. The way
Donne uses the first person "I" illustrates this relationship. Donne's use of
the first person adds immediacy, and demonstrates his personal connection,
and involvement with his auditors about the point that he wants to make. In
many circumstances Donne stands as an exemplum representing an
experience that all his congregation, or all human beings may go through.
For instance in his description of the death experience, "when I shall be
able to stir no limb " the "I" is no longer Donne's proper entity, but it is
the "I" which includes and compresses the experience of the whole
congregation in particular, and all human beings in general. Donne uses

the technique of compression to express his unity with his congregation. As

 

 

111

we have seen previously, Donne compressed all the cosmos and God's
peace in the "heart" of every individual; now Donne compresses the
experience of all human beings in the singular first person "I". This unity
between Donne the preacher and the congregation is carried further
through other different devices such as the sermocinatio in which Donne
pretends that he is answering the questions and responding to the remarks
of his auditors. Questions like "why? what lacks it?" or "we shall see him
destroyed But how? or when?", or "How long, 0 Lord? forever." These
questions serve as a possible questions, commentaries or exclamations of
the congregation to Donne's speech. Donne is trying to foresee the reaction
of his auditors, and include them in his own text. The effect is that he is no
longer assuming the role of the preacher only, but that of the congregation
too. John Donne is at the same time a preacher and part of the
congregation.

Through observing the use of the sermocinatio, the reader would
realize that Donne shares with his congregation the role of the bearer, and
he invites his congregation to Share with him the role of the preacher.
While preaching, Donne often begins with a given sentence, and then tries
to modify it by piling other adjectives and nouns until it stands for the
meaning that he wants to convey. He also purposely leaves in his sentences
the rejected words. Such is the case in the following quotation: "...till the
Redeemer, my Redeemer, the Redeemer of all me, body and soul," where
he could have conveyed the meaning just through "the Redeemer of all."
This adds to the spontaneity and immediacy of his sermon, and gives the
audience the impression that Donne is acting upon the spot, and trying to

figure out the meaning that he wants to convey. Decoding the meaning of

 

 

112

the sermon becomes, indeed, not only the role of the auditors, but also that
of the preacher who is trying to decode the internalized meaning in his
mind in order to communicate it as clearly as possible to the congregation's
understanding. Ultimately, Donne manages to show the congregation that
he is meditating while preaching, and he manages to invite the congregation
to share with him in the process of meditation, to decode the internal
meaning of the sermon (in the preacher's mind) with him, and construct
the meaning of the sermon with him. Hence, Donne shares with his hearers
their role, and they partake with him his. Donne, the preacher, and his
auditors become just one entity which assumes the role of both the hearer
and the preacher. This again shows a lack of distinction between the subject
and the object, and shows a case of blending Donne with his congregation
in his / their sermon. Donne is not distant from his subject; he becomes the
central figure in his sermon, the preacher and the bearer, and so do his
congregation.

Donne reaches unity and harmony not only with his congregation,
but also with the historical personae that he uses in the sermon. The way
Donne achieves this unity is through the rhetorical technique known as
prosopopoeia which enables him to address his congregation through the
historical persona's voice. The culminating effect is that there is an
interchangeability of identity between the preacher and the historical
persona. By allowing himself to speak through the voice of a holy
character, Donne manages to acquire not only the holiness of this persona,
but also its authority and influence.

Donne also assumes a prophetic voice. With his use of "shall" Donne

implies that he is part or an agent of providence. When he says: "I Shall

 

113

have reason on my side, and I shall have grace on my side," he not only
expresses a prophetic vision for the future, but he also becomes himself
almost a prophet who "shall have the history of a thousand that have
perished by that sin on [his] side" (IV, 48). More obvious is this practice
when he uses Jesus Christ's voice as if it were his, saying: "Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you" (IV, 48). (The absence of the
quotation marks in the spoken form strengthens the effect of these words,
and makes them sound more likely to be Donne's). Donne becomes almost
a God-like figure when he says "...that at the last I shall reunite the dead,
and dry bones of all men in a general Resurrection can you doubt but
that I who can do that can also recollect you from your present
desperation" (IV, 57). In such passages Donne turns himself into a symbol,
and becomes part of the holy and spiritual world. Donne is assuming a
prophetic function, that of a mediator between God and men. Donne's soul
seems to have gone through a process of regeneration, has achieved the
visionary view of the Resurrection he was longing for at the beginning of
his sermon, and 'partakes' now with the divinity peace, glory, and joy. It is
his belief in the Incarnation and the Resurrection which makes Donne
daring enough to evoke the voice of Christ, Job, and other figures like St.
Augustine, and makes such a practice entirely reasonable and legitimate.
The Resurrection is Donne's reason for making the word flesh. This should
not come as a surprise in Donne's sermon which is about the Resurrection.
The auditors are not just told about the Resurrection, but they are also
allowed to see the Resurrection of David, the Apostles, and Christ himself
through hearing their voices again. Donne makes his congregation hear

David's question, Is there anybody that lives and shall not see death?"

 

Hlllll

114

(IV, 46). On the stylistic level, Donne is doing what he did on the thematic
level. Thus, it is clear enough that Donne's style in his Semron on the
Resurrection is an integral part of meaning.

Donne's use of prosopopoeia has a three dimensional effect: it makes
it possible for the preacher to reach unity with historical and holy figures,
serves him to bring home the notion of Resurrection to his congregation,
and helps him bring to his sermon a unity of time. What the congregation
reach in the text is not just a reunion with Christ, but they also experience a
kind of eternal life. There is no longer a sense of past, present, and future,
but all of them are mingled together in an eternal moment, it is the "now,"
or the very moment of preaching. The audience are allowed to meditate
upon their past, realize their sins which bring them death, and look for
their own present salvation. This does not seem to be far from their reach,
because Donne allows his congregation to witness in his sermon that
salvation through Resurrection. This explains why John Donne uses the
present tense when he wants to quote figures of the historical past. We find

H H

in the text sentences like: "Job complains, the prophet answers," "the
prophet Isaiah comes," and "Moses calls." Through the use of present tense,
Donne brings the past to the present moment, and mingles them together.
Donne achieves the same effect when he calls his auditors to imagine
themselves placed in some concrete and specific situation. By doing so,
Donne transports them either to historically real scenes or to possible
future ones. For instance, Donne transfers his congregation not only to the
scene when God creates the bodies to complete the perfection of the
Kingdom of Heaven, but also to the scene where Christ is addressing his

followers telling them that he left them peace and joy. Donne also transfers

 

115

his auditors to a possible future scene, that is the scene of their death and
resurrection. The use of prosopopoeia in: "Peace I leave with you," and "I
Shall reunite the dead," and the voice of the first person persona add more
realistic details to the scene, and make the past and the future part of the
present moment. The conclusion I want to draw is that the moment of
Donne’s preaching embraces the whole of man's life, and the whole history
of humanity becomes condensed in the present moment of preaching. Such
a condensation of time is a natural result of Donne's intention to change the
course of his auditors’ lives. It follows naturally that he reminds them of
their past sins, God's grace for them, and his promise that their future will
be much better than their present. The moment of preaching may then
correspond to the whole sequence of the worldly and spiritual life of the
congregation.

It is clear now that Donne's intention in his Sermon on the
Resurrection is to build a solid, coherent and self-sufficient rather than
'self-consuming' artifact. As I have argued, Donne uses different ways and
techniques to show his vision of unity and harmony not only on the
thematic level, but also through the structural and stylistic levels of his
sermon. Unlike Stanley Fish's conclusion about the sermon "Death Duell,"
I find that style and content exist in harmony, and both of them are welded

together to form a beautiful and harmonious work of art.

 

 

 

Bibliography

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Abrams, M. H. A Glossam of Literagt Terms. Toronto: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, Inc., 1988.
Bourne, E.C.E. The Anglicanism of William Laud. London: London

 

 

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1946.

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