Love as pure as angels in Air and Angels - John Donne

Air and Angels by John Donne

A brief introduction to the poet and analysis of the poem

Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee,

Before I knew thy face or name;

So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame

Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be;

Still when, to where thou wert, I came,

Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.

But since my soul, whose child love is,

Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,

More subtle than the parent is

Love must not be, but take a body too;

And therefore what thou wert, and who,

I bid Love ask, and now

That it assume thy body, I allow,

And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.



Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,

And so more steadily to have gone,

With wares which would sink admiration,

I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;

Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon

Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;

For, nor in nothing, nor in things

Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;

Then, as an angel, face, and wings

Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,

So thy love may be my love's sphere;

Just such disparity

As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,

'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.


About Donne

John Donne (1572-1631) often called Poet and Divine was born in 1571 in London, England. Donne was famous as a poet and preacher in the late English Renaissance. After education at Hertford College (Oxford) in 1583, then from University of Cambridge, 1586 and later from Thavies Inn legal school, 1591 Donne would have ventured to a career in law. Though he studied at Oxford and at the Inns of Court, to venture into the career of a lawyer, Donne would eventually find the world of poetry and religion.

 

Donne's house near Ripley, Surrey, England.

He also served in governmental positions as an elected official. But the Catholic faith had a greater influence on him. We will see that it also had an effect on his poems. He became a religious leader after his conversion to Anglicanism.

Personally Donne struggled with his frail health and sustained the loss of his wife and several of his children. The personal struggles were all experiences that shaped him into an introspective and sensitive poet.

Donne was also Chaplain to King James I, and in 1621 was appointed Dean of St Paul's Cathedral.

Writing legacy

Donne's legacy today is for his contributions to writing as a prominent metaphysical poet. His works A Valediction Forbidding Mourning ,The Bait ,The Flea and Death Be Not Proud are shining examples of his abilities to question concepts of love, life, existence, struggle of human life and death through the written word.

Donne's work is characterised by its use of intricate metaphysical conceits, pronounced and conspicuous elements and a deeply sensual style. His poetry has frequent use of paradox, irony, and satire.

The themes used by Donne can be summarised into love, death, religion, and human nature - all of which he experienced in his personal struggles.. His work is often highly intellectual and challenging, demanding close attention from the reader. However, it also displays great emotional depth and honesty, making him a poet who is still relevant and relatable today.


About  the poem Air and Angels


Published in 1633 in Poems, Air and Angels begins with the speaker describing how he has loved the listener many times over, but doesn't really know her. His love is one-sided, exists on its own terms and is separate from the person it is directed at. The poet is self-sufficient in his love, he doesn't need to display or convey it. The speaker compares love to the purity of angels. It is in the world the same way angels move in heaven, another pure place.

Eventually though, he desires to make his love known. And then he wonders how to do that. He considers the possibility it could find a home within his lover’s physical presence. But the idea is rejected, as he decides a woman could not balance the strength of a man’s love within her. She would be weighed down like a small ship.

Air and Angels concludes with the speaker deciding the only way his love and his listener’s love can come together is if her’s encircles his like a perfect circle coming together. This way they avoid anything too “bright” or “extreme.” Their loves will reside in a sphere and on the ground, with their realities and shortcomings together.

Structure

This is a two stanza poem that is separated into sets of fourteen lines. 

Donne did not structure the poem with a consistent pattern of rhyme. The two stanzas are differently arranged from one another. Only the first has a pattern of ABBABACDCDDEEE. 

The second stanza is completely different with a number of unrhymed endings and with no connections to the previous fourteen lines aside from ending with a rhyming triplet.