Editing Internet Texts/Theatrical Elements in John Donne’s Poetry

=Synopsis= The aim of the Wikiversity project “Theatrical Elements in John Donne’s Poetry” is to present and analyse the features typical for drama and theatre in the selected poems of the most famous Metaphysical Poet. The features associated with theatre, i.e. the protagonist, the setting, the in medias res technique and the audience, are observable in Donne’s poems and therefore the verses may be read as mini plays ready to be performed on stage. The project includes the analyses of “Twicknam Garden” and “The Good Morrow” as the poems reflecting the dramatic quality of Donne’s poems. The Wikiversity users are invited to trace and list the theatrical aspects in “Sweetest love I do not go” and justify their choices. The project includes information about John Donne as the representative of experimental poetry in the 17th century as well as descriptions of theatrical elements and their role in a play. One section of the project is devoted to the translations of “The Flea” in order to check whether its dramatic elements are applicable in other languages as well. The section also encourages the readers to upload their native language translations and list their dramatic features, and then write whether the particular translation managed to retain the dramatic quality observed in the original.

NOTA BENE

John Donne’s poems could be considered as dramatic as they were created in the 17th (“mature Shakespearean” period) when along with poetry drama was a dominant genre. Therefore, many well-known and respected literary critics put forward comprehensive theories about the dramatic quality of Donne’s works with in-depth analyses of theatrical elements in poems that have the “dramatic potential”. Thus, in order to classify a poem as dramatic some formal and critical requirements must be fulfilled (along with historical context taken into account).

=John Donne as an experimentalist= John Donne was the most prominent representative of a new style of poetry that came into being in the last ten years of the 17th century. It was called "metaphysical" or "mature Shakespearean" since it employed satirical, dramatic, complex and unconventional stylistics methods. Donne's poetry reflects the most important characteristics of metaphysical poetry, i.e. wit, stylistic experiments, blending together themes of love and hate, life and death, body and soul as well as using science-inspired imagery and metaphysial conceit. One of the most popular anthologists and propagators of Donne's works in Poland, Stanisław Barańczak, created the notion of "Donne's man" that would reflect the philosophy of his poetry: a man who is emotionally distorted, full of paradoxes, with turbulent life, not knowing what his place on Earth is. However, the most experimental aspect of his poetry was theatricality of his works, therefore they were very often called "dramatic poems" i.e. mini-plays ready to be performed on stage.

=Features typical for theatrical plays=

Protagonist
A protagonist is a main character in a text. His/her decisions are crucial in the development of the action. He/she plays the key role in a story.

Coup de theatre
According to the Wiktionary coup de theatre is a sudden or unexpected event in a play which aim is to create the dramatic effect in order to make it more dynamic.

Setting
What is understood by the term setting is time and place of a particular action. It is a significant element of the play as it very often determines the characters' behaviour and, sometimes, becomes the character itself. In drama setting is usually described through stage directions. However, stage directions are very often hidden in the characters' words.

Dramatic personae
Dramatic personae (Latin: persons of the drama) is a list of characters that take part in a play.

World-as-theatre motif
World-as-thetre motif (theatrum mundi) is a literary motif depicting world as a stage and people as actors who perform.

Dramatic monologue
Dramatic monologue is a speech of one character usually of a reflective character. M.H. Abrams who saw dramatic monologue as a part of poetry listed its most important features:
 * 1) A single person, who is patently not the poet, utters the speech that makes up the whole of the poem, in a specific situation at a critical moment […].
 * 2) This person addresses and interacts with one or more other people; but we know of the auditors' presence, and what they say and do, only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker.
 * 3) The main principle controlling the poet's choice and formulation of what the lyric speaker says is to reveal to the reader, in a way that enhances its interest, the speaker's temperament and character.

In medias res technique
The literary technique which aim is to the present a given action in the middle of things. Properly applied in medias res technique make the reader aware of the fact the presented action is an extension of the previous events.

=Critical concepts of dramatic quality in John Donne's poetry= Literary critics of the 20th century examined Donne's poems in terms of their dramatic quality and put forward some concepts that would support their views. Below, there is an outline of critical concepts in search for the dramatic quality in John Donne's poetry found in the most credible sources.

H.J.C. Grierson, The Poems of John Donne, 1912

"In Donne's love poetry there is a certain "dramatic intensity" resulting from a conflict, feeling and intellect & a rejection of Petrarchan convention and language of courtly love poetry in favour of ordinary experiences and diction." (p.xlv)

Helen Gardner, The Metaphysical Poets, 1962

"...desire to make poems out of particular moments, made imaginatively present rather than remembered... The sense of the moment gives Donne's wit its briliance and verve, the aptness and incongruity of the comparisons being created by their contexts."(p.40)

"...his strong dramatic imagination of particular situations transforms the lyric and makes a metaphysical poem more than an epigram expanded by conceits." (p.40)

"...the poems are dramatic in the sense that they are single and complete as a play is single and complete." (p.41)

Patrick Crutwell, The Shakespearean Moment..., 1960

"Donne's natural metaphor is the image of the play; Donne's multiple personality gives rise to an interplay of ever-changing moods and these moods constitute the poem' dramatis personae." (p.42)

Frank J. Wranke, John Donne, 1987

"The dramatic, indeed the theatrical, is perhaps the major constituent of the baroque imagination. For Donne, as for Shakespeare, the venerable topos of the world and theatre, the theatrum mundi, had an obsessive status - in life as well as in art. To see the world as a stage is not to reflect flee reality but rather to find a means of engaging reality as fully as possible. This conception - theatre-is-world and world-is-theatre - dominates and virtually defines the baroque imagination". (p.10)

D.R. Watkins, Inferring the Dramatic in Donne, 2000

"I conclude that Donne is dramatic primarily because his most effective work is presented like little plays, indeed little theatres, to which the reader-cum-audience is drawn upon entrance cast into an active role that is co-creative as opposed to strictly interpretative. On all of the truly dramatic lyrics this effect is achieved largely through implicature - that which is not explicitly stated within the context of the surrounding poetic utterance - whereby the poetic audience is coerced into imaginative participation in the form of guided inference in the play of words into which it is drawn. [...] The great poems, the ones he will always be remembered for [...] are rightly to be thought of as performance texts, playing spaces, or 'theatres of mind'" (pp. 162-163)

=The Good-Morrow=

The poem
I WONDER by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ? But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ? 'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear ; For love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ; Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ; Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ; Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp north, without declining west ? Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ; If our two loves be one, or thou and I Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.

Analysis
=Twickenham Garden=

The poem
BLASTED with sighs, and surrounded with tears, Hither I come to seek the spring, And at mine eyes, and at mine ears, Receive such balms as else cure every thing. But O ! self-traitor, I do bring The spider Love, which transubstantiates all, And can convert manna to gall ; And that this place may thoroughly be thought True paradise, I have the serpent brought.

'Twere wholesomer for me that winter did Benight the glory of this place, And that a grave frost did forbid These trees to laugh and mock me to my face ; But that I may not this disgrace Endure, nor yet leave loving, Love, let me Some senseless piece of this place be ; Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here, Or a stone fountain weeping out my year.

Hither with crystal phials, lovers, come, And take my tears, which are love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home, For all are false, that taste not just like mine. Alas ! hearts do not in eyes shine, Nor can you more judge women's thoughts by tears, Than by her shadow what she wears. O perverse sex, where none is true but she, Who's therefore true, because her truth kills me.

Analysis
=Sweetest love I do not go=

The poem
Sweetest love, I do not go, For weariness of thee, Nor in hope the world can show A fitter love for me; But since that I Must die at last, 'tis best To use myself in jest Thus by feign'd deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence, And yet is here today; He hath no desire nor sense, Nor half so short a way: Then fear not me, But believe that I shall make Speedier journeys, since I take More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power, That if good fortune fall, Cannot add another hour, Nor a lost hour recall! But come bad chance, And we join to'it our strength, And we teach it art and length, Itself o'er us to'advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind, But sigh'st my soul away; When thou weep'st, unkindly kind, My life's blood doth decay. It cannot be That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st, If in thine my life thou waste, That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart Forethink me any ill; Destiny may take thy part, And may thy fears fulfil; But think that we Are but turn'd aside to sleep; They who one another keep Alive, ne'er parted be.

Educational part: the reader's analysis
Your task is to find and list at least three dramatic elements observable in the given poem. You should also justify your choices analogically to the previous analyses.

=The Flea in translations=

Polish translation
Pchła Spójrz, pchła: ten widok opór twój pokona - To, czego pragnę, małe jest jak ona. Ssała krew z mego, teraz z twego ciała; Obie krwie nasze w sobie więc zmieszała Wcale się wszakże nie obruszysz na to, Nie nazwiesz grzechem, hańbą, czci utratą; A jednak insekt, nim kto go rozgniecie Krwią napęczniały, użył sobie przecie: Więcej dokonał niż my na tym świecie.

Nie, puść ją; po co życiom trzem nieść zgubę? Ta pchła nas wiąże niźli ślubem, Jest mną i tobą, nazwać ją też możem Ślubną świątynią i małżeńskim łożem; Mimo twe dąsy, rodziców sprzeciwy, Już nas otoczył mur czarny i żywy. Zabij mnie w owej pchle, o to nie stoję; Lecz będzie i w tym samobójstwo twoje, I świętokradztwo: zatem przestępstw troje.

Och, więc jednak, okrutnico miła, Niewinna krew twój paznokieć splamiła? I w czymże wina nieszczęsnej istotki? Że ci upiła kropelkę krwi słodkiej? Sama wszak widzisz, że nic to nie zmienia: Nie widać po nas oznak osłabienia. Więc porzuć trwogę, nie wzbraniaj mi ciała: Oteyle tylko mniej czci będziesz miała, Ilci życia śmierć tej pchły zabrała. translated by: Stanisław Barańczak

Educational part: other translations: analyses
This section is devoted to the translation of "The Flea" in your native language. If such a translation exist, feel free to upload it in The poem in translation section and analyse it in order to check if dramatic elements have been retained. If the table has been already completed, feel free the use the script in order to create another table for the sake of your analysis.

The analysis
=Quiz= {The style of poetry that came into being in the 17th century is called + mature Shakespearean. - new-Shakespearean - neo-Shakespearean
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{Which dramatic element means "in the middle of things"? - coup de theatre + in medias res - dramatic personae
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{Which poems is known most for its dialogical quality? - Twickenham Garden - The Good-morrow + The Flea
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{John Donne is not known for - using metaphysical conceit + creating shape poems - using witty language
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{Which literary critic called Donne's poems "little theatres" ? + D.R. Watkins - Helen Gardner - Patrick Cruttwell
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=See also=
 * John Donne LUMINARIUM
 * 10 John Donne's Poems Everyone Should Read
 * The Flea video

=Sources=