Separation Anxiety and Desire for Union in John Donne’s “Lovers’ Infiniteness”, “The Apparition”, and “The Dream”

Authors : Seher Aktarer

Pages : 1296-1304

Doi:10.21547/jss.1603305

View : 102 | Download : 109

Publication Date : 2025-07-18

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :This article aims to thematically and stylistically examine the tension experienced between the desire for union and separation anxiety in John Donne’s “Lovers’ Infiniteness,” “The Apparition,” and “The Dream” from his poem collection Songs and Sonnets (1635). It proposes that in these three poems, Donne’s speakers do not resolve this tension between desire and separation; rather, they dramatize it to reveal the emotional contradictions that are inherent in love. Thus, they seem to navigate the instability of love, instead of clarifying it. The three poems in this article are specifically selected in parallel with Donne’s complex and occasional contradictive dynamics of love in his two collections Holy Sonnets (1633) and Songs and Sonnets. Donne’s speakers employ puns, paradoxes, and metaphors that are characteristic of Metaphysical Poetry to dramatize the contradictions at the core of love by putting a special emphasis on the physical dimension of it. Through these elements, Donne’s speakers illustrate peculiar portrayals of lovers. In “Lovers’ Infinitiness”, the lover/speaker is in pursuit of total possession of the lady’s physical or spiritual being. In the dark tone of the poem “The Apparition”, feelings of revenge and longing are conflated. In “The Dream”, the lover/speaker’s tone oscillates between reality and dream, seeking physical unity with the lady in both. The analysis in this article underscores the use of Metaphysical techniques by Donne to dramatize a fundamental contradiction in love.
Keywords : John Donne, Şarkılar ve Soneler, “Aşıkların Sonsuzluğu”, “Tezahür”, “Rüya”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE URL