A Fever and Fervor in John Donne’s Elegy
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document in English
literature
school essay
published 21/08/2007
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level : Advanced
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SummaryDonne’s poem “A Fever” is an elaborate blend of narrative designs. Donne uses the venerable poetic device of elegiac stanza to express mourning for the (anticipated) death of a lover from a fever. There is an explicit surface meaning to this poem as well as implicit sub-textual meanings. On the surface, Donne’s poem reads as a pre-elegy to the lover who suffers from this illness. It follows the traditional elegy format in which narration begins with death and rises at the end to alleviate the pain of death. However, due to a variety of elements, the poem twists into something more suggestive, and the fever becomes an analogy for sexual passion that is ultimately spent and lost. Thus, by combining elegy with innuendo of sexual desire, Donne’s “A Fever” is a sort of assault on or corruption of both the classic elegy form as well as the traditional idea of love itself.
Table of Contents
- Generally, the aim of an elegy is not simply to mourn the dead, but ultimately to celebrate life
- In the last three stanzas of A Fever the speaker seems to have both an explicit spiritual concern for the woman and an implicit carnal desire
- In the seventh stanza, the speaker's corrupting love becomes more apparent
- Considering that the poem is the style of an elegy, it is interesting that, as the speaker states in the first stanza, he will not celebrate the woman's life
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