Song: Go Catch a Falling Star c 1600
This is a song and was set to music.This is an address and the tone is light and even comic. However the content is misogynistic.More typical of poems in the earlier phases of his life. ‘Get with child’ means to make pregnant. The mandrake is a poisonous plant which has a significance with poets and writers as the lower part of the plant resembles a human being! Sometimes it even looks to have hands and a head! Line means to try and get a mandrake root pregnant instead of a human being. Devil reference – devil can disguise himself in any shape or form but he cannot disguise his cloven feet.‘Teach me to hear mermaids singing’: they tempt people to go up to them but if they were lured by their singing, they would drown. Legends of sailors sailing their boats into rocks at the lure of their song, and consequently many dies. Only Odysseus managed to survive this fate as a witch called Serse warned him of their danger. Odysseus ordered his crew to place wax in their ears so they could not hear anything. He asked them to tie him to the head mast and not to untie him. He was able to listen to the mermaids’ songs and nothing happened to him or his crew.In classical literature they were sirens but later mermaids.‘to keep off envy’s stinging’ – envy is jealously; stinging means annoying or upsetting someone.‘wind’ is pronounced ‘wynde’ as historically this is the correct pronunciation of the word. It rhymes with ‘mind.’ ‘teach me ‘ - teach me how to improve an honest person in his social life. People who never lie or cheat cannot improve in life like dishonest men.
Imperatives – ‘go, catch , find and teach’ – they ask us to do impossible tasks and why?
2nd stanza, first two lines are open to debate. If you are born a psychic and who can read minds, if you have extra sensory perception, then you and only you should ride 10000 nights to the four corners of the world until you are old.‘till age snow white hairs on thee’: until you get old and die.When you return you will speak about the wonders of the world, but one thing you will never locate is a beautiful woman who is also faithful to her husband.
So, first stanza is an introduction and prepares the way for the above point. You may well be able to do impossible things such as catch a meteor, such a woman will escape you.
3rd stanza line 3: ‘pilgrimage’ refers to the notion of finding such a woman being a holy event and it is worth visiting such a holy place. ‘yet do not, I would not go, though at next door we might meet’: even though the woman may live next door to me, Donne says that he would refuse to confront her – speaker changes his mind!
When you met her for the first time she was honest and true, but this would only last until you wrote to invite yourself to see her. Donne saying that he is sure she would betray a couple of lovers before he gets there! An exaggeration as the man who earlier talks about a worldwide search to locate the perfect woman now backpedals and declares that such a woman does not exist in the real world.
Why did he write such a negative poem? Was he like Shakespeare tired of Petrachan conceits with the mistress glorified in clichés? Or because he was a young man with his fellow poets he enjoyed talking about women in this manner? Or was it because he felt ready to sacrifice all he had for a fair and true woman and was this an expression of his as yet unsuccessful venture in finding his true love?
This is a song and was set to music.This is an address and the tone is light and even comic. However the content is misogynistic.More typical of poems in the earlier phases of his life. ‘Get with child’ means to make pregnant. The mandrake is a poisonous plant which has a significance with poets and writers as the lower part of the plant resembles a human being! Sometimes it even looks to have hands and a head! Line means to try and get a mandrake root pregnant instead of a human being. Devil reference – devil can disguise himself in any shape or form but he cannot disguise his cloven feet.‘Teach me to hear mermaids singing’: they tempt people to go up to them but if they were lured by their singing, they would drown. Legends of sailors sailing their boats into rocks at the lure of their song, and consequently many dies. Only Odysseus managed to survive this fate as a witch called Serse warned him of their danger. Odysseus ordered his crew to place wax in their ears so they could not hear anything. He asked them to tie him to the head mast and not to untie him. He was able to listen to the mermaids’ songs and nothing happened to him or his crew.In classical literature they were sirens but later mermaids.‘to keep off envy’s stinging’ – envy is jealously; stinging means annoying or upsetting someone.‘wind’ is pronounced ‘wynde’ as historically this is the correct pronunciation of the word. It rhymes with ‘mind.’ ‘teach me ‘ - teach me how to improve an honest person in his social life. People who never lie or cheat cannot improve in life like dishonest men.
Imperatives – ‘go, catch , find and teach’ – they ask us to do impossible tasks and why?
2nd stanza, first two lines are open to debate. If you are born a psychic and who can read minds, if you have extra sensory perception, then you and only you should ride 10000 nights to the four corners of the world until you are old.‘till age snow white hairs on thee’: until you get old and die.When you return you will speak about the wonders of the world, but one thing you will never locate is a beautiful woman who is also faithful to her husband.
So, first stanza is an introduction and prepares the way for the above point. You may well be able to do impossible things such as catch a meteor, such a woman will escape you.
3rd stanza line 3: ‘pilgrimage’ refers to the notion of finding such a woman being a holy event and it is worth visiting such a holy place. ‘yet do not, I would not go, though at next door we might meet’: even though the woman may live next door to me, Donne says that he would refuse to confront her – speaker changes his mind!
When you met her for the first time she was honest and true, but this would only last until you wrote to invite yourself to see her. Donne saying that he is sure she would betray a couple of lovers before he gets there! An exaggeration as the man who earlier talks about a worldwide search to locate the perfect woman now backpedals and declares that such a woman does not exist in the real world.
Why did he write such a negative poem? Was he like Shakespeare tired of Petrachan conceits with the mistress glorified in clichés? Or because he was a young man with his fellow poets he enjoyed talking about women in this manner? Or was it because he felt ready to sacrifice all he had for a fair and true woman and was this an expression of his as yet unsuccessful venture in finding his true love?