why?

Those blest flowers that dwell
At the rough stream's calm head, thrive and do well,
But having left their roots, and themselves given
To the stream's tyrannous rage, alas, are driven
Through mills, and rocks, and woods, and at last, almost
Consum'd in going, in the sea are lost.

 

"Satire III" from John Donne   is a critique  to religion, no matter wich one, where   he asks  himself  which one is the true religion? which    do we need  to follow? what  do we do in te era where the religions are fighting? and  in my case, I discovered  under all those  words, what sometimes I feel about  religion,  because even thought that at  home they are catholics,  I sometimes  feel that  this  is not ok,  church   had been lost from a long time and  if we  look for the story of   religion, it  has been  the main cause for many conflicts.

 

 In the poem, the  main  idea is "which one is the true religion?"  because  in the era when he lived,   there were many conflicts  between the diferent religions and  he  wonders which one is the true religion and  encourage  you to  look for the true religion. Almost at the end of the poem,  he stops criticizing the  church  and  he  starts  to talk  about religion like fashion, like something that had been lost since  long time ago  and he says that   even thought that it  is something that everyone can look at,  nobody looks for it , because  we feel  it  unnecesarly  because  we follow the rules,  but we do not follow the real rules, God's rules. 

In this poem we can notice that John Donne  was confused  because of all the changes lived  in the  most important thing for him  and    he questions each of the  personalities that created those religions,  so they show him  whichone is the true religion, but at the end he gives up and understands that   no matter  what do they do him,  the  rules, the religion   an everything is ruled  by God, and he will  be  the  guy that will  judge  everyone  under the same conditions,  his rules, not  others. 

 

In my opinion, I think that "satire III" really open your eyer and  make you wonder  which  is the truth, why do I follow somebody  else that  could have the same questions  that I have ? and  I could  not expect  less from  someone that had lived many  problems between the  religions,  and   if someone   nowadays  say something like this could  be considered  atheist, but the truth  is that    he or she doesn's know what  to  do, which  ideology to follow because  all of them  include anything that he or she wants, but he or she  just want to look for the truth. In my case, I can conseder myself as  that percent  of people that asks  why? to the  higher leaders because   you  want the truth not anything else. 

John Donne, a polisemic poet

As a fist thought, when I first  heard about John Donne I thought that  he was  a   man  like Shakespeare, who  wrote about love stories, tragedies, cience and religion, because he  belied  in    this kind of ideas, but   when  I first rea one of  his poems,  my idea  of the  topics  really changed.

In the first poem that  we read,  named "The Flea",  that is about  how  to  convince a  girl  to  have sex    with you. As a  reader, you never  read   this phrase  but with  the use of literary devices like  wit  that  is also helped with  the mood , theme  and  irony  as a  main device . In this case,  he   wrote  about a flea,  that could be represented as a the thing that   keept them  in love and  this  is the argument that the man used   so that   she  has  sex with him; nowadays.This  idea could  be  similar to  the idea  of  fire that represents love,  but the main difference could be  that    the flea is somethig moreover than just  fire, the flea can die baus someones decides  it and it would be  fast, and  to estinguish all the fire,  you need a lot of things. Well that was my point of  view when I first read it, but  when we talked about it in class,  all these ideas were wrong, because the  objective and  theme is  to  have  sex with the  girl.

On the other hand,   in "Holy Sonnet VI"  he wrote about   how  death is  something that  it is  consirdered   the worst thing of the world,  in this poem  with a  little touch of existencialism ,  says that   death is  something that is overrated because  some people "call it" and  others order it. It is also compared  the the idea of going to sleep, but  going to sleep is more pleasant . In this poem,  we can  see that Donne was  someone that was  not   scare, nor  interested  in death  because it was something that   just  happens  and   that people   put  it in the  position of  the worst thing; that's why  many people  fear it.

 

 As I've read  poems  of John Donne, I  can't imagine someone that   has written something simmilar, because   he is a  very polisemic   guy that  can really talk about anything  and    that with the literary figures,   he could really  manke you change your ideas,  something that    other poets  have never done  with me.

 

In conclusion,  I think that  John Donne is a great poet, and  some of his poems  are very  interesting, because  you do not get the idea at first sight, but you need to read  it several times to  understand it,   but  he is not someone that I would  read, because many of the times,   he  talks about  sex and  women   with wit, and I do not  really  understand  that  kind  of  games, neither  in Spanish nor English, so  it is kind of difficult to understand  those poems.