John Donne Poetry -FALLING-

As a student I like to incorporate my other subjects within  my work. As photography is a very research based subject it allows me to include research from my other topics and subjects and look in depth at them further. In my English we are currently studying John Donne a poet from the 17th Century. His work, although is brilliant in itself, does not relate much to my current project directly. I really like reading his work and through reading more I have discovered how the ideas behind his work can relate to my work. The topic of FALLING is something that although can be literally falling I have looked at in very metaphorical ways. The ideas I have had may not directly link with the word falling but will have some metaphorical work.
Poetry is "literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature"

Specifically "John Donne, was an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets". His work is loved by many including myself and through his work he explore much larger ideas such as love, life, body and soul and relationships. I like the link I have made through looking at how life is larger than we think.

A theory from my English teacher and an idea that I myself share is that of the goldfish. Keeping a gold fish as a pet helped me clear my ideas. The goldfish has an awareness of the outside of the tank but only as far as the room he is placed in. The fish does not know that he is on a street in a town in a country e.c.t. This is an idea that I feel humans have as there is no limit. Although we may think we know the more about the world, we may not and there is no limit on the depth of knowledge the word can give us and therefore it is always growing. 

I want to create some images based on this idea and this poet and look at fish themselves. I do own fish and have always felt this way. The fish are unaware and could represent us in their small world of a fish tank similarly to us and our world. 

Although the poem is long in length, it opens up ideas you may not have had before and explore metaphysics in a different way. 

The Ecstasy
BY JOHN DONNE

Where, like a pillow on a bed 

         A pregnant bank swell'd up to rest 

The violet's reclining head, 

         Sat we two, one another's best. 

Our hands were firmly cemented 

         With a fast balm, which thence did spring; 

Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread 

         Our eyes upon one double string; 

So to'intergraft our hands, as yet 

         Was all the means to make us one, 

And pictures in our eyes to get 

         Was all our propagation. 

As 'twixt two equal armies fate 

         Suspends uncertain victory, 

Our souls (which to advance their state 

         Were gone out) hung 'twixt her and me. 

And whilst our souls negotiate there, 

         We like sepulchral statues lay; 

All day, the same our postures were, 

         And we said nothing, all the day. 

If any, so by love refin'd 

         That he soul's language understood, 

And by good love were grown all mind, 

         Within convenient distance stood, 

He (though he knew not which soul spake, 

         Because both meant, both spake the same) 

Might thence a new concoction take 

         And part far purer than he came. 

This ecstasy doth unperplex, 

         We said, and tell us what we love; 

We see by this it was not sex, 

         We see we saw not what did move; 

But as all several souls contain 

         Mixture of things, they know not what, 

Love these mix'd souls doth mix again 

         And makes both one, each this and that. 

A single violet transplant, 

         The strength, the colour, and the size, 

(All which before was poor and scant) 

         Redoubles still, and multiplies. 

When love with one another so 

         Interinanimates two souls, 

That abler soul, which thence doth flow, 

         Defects of loneliness controls. 

We then, who are this new soul, know 

         Of what we are compos'd and made, 

For th' atomies of which we grow 

         Are souls, whom no change can invade. 

But oh alas, so long, so far, 

   Our bodies why do we forbear? 

They'are ours, though they'are not we; we are 

         The intelligences, they the spheres. 

We owe them thanks, because they thus 

         Did us, to us, at first convey, 

Yielded their senses' force to us, 

         Nor are dross to us, but allay. 

On man heaven's influence works not so, 

         But that it first imprints the air; 

So soul into the soul may flow, 

            Though it to body first repair. 

As our blood labors to beget 

         Spirits, as like souls as it can, 

Because such fingers need to knit 

         That subtle knot which makes us man, 

So must pure lovers' souls descend 

         T' affections, and to faculties, 

Which sense may reach and apprehend, 

         Else a great prince in prison lies. 

To'our bodies turn we then, that so 

         Weak men on love reveal'd may look; 

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, 

         But yet the body is his book. 

And if some lover, such as we, 

         Have heard this dialogue of one, 

Let him still mark us, he shall see 

         Small change, when we'are to bodies gone.