Some poets are available for Mormon appropriation and some are only to be envied and enjoyed. John Donne is only to be envied and enjoyed. Of course, envy and appropriation should not exhaust our responses, but it seems to me that if you are thinking as a Mormon about the poets, rather than simply being a Mormon who happens to be thinking about them, envy or appropriation are not bad places to start.<\/p>\n
I don’t read very much poetry, but Milton and Blake have always struck me as particularly amenable to Mormon appropriation. Paradise Lost<\/i> is a temple text of sorts, and following a familiar pattern Satan gets all of the best lines. As for Blake, he has a gnostic — or at any rate an esoteric — streak that makes me want to reach for the King Follet Discourse and perhaps some of Brigham’s Adam-God sermons. It is easy to baptize these writers, although not necessarily to render their work “safe” or placidly “Mormon.” Rather, they touch on themes and stories with close enough partners in Mormonism that it is easy to bounce off of them and traverse Mormon space at new angles.<\/p>\n
Donne, however, is another matter. The heady combination of sex and metaphysics that he serves up seems just a trifle too foreign to the sexual puritanism and anti-ontological theology of Mormonism to use him as a launching pad for Mormon discussions. The spirit that wrote The Flea<\/a> is perhaps too playful and frank in his seduction for Mormon appropriation. One is left simply to enjoy the play of the originality of the images and words. As for his theology, while Donne’s marriage of the imagery of libertinism and salvation<\/a> is wonderful and vaguely scandalous, his metaphysics is too Nicene and too embedded in his poetry to make him a truly useful starting point for Mormon adventures. Consider his Annunciation<\/i>:<\/p>\n Salvation to all that will is nigh, Donne’s delight in the paradox of the condescension and incarnation of the tri-une God of the creeds is too palpable and his commitment to the his ontological deity too profound to use this piece as a launching pad for a John Taylor-esque attack on the “fried froth” of philosophy or some other Mormon trope. It is too fully itself and different than us to be appropriated cleanly or perhaps even productively. Donne’s God holds souls in his timeless mind and fills immensities. He dwells far from any world nie unto Kolob, and ought not to be kidnapped and carried there. It is best, I think, to simply let him enjoy his atemporal perfection and simplicity and delight in the words of his servant John.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some poets are available for Mormon appropriation and some are only to be envied and enjoyed. John Donne is only to be envied and enjoyed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThat All, which always is All every where,
\nWhich cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,
\nLoe, faithfull Virgin, yeelds himselfe to lye
\nIn prison, in thy wombe; and though he there
\nCan take no sinne, nor thou give, yet he’will weare
\nTaken from thence, flesh, which deaths force may trie.
\nEre by spheares time was created, thou
\nWast in his minde, who is thy Sonne, and Borther,
\nWhom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now
\nThy Makers maker, and they Fathers mother,
\nThou’hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,
\nImmensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n