The poem consists of two stanzas, each fourteen lines long. He portrays love as a tender, gullible skiff that runs the risk of becoming burdened by the weight of superficial conventions of society. He uses nautical imagery of a light boat traversing the waters, faltering at times. In this poem, the ballast represents societal conventions of beauty and attire. In the second half of the poem, the pinnace is over-fraught by a ballast that has proven to be too strong for the light boat.īallast: Ballast is a device by which a vehicle is stabilized. Pinnace is metaphorical of love in this poem. Pinnace: Pinnace is a light boat that is usually conjoined with a ship for emergencies. Love, which is an emotion, is seen to become his beloved, to whom he addresses the poem. Love: Love is not only portrayed as itself it also acts as a metaphor for the speaker’s beloved. It is a well-known notion that angels represent the various elements, but the angels representing air are the purest and rank the highest in the angel hierarchy. The angels depicted are angels of the air. Air and Angels: Poetic DevicesĪngels: Angels are used as metaphors for purity. Thus, it is immortal.Īlso, comparing his beloved’s face to angels is another gesture towards the spiritual realm. The soul is then an omniscient being before taking a physical form. Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do.”
It is a salutation to the immortality of the soul.ĭonne says, “But since my soul, whose child love is, It might be hidden under the veil of subtlety, but there is, nonetheless, a distinct hint to the possibility of recognizing sex as a natural counterpart to love.Īnother distinct theme.
He leaves it to us to work out the meaning between the lines.ĭonne allows a quick tip of the hat to one of the most natural acts of the world. He knows that human nature is individual, and every person has a unique perspective. It is uncertain which love is assigned to which gender because Donne understands human nature. And when united completely the picture, it balances the society. One gender represents the physical, the other, the spiritual. And his comment about the disparity between man’s love and woman’s does just that. To merge these two kinds is to reconcile to halves of a whole. One side of love is absurdly obsessed with superficial beauty, while the other concentrates on platonic and spiritual ideals. What Donne means by these lines can be understood once we understand how he portrays the duality of love. ‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be” also hearken the duality of love.”
“ Just such disparity /As is ‘twixt air and angels’ purity,
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