Donne's Poetry

John Donne has a very unique writing style in a sense that he went from writing poems about love, sex, and women to writing very serious religious poems and speeches. He speaks highly of the soul and loving someone not for their beauty but for their mind. This was something different than most of the poets we have read. Normally they are going on and on about the physical attributes of women but Donne, talks about them in a metaphorical sense which allowed him to put in subtle sexual undertones to his first set of poetry. 

Donne goes from these very distinct love poems to very serious religious poems in which he compares himself to god. I feel like most of these poems were written after his wife died and that he became very serious after this. Maybe he blames himself for his wife's death considering she died during childbirth and he is trying to repent his sins with god within his poems. 

I really like the analogies that he used in Meditation 17. He showed that life isn't all about one person, but that each person is part of a whole and when something happens to that one person everyone is affected. He compares this by saying things like, "no man is an island, every man is a piece of the continent." Its like saying there is no "I" in "Team" and you have to work together in an effort to get what you want.