Comment 9 of 9, added on February 24th, 2007 at 10:06 PM.

I don't really agree with some of your ideas about Twicknam Garden. I think the persona has come to the garden to seek solace, calm (represented by Spring) and be healed by the sights and sounds and beauty of the garden. This, however, cannot be, as he betrayed himself by thinking of his love, whom he can never be with. Immediately, everything that once was good is bad, sweet is bitter, etc.
He is referring to this love as a spider, poisonous, and spreads its web into every aspect. He is caught in the web of love, and cannot get out. He also compares love to a serpent. He has brought "the Serpent", the thought of his love, into what "may be thoroughly thought True Paradise" and thus destroyed it in his mind. He is saying that his love is decieving, lying, in that she let him fall in love with her, even though she would never have him. In the seven sins, Envy is also represented by a serpent. Can anybody tell me how this might fit into the poem?



Sharon

Comment 7 of 9, added on April 26th, 2006 at 3:16 PM.

here is an essay on twicknam garden.

How does the poets choice of language structure and form express the speakers’ emotion?


Twicknam Garden written to be taken sarcastically, as it may have been written to Lady Lucy who was a good friend of John Donne. It was supposedly to be a light hearted and flirtatious joke for her and her husband to take pleasure in it.

John Donne writes about a love he has for this woman and uses many metaphors in it. He speaks about her garden, religion, love and concluded his poem with his opinion of women.

Through out the poem the authors tone seems to change. The first stanza is a little flattery and he blames himself for falling in love with her, the second he brings religion into it, the his tone has completely changed and his appear to be biter that she is so faithful to her husband and turns the blames on her.

Donne opens the poem with hyperbole, he exaggerates in saying “Blasted with sighs, and surrounded with tears” He is crying so much about the fact that his lover his married and he can not have her. He refers to nature through out the poem and first mentions “spring” which is associated with new life and in this case can be seen as a new relationship. This may be a new relationship between him and Lucy or a new relationship altogether with a new woman, but it is more likely to be Lady Lucy since he is in love with her. In this first stanza he expresses the love which he feels for Lady Lucy and calls himself a traitor, he is betraying himself as he will not have the love returned by her. Although just being able to see her seems to be enough at this stage, “at mine eyes, and at mine eares”. His love that he has for her is wrong as she is already a married woman so he calls it “spider love”, was said to turn ‘all into excrement and poison’. Also it was believed to germinate without sexual intercourse, so this could mean that he is sexually frustrated at this entanglement of love. The love he has for her is poisonous and after this referral to spider love, a slight alteration in the poets tone seems appear in this metaphysical poem. He wants the “spider love” as it is twisted, to turn her love for her husband to himself so he’ll get that love from her he wants. This shows us that he is selfish in his thinking but it is not meant to be taken literally.

Religion is the next factor which appears as it would normally feature in Donne’s poetry. He mentions “manna” what the Israelites had in the wilderness after being freed from slavery under pharaoh. God provided manna for the people, “can convert Manna to gall” so using the “spider love” this would have been possible.

Another referral Donne makes to religion is in the last line of the first stanza, “true paradise, I have the serpent brought” The serpent is a symbol for temptation and paradise to him would be, his lover returning his affection. A serpent was used in tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden, as garden that was pure paradise. The serpent that tempted eve brought death and destruction on the world through his evil temptation. So a serpent can tempt his lover into loving him in her own garden, Twicknam.

The second stanza nature arises again and a season, winter. In the first it was spring where new life is born and a garden starts to reshape after winter. Here the winter will destroy the garden but the speaker thinks it will be better for him as his feeling for her will die so he won’t be tormented anymore and wanting a married woman to break her marriage vows which she made before God. “ ‘Twere wholesomer for mee, that winter did benight the glory of this place”. The frost of the winter, he hopes will kill all affection he feels for this married woman. “These trees to laugh and mocke mee to my face” It appears to be that the garden is mocking him for what he feels and how he cannot have what he wants. He cannot bear what they are doing but he won’t leave as then he wouldn’t be near his lover. The speaker doesn’t wan to move form it as “Make me a mandrake, so I may grow here” a mandrake is a plant that, it is believed, once a person lifts it out of the earth they will die by its’ poison, this coincides with the spider love poison he mentions in the second stanza. He wants to find peace within the garden and always be near Lucy. Or he would want to be a fountain. In being a fountain he wouldn’t possibly be able to be removed from her garden, as he would be strong “stone” and constantly flowing with water which could symbolise his love for her always flowing.

However once the reader reaches the third and final stanza it becomes a conceit. The speaker begins to criticise woman by exclaiming that if a woman cries and her tears do not taste like his own tears that they cannot be genuine. “…try your mistresse tears at home,” “…that not just like mine” Due to his frustration he goes on to say that you can’t judge a woman thought by here tears “…you more judge womans thoughts by tears” He is warning other men about woman giving the impression that you cannot trust the as a sex.

The last three lines of Twicknam Garden are a paradox, as it is contradictory. “..perverse sexe, where one is true but shee, Who’s therefore true, because her truth kills mee” the speaker calls woman an odd unnatural sex and that no part of them is true but only then who is true and she is true as her own truth is what is killing him. He cannot face the fact that she is being faithful to her husband and not falling in to temptation and loving him, so he has no chance, her commitment is too strong. . He is gradually in the poem becoming angry at the situation a blames her.

The emotion he is felling towards her is more than expected and possibly beyond physical man it seems to be more unworldly love, maybe a love of a god.

The speakers’ inconsistent emotion I reflected in the line layout. All stanzas are indented .The imagery of him being a plant in the garden so ever to be removed, links in with the structure also. In the first and last stanzas some of the lines are particularly long, exaggerates his tears that eh is shredding. However the structure builds up the emotion throughout the poem and is started as he has brought a seductive love, then at the end she ends in killing him metaphorically through her faithfulness to her husband.



Marianne from United Kingdom