"The Canonization" Summary and Critical Appreciation

"The Canonization" Summary and Critical Appreciation

Summary

The speaker asks his addressee to be quiet, and let him love. If the addressee cannot hold his tongue, the speaker tells him to criticize him for other shortcomings (other than his tendency to love); his palsy, his gout, his "five grey hairs," or his ruined fortune. He admonishes the addressee to look to his own mind and his own wealth and to think of his position and copy the other nobles (“Observe his Honour, or his Grace, /Or the King's real, or his stamped face/ Contemplate.”) The speaker does not care what the addressee says or does, as long as he lets him love.

The speaker asks rhetorically, "Who's injured by my love?". He says that his sighs have not drowned ships, his tears have not flooded land, his colds have not chilled spring, and the heat of his veins has not added to the list of those killed by the plague. Soldiers still find wars and lawyers still find litigious men, regardless of the emotions of the speaker and his lover.

The speaker tells his addressee to "Call us what you will," for it is love that makes them so. He says that the addressee can "Call her one, me another fly," and that they are also like candles ("tapers"), which burn by feeding upon their own selves ("and at our own cost die"). In each other, the lovers find the eagle and the dove, and together ('we two being one") they illuminate the riddle of the
phoenix, for they "die and rise the same," just as the phoenix does though unlike the phoenix, it is love that slays and resurrects them.

He says that they can die by love if they are not able to live by it, and if their legend is not fit "for tombs and hearse," it will be fit for poetry and -We'll build in sonnets pretty rooms." A well-wrought urn does as much justice to a dead man's ashes as does a gigantic tomb; and by the same token, the poems about the speaker and his lover will cause them to be "canonized," admitted to the sainthood of love. All those who hear their story will invoke the lovers, saying that countries, towns, an courts "beg from above/A pattern of your-lovel".

Critical Appreciation

Love has been an object of fun and hair-splitting with the metaphysical poets. Donne has also dealt with different moods of love and has played with its several fancies and visions. In this poem, however, he has taken a positive and serious view of love. It is a selfless and saintly affection as worthy of respect as worship.

Here, we find his great devotion to Anne Moore-his beloved-though the marriage
marred his career and brought him into disrepute. The main idea is that his love does not interfere with the lives of others and so why should they take exception to it. Donne's passion is physical and the lovers really believe in sexual indulgence. Their bodies become one and so do their souls, as in a religious mystery.

Donne treats physical love, as if, it were divine love. Saints are canonized for their renunciation of the world and its comforts. In the same way, the lovers have renounced the material world. The love of Donne for his beloved causes no damage or injury to the society or to the world. Other people continue to carry on their normal daily chores and duties. The lovers have lost the world but gained more in the world of each other. The lovers are, so to say, dead to the world.

They have, therefore, deserved the status of saints. They are the saints whose blessings other lovers will invoke. The lovers are devoted to each other as a saint is devoted to God. Some people may regard it as paradox of Christian Canonization, but there is no doubt that the tone of the poem is both serious and convincing.  

Donne begins his argument with a friend who dissuades him from love-making. He tells him to stop his nonsensical talk and allow him to love. Let his friend regard his love as a natural or hereditary disease. Let his friend mind his own business and look after his own career and fortune.

After all, the poet's love does not cause any harm or damage does not disturb, even flow of social life. His sighs and tears have caused no offence to anyone. People are busy with their own affairs. His
profession is love and so why should anyone take objection to it.

The poet deals with the secret of love. Love is an association or union of two people. Human isolation is awful; the lovers find mutual satisfaction in love. They are like flies and tapers which enjoy being
consumed to extinction. Like the Phoenix, the lovers are resurrected from their ashes. Both are consumed by the fire of passion and out of consummation emanates their resurrection. Physical love is elevated to the plane of spiritual love.

The poet and his beloved are prepared to die for love if they cannot live by love. The tale of their death will form the subject of love poets. Their love will be commemorated in lyrics and sonnets. They will attain the status of saints of love. People will copy their love and regard it as a model.

Lovers will worship the poet and his beloved as the martyrs to love. Lovers will invoke the blessings of these martyred saints. Love will bring them both peace and solace. Like them other lovers will devote themselves entirely to their respective beloveds. Each will find in his beloved the whole soul of the world. The lovers will pray to God to grant them the same kind of true love which the beloved enjoyed while living in the world.

Organic imagery is a strong point of the poem. The two lovers moving around each other like flies or again consuming themselves like tapers; or again the images of the eagle and the dove- the violent one preying on the weak, and ultimately the riddle of the Phoenix indicate the whole process of love from courtship to consummation of love. Though they are two, they are one, of the neutral sex like the Phoenix. As is reborn from its ashes, the lovers are reborn (revitalized) after sexual indulgence. In fact, Donne treats physical love like divine love.

“The canonization” which leads to the lovers being regarded as the martyred saints of love will make them a model of love. The rage of love will be transformed into peace. The lovers need no mention in history-books or any monuments or inscriptions. Donne's wit is seen in his mention of the King's face-the real one in the court, the fake one on coins.

The lovers eyes are the mirrors in which each sees the reflection or the image of the other. Each eye contains the whole world with its countries, towns and courts. In short, the poem shows the
Craftsmanship of Donne at his best.