OK--I know I am behind in my blogging, but I am a full time college student now and I do have a little social life, too. So I have been real busy. This paper that I am posting here (I am doing some editing as I post it) was my most recent one for the English class this semester. I am looking for you to read it, then I will post what my prof had to say about it, OK?
John Donne lived and wrote four centuries ago. Even tho' he eventually matriculated to being the major church official in London, his early writing career is marked by sensual poems that contributed to the often used theme of "Carpe Diem": seize the day. Alanis Morissette is a singer and composer of the 21st century. Her songs range from pithy comments such as "Ironic" to an anthem such as "You Oughta Know." It is the latter song, "You Oughta Know" that I believe resonates with the young and rakish John Donne's "The Apparition." Both pieces, tho' separated by four centuries, capture extremely similar emotions and images.
Consider Donne's "The Apparition." The conceit of the poem is simple: the male lover in the poem has been abandoned for one lesser than he perceives himself to be. Since his female "lover" has left him, the voice in the poem plays with the notion that he has "died" after this abandonment and now that he is "dead" he can return, as a "ghost" (hence the title) and haunt his old lover. Alanis Morissette's song essentially sets up the same conceit: she, too, is abandoned by her male lover, and she is "haunting" her ex-lover's dinner time with his new lover. And the emotion that drives both Donne's personae and Morissette's is the same: rancor.
Look at how both works communicate the rancor both personae feel. Donne describes his ex-lover as a "feign'd vestal" when his "ghost" visits her. She is, in modern vernacular, a "fake virgin" who is already lying in bed with someone far lesser than he was. Morissette makes a similar assertion about the falsehoods visited upon her that spun out her rancor; the personae in the song exclaims: "Did you forget about me Mr. Duplicity?" Then, just as Donne asserts, her replacement is far lesser than she:
It was a slap in the face how quickly I was replaced
Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?
Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?
The taboo word used to characterize sex in these lines reinforces the rancor the singer feels as well her disgust of both her ex-lover and his new one.
The duplicity of the ex-lovers' behaviors is reinforced even more in both works. For example, Morissette's voice growls when she says:
And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, til you died
But you're still alive [emphasis added]
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, til you died
But you're still alive [emphasis added]
This irony is a reiteration of what Donne proclaims when he says that he longs to see his ex, "Bathed in a cold quicksilver sweat." The rancor is a little more subtle here, in contrast to Morissette's song, but it is just as biting. First, the "sweat" clearly references her vigorous, yet failed, attempt to roust her lover for more sex. But Donne used "quicksilver" as the modifier and he does for dual purpose. This dual purpose can only be teased how by understanding "quicksilver." In Donne's day, "quicksilver" was the term used for the element mercury. Thus, the silvery, shiny look of sweat covering his ex-lover as she lies quaking in the moonlight upon seeing his "ghost" makes perfect, visual sense. However, Donne's double dig comes when readers know that "quicksilver" was the "cure" in Donne's day for STD's such as syphilis. Thus he is able to pack a great deal of rancor and frustration and anger within the balance of one word!
Lastly, readers need to consider how the images reflect one another over a span of four centuries. Donne's personae speaks at the end of the poem about "my love is spent." Typical of Donne and his generation of poets, the double entendre suggests both his post-coital period as well as his love's "used up" now that he has had a chance to exact his revenge through the ghostly apparition. Morissette's angry woman suggests a similar image when she underscores that she has moved on to someone else and is not exhausting her emotional or sexual energies on her ex anymore:
And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back
I hope you feel it...well can you feel it!
I hope you feel it...well can you feel it!
And just one more example: Donne asserts at the end that he is not going to reveal all at this one haunting; that would make things far too easy for his "feign'd vestal." He is going to withhold all at this point to assure the maximum revenge. Morissette's lyric captures a similar vein when she hisses: "And I'm not gonna fade/As soon as you close your eyes." No, she is not going to fade like a ghost with the coming of the light, she and Donne both echo the same emotions and exploit the same core imagery to underscore the rancor their experiencing after being used by former lovers.
Note: Tho' I have included a hyperlink above, here is the attribution for an article on mercury as a standard cure in Donne's day for syphilis:
O'Shea, J.C. "'Two Minutes with Venus, Two Years with Mercury' -
Mercury as an Antisyphilitic Chemotherapeutic Agent." Journal for the Royal Society of Medicine. Vol 88 June 1990. Online. Accessed 21 November 2010.
Note: In case anyone doesn't know the song: here is Morissette's video of "You Oughta Know" (click the link to go to the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPcyTyilmYY
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