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Lv 5
? asked in Arts & HumanitiesPoetry · 7 years ago

What is "Community" by John Donne about? I don't understand it (poem in details).?

GOOD we must love, and must hate ill,

For ill is ill, and good good still;

But there are 1 things indifferent,

Which we may neither hate, nor love,

But one, and then another prove, 5

As we shall find our fancy bent.

If then at first wise Nature had

Made women either good or bad,

Then some we might hate, and some choose;

But since she did them so create, 10

That we may neither love, nor hate,

Only this rests, all all 2 may use.

If they were good, it would be seen;

Good is as visible as green,

And to all eyes itself betrays, 15

If they were bad, they could not last;

Bad doth itself and others waste;

So they deserve nor blame, nor praise.

But they are ours as fruits are ours;

He that but tastes, he that devours, 20

And he that leaves all, doth as well;

Changed loves are but changed sorts of meat;

And when he hath the kernel eat,

Who doth not fling away the shell?

2 Answers

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  • Mel
    Lv 7
    7 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Unlike some things that are clearly and entirely either good or bad (ill), women are a mixture of both; so, like fruits, men "use" (take) the good parts (kernel) and "fling away" the bad parts ("shell"). In the last stanza, changing loves (women) is compared to changing foods ("meat"), and men that merely taste or sample, devour or abstain from a particular food, all do about equally well.

    This is not a "flattering" perspective of the way men view and relate to women.

    If you are studying Donne, you know that he is one of the so-called metaphysical poets known for using elaborate conceits (comparisons) of the kind in this poem between women and foods. Modern feminists would NOT be amused! I am chuckling to myself on how they might "retaliate" by analyzing men in equally unflattering comparisons such as being predictable, programmed robots that women can manipulate.

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    John Donne Poem Analysis

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