The presentation of love in John Donne's poetry and 'The Great Gatsby'

Donne’s presentation of love in ‘The Sun Rising’ is demonstrated through the use of his metaphysical conceit. The conceit focuses on  the sun and how it interrupts his love for his lady.  Donne treats the sun as a person, but also as an unwelcome intruder. ‘ Unruly sun, why dost thou  thus [..] call on us? ‘ expresses his frustration  that there time together could be over. Donne believes love to be more powerful and important than the sun.  ‘I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink’, here Donne illustrates how love is above all. He highlights the effects that love can have over you, he suggests that he is stronger and more powerful than the sun due to his love. There is a shift from use of language from ‘I’ and ‘She’ to the use of the word ‘us’ which highlights how love unites two people together. This is a very traditional view of love and its effects.


In ‘The Anniversary’ Donne accentuates how love is timeless. Donne discusses a shift in time and everything growing older and breaking away, however he does not believe his love to not ‘decay’. Donne uses hyperbolic language to highlight his love being eternal. ‘Running but never runs away’ suggests that  their love is always increasing. It is moving and isn’t static, however it will never leave.  Again Donne suggests the idea that love is strong enough to surpass nature.  It is a natural occurrence for things to decay over time, however Donne believes his love to ‘keep his fist, last, everlasting day.’
Donne then continues with this theme of love’s power over nature by suggesting that not even death can keep them apart. ‘When bodies to their graves,  souls from their graves remove.’ Donne shows his undying passion for his love, and how their bodies may be cold and not functioning, there may be separated physically, however their souls will live on to love one another. His final message of the poem is that love can elevate you . It provides you with power to ‘reign’ over each other like ‘kings’.


In ‘The Great Gatsby’ love is something which in comparison to Donne’s poetry is demoralized. Although the book is written from one perspective, the ideas of love and marriage are evident. The whole book is based around Gatsby and his love for Daisy, which he believes to be true. However love is arguably flawed in the novel. Affairs are frequent in the story and almost normalized. Donne would argue that this is not how love should be. There is a large contrast between the presentation of love in Donne’s poetry and Fitzgerald’s presentation of love, traditional vs. modern. During the time the novel was written there was a very care free attitude within society, this may have lead to the dysfunction of the traditional idea of love. Some may disagree that Gatsby was in love with Daisy, it could have been more of a fascination or obsession with the idea of her. Love is highly replaced with lust in Gatsby which demonstrates Fitzgerald’s harsh views on love and the reality behind it.


Love in Donne’s poetry is endless. He writes intimately allowing the reader to view how he feels, and the power which comes from falling in true love. However Fitzgerald may argue with Donne’s unrealistic perception of love. ‘The Great Gatsby’ shows how love can be wonderful yet destructive, and that not every love is timeless.

Hasna Maliq