“The Ecstasy” by John Donne

PRIMARY SOURCE: "The Ecstasy" (1635)
Context

• Publication: Likely composed at the same time as the Satires in residence in London, ca. 1593-6, and circulated in manuscript. Up to this point in his life, Donne only struggled with his closeted Catholicism and choice of profession, not the financial, legal, and marital woes that would consume him later. "The Ecstasy" was published in Donne's Songs and Sonnets four years after his death in 1631, in 1635. EEBO link.
• Scholarship: Scholars read Donne as one of the foremost metaphysical poets, though not in communication with others due to his purported manuscript circulation. Scholars also read Donne as a Catholic at war with himself.
• Why I'm reading it: The Canon, metaphysical poetry.

Content

• Form: Alternating quatrains in iambic tetrameter.
• Genre: Love poetry, meditation.
• Conceit: The lovers in bed join souls, and perfect one another.
• Other notes: 
• This is Diadima's idea of love from the Symposium. 
• Famous quote:
  "When love with one another so
  Interanimates two souls,
  That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
  Defects of loneliness controls. "