Conflict and Contact: From John Donne’s “Dialogue of One” to T. S. Eliot’s Monologue

Abstract

This paper aims to read Donne’s certain love poems in conjunction with Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. Eliot believes English poetry composed in the 17th century resonates with that of the 20th century. Therefore, this article explores the similarities and differences between the metaphysical poetry and the modernist poetry. This discussion is predicated upon the notion of wholeness in Donne and the idea of fragmentation in Eliot. The exploration of the themes of completion and disintegration initially focuses on the concept of ecstasy, analyses how the boundary between the self and the other dissolves and how the conventional dichotomy between the body and the spirit is challenged. This article also deals with the notion of irony in terms of fragmentation and compares the use of irony in Eliot’s poem with the employment of metaphysical conceits based on binary oppositions in Donne’s poems. This study further concentrates on both poets with regards to the sensuousness of language. It finally contrasts the unified sensibility of the seventeenth-century poet with the dissociated sensibility of the twentieth-century poet. This paper concludes Donne’s “dialogue of one” rests upon conflict and contact whereas Eliot’s monologue does not lead to contact.