Generic Challenges: English Epithalamic Tradition and Its Deconstruction (The Case of John Donne)

Jadvyga Krūminienė

doi:10.15388/respectus.2017.32.37.01

Abstract

The paper is an attempt at the analysis of generic flexibility as reflected in the minor literary genre of epithalamium, or wedding song. The problem is approached from the reader response and mythopoetic perspective by focusing on John Donne’s Metaphysical instrumentarium employed in the experimental testing of the conventional boundaries. Although, on the one hand, Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamion very successfully follows the Sapphic-Catullan conventions and is regarded as the best creative achievement in English literature, J. Donne’s three epithalamions, in their turn, demonstrate the Baroque virtuosity of transformation. The poet daringly experiments with the responses of both the epithalamic and Metaphysically oriented audience inviting the readers into a challenging rhetorical game. Although he borrows the motifs from classical and Christian nuptial tradition, due to his poetic style marked by the structural and verbal ingenuity, the epithalamic relationships get reordered. The perspective of generic deconstruction with regard to Metaphysical conceited imagery invoked to dramatise the matrimonial marriage as seen in J. Donne’s epithalamions is discussed for the first time in Lithuanian literary criticism.

Highlights

Jadvyga KrūminienėGENERIC CHALLENGES: ENGLISH EPITHALAMIC TRADITION AND ITS DECONSTRUCTION (THE CASE OF JOHN DONNE)
In Lithuanian literary criticism, the nuptial poetic genre as the object of analysis has been researched mainly in relation to Casimirus Sarbiewski and his Latin epithalamia (Šarkauskienė 2003)
Donne’s An Epithalamion, or Marriage Song on the Lady Elizabeth and Count Palatine being Married on St Valentine’s Day (1613), which is generally considered as his third and most successful generic endeavour and the latter would eagerly delve into the poet’s daring experimentations while testing the limits of the epithalamic genre reflected in his Epithalamion Made at Lincoln’s Inn and Epithalamion at the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset (1614), his first and second attempts respectively

Summary

Jadvyga Krūminienė

GENERIC CHALLENGES: ENGLISH EPITHALAMIC TRADITION AND ITS DECONSTRUCTION (THE CASE OF JOHN DONNE). The problem is approached from the reader response and mythopoetic perspective by focusing on John Donne’s Metaphysical instrumentarium employed in the experimental testing of the conventional boundaries. The poet daringly experiments with the responses of both the epithalamic and Metaphysically oriented audience inviting the readers into a challenging rhetorical game. He borrows the motifs from classical and Christian nuptial tradition, due to his poetic style marked by the structural and verbal ingenuity, the epithalamic relationships get reordered. The perspective of generic deconstruction with regard to Metaphysical conceited imagery invoked to dramatise the matrimonial marriage as seen in J.

Introduction

The potential of the cartographical conceit in the epithalamic genre

Conclusions