“This Bed Thy Center Is, These Walls, Thy Spheare:” Metaphysical Unification in the Love Poetry of John Donne

This paper argues that metaphysical unity (a transcendental moment of being complete, free from contradiction and anxiety) is ultimately the locus of John Donne’s work and that by perceiving it as does bring direction and purpose to the object of his poetry, which is not offered by a lot of the existing body of criticism because it lacks orientation. Centrally Achsah Guibbory’s seminal essay “John Donne” will be employed not only as an example of this criticism but in order to outline the central themes, contradictions and anxieties that define Donne’s poetry. Moreover, In order to accomplish this, I focus upon those poems that best exemplify metaphysical unity, primarily “The good-morrow,” “The Extasie” and “The Sunne Rising;” and furthermore, in the case of the latter of these poems, I argue that the final line of verse: “This bed thy center is, these wall, thy spheare,” is the demonstration of Donne’s metaphysical unity in its purist form.