Analysis of Passages

Abstract

Donne’s best-known lyrics have been much analysed. His Verse Letters are less known and a passage from one of them has therefore been chosen for examination here. Between 1608 and her death in 1627 Donne wrote at least eight Verse Letters to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, patroness and friend to many of the best poets of the day. Most of these belong to the years 1609–14. The first five stanzas of ‘To the Countess of Bedford at New Year’s Tide’ show many of the characteristics of Donne’s writing. They combine the intimate and formal, as befits a poet addressing his patron:

• 1 This twilight of two yeares, not past nor next, Some embleme is of mee, or I of this, Who Meteor-like, of stuffe and forme perplext, Whose what, and where, in disputation is,

• 5 If I should call mee any thing, should misse.