The Repression of Love and Its Resolution in Donne's "The Canonization"

Is there a resolution of the conflict presented in John Donne’s poem “The Canonization”? Well, I believe so.  To prove it, I will look at the religious and romantic aspects of the poem.  I will also look at the powerful symbols Donne uses to support his claim.  Then lastly, there is the riddle of the phoenix, which may prove the answer to this question.

First, religion is one of the main themes of this poem.  Hence, the title and the various symbols related to religion, such as God, saints, churches, and so on.  But what they have to do with the conflict that the poem presents, which is the repression of love, is simply that love is elevated to an almost religious stature.  In other words, the narrator and his love interest are “canonized for love” (Donne, 1593).  Here, Donne compares the ritual of love to the process of canonization, which is the making of saints, and proclaims that love is so sacred that it is even recognized religiously.

Not only is love recognized religiously, but romantically as well.  The main romantic image is the taper, or candle.  In the poem, Donne says, “We are tapers too, and at our own cost die” (Donne, 1593).  From this passage, we can distinguish two things.  First, the idea that love is like a candle, because the lovers’ lives are brief and they use themselves up to be together.  Second, the thought of dying is seen as experiencing an orgasm.  Originally a French concept, it claims that when you experience it, a little bit of yourself is lost every time.  This is why it is known as the little death.  What this has to do with love is that it’s so strong, that you almost feel like you’re dying.   

Apart from the various associations to religion and romance, there are other more powerful symbols that Donne uses to support his claim on the conflict at hand in the poem.  For example, he refers to sonnets as rooms.  A play on the word ‘stanza’, he turns a simple structure into a strong proclamation of love, hence the line “And if no piece of chronicle we prove,/We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;/As well a well wrought urn becomes/The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs” (Donne, 1593).  In this passage, Donne is saying that the metaphorical rooms and the urn’s ashes will represent love, and stand the test of time for all to see.

Then finally, there is the riddle of the phoenix, whose mysterious ability to reincarnate is somehow connected to love.  In the poem, the narrator compares him and his lover to the phoenix by saying that “The phoenix riddle hath more wit/By us; we two being one, are it” (Donne, 1593).  How this compares to love, however, is that like the phoenix, which is a symbol of perfection, love is also perfect, when considering the lovers as one person.

So in conclusion, the resolution of the poem’s conflict is that love is sacred in a religious and romantic sense.  It is saintly, and it is brief.  Love is also so powerful that it will stand the test of time in the form of poetry, or in the ashes from a metaphorical urn.  Then finally, love is a reincarnating idea that is forever perfect like the mysterious phoenix.  Therefore, love has no right to be repressed.