AVIAN SYMBOLISM IN DONNE’S EROTOLOGY: THE PHOENIX
Keywords:
erotology, subject, object, avian, phoenixAbstract
Within a methodological framework which couples close reading with the considerations of the relevant historical and biographical background, the paper attempts to disinter and analyze erotological meanings of the bird motif in the poetry of John Donne. The analysis shows that the few “erotologically relevant” birds of Donne’s poems 1) symbolically represent and elaborate on the (in some aspects) modern sounding, rough and chauvinistic eros that implies a relationship between a man as the active subject and a female as the passive object, and 2) symbolically represent and elaborate on eros as a neoplatonic union and / or idolatrous love which overlaps with the religious. These heterogeneous symbolic implications of Donne’s avians are then shown to be yoked in the phoenix motif: the phoenix emblem blends the rough libertinism / chauvinism with the concept of neoplatonic, idolatrous love which blurs the difference between erotic and religious. The inevitable (in this case a bit obscene) wit safeguards the latter symbolic meanings of Donne’s phoenix from falling into the trap of mawkish sentimentality.
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