What Is Meant By John Donne's Ingenuous Comparisons?

Donne's wit is seen in his ingenuous comparisons, analogies and agreements, which he uses to make a point. In such cases it is not what Donne has to say but the novelty and freshness of his way of saying it, not the content but the manner, which startles and delights.

Donne's analogies are apt and full-blooded. In love's war, Donne compares the qualities of a good lover and a good soldier, as for instance, capacity to keep awake for nights together, the courage to face an enemy (rival) boldly, to besiege and take by storm, to elude watchman and sentries. Donne's analogies are compressed syllogisms.

The poet compares the two lovers to the phoenix and to both the eagle and the dove. The lovers will be resurrected after death like Pheonix. Joan Bennet observes "They evoke severe sense memories of a literary heritage. If they evoke memories, they are of large draughts of intellectual drink, imbedded from science rather than poetry". Donne is in the habit of elaborating a figure to the furthest stage to which ingenuity can carry it.
Throughout his poetry, Donne is constantly discovering similarities at the most unlikely places, himself perceiving such occult resemblance, and making his readers to perceive them to their great surprise and amusement, as well as using such comparisons to prove his point

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