John

Although contextually different, John Donne and Margaret Edson both explore similar ideas and values in their work. Through his poems, Donne explores the idea of relationships, and the human need and effect of them. We see this in poems such as The Sunne Rising. Donne, as the protagonist, has personal experiences of love and this is evident as he writes about them. However, personal relationships are conspicuous in their absence from Vivian Bearing’s life. Wit deals with more human interaction and compassion then with relationships, however, Vivian’s longing for care and affection is evident. The exploration of death and mortality can be seen in both texts. For Vivian, death becomes a reality rather than a subject that she studies. The play becomes an exploration of methods of dealing with the end of life. In Donne’s poems, Death, be not Proud, This is my Playes last scene, If Poisonous Minerals and Hymne to God, My God, in my sicknesse, Donne also writes from the perspective of one who is at the end of their life. Different social values give Donne and Vivian a different perspective on the circumstance. Edson’s own interpretation of the play is that the protagonist is seeking to be redeemed as a person through their experiences of dying. This is mutual in John Donne’s poems as he begs for purity and forgiveness from God as he is dying.
The Sunne Rising is a love poem in which Donne arrives at a position as a lover and causes him to be egotistic. It is power and self-value through an interpersonal relationship. The poem plays the microcosm of the lover’s world off against the macrocosm of the workaday world, signified by the rising of the sun. At the end of the poem, Donne welcomes the sun but it is on the basis of patronising it and glorifying himself and his lover: “To warm the world, that’s done in warming us”. Contrastingly, Vivian does not have a personal relationship with anyone. She has no relatives for Dr. Kelekian to call and when Susie asks “You’re not...