Critical Analysis of "the Indifferent" by John Donne

Critical Analysis of "The Indifferent" by John Donne

"The Indifferent" by John Donne is a relatively simple love poem in

comparison to his other, more complicated works. In this poem, "he

presents a lover who regards constancy as a 'vice' and promiscuity as the

path of virtue and good sense" (Hunt 3). Because of Donne's Christian

background, this poem was obviously meant to be a comical look at values

that were opposite the ones held by Christians. According to Clay Hunt,

"['The Indifferent'] is probably quite an early poem because of the

simplicity and obviousness of its literary methods, its untroubled gaiety,

and its pose of libertinism, which all suggest that Donne wrote [the poem]

when he was a young man about town in Elizabethan London" (1-2). The poem

"mocks the Petrarchan doctrine of eternal faithfulness, putting in its

place the anti-morality which argues that constancy is a 'heresy' and that

'Love's sweetest part' is 'variety'" (Cruttwell 153). The first two

stanzas of the poem seem to be the speaker talking to an audience of people,

w hile the last one looks back and refers to the first two stanzas as a

"song." The audience to which this poem was intended is very important

because it can drastically change the meaning of the poem, and has

therefore been debated among the critics. While most critics believe that

the audience changes from men, to women, then to a single woman, or

something along those lines, Gregory Machacek believes that the audience

remains throughout the poem as "two women who have discovered that they are

both lovers of the speaker and have confronted him concerning his

infidelity" (1). His strongest argument is that when the speaker says, "I

can love her, and her, and you and you," he first points out two random

nearby women for "her, and her", then at the two that he is talking to for

"you and you."

The first stanza begins rather simply. Donne starts every line

with either "I can love" or "Her who." According to Hunt, the tone of the

first stanza goes from "weary and patient entreaty" to "a climax of

irritation at the end" (4) in the lines "I can love her, and her, and you

and you / I can love any, so she be not true." The first eight lines

simply list opposite character types, but the last two lines go to "her,

and her, and you and you", then to any, "just before Donne springs the

shock statement in the last line" (Hunt 5). Donne uses the concept of true

versus false to stand for constancy and promiscuity. This is first

introduced in the last line of the first stanza, and continues throughout

the entire poem. The speaker desires a solely sexual relationship with his

women, and he believes that such a relationship cannot exist if they are

truthful to one another. According to Eleanor McNees, "Donne realizes that

erotic license is irreconcilable with norms of truth and troth" (207).

Over the first stanza, the speed of the rhythm also increases with the

importance. "There is a rhythmic progression from the even, steady

movement and moderate stresses of the opening lines to the slower pace, the

stronger stresses, and sharply defined metrical pattern of 'her, and her,

and you and you,' and finally the very heavy accents on 'any' and 'true' in

line 9" (Hunt 5).

In the second stanza, the speaker continues upon the theme of

faithfulness being a "vice," and sexual promiscuity being a virtue. "The

sexual tone which was suggested in the first stanza in the anti-romantic

details of 'spongy eyes' and 'dry cork' is intensified by the connotations

of the words 'know' and 'rob me'; and the sexual pun on the word 'travail'

in the following line" (Hunt 5). The speaker is trying to convince the

women that he is talking to that promiscuity is a good thing and that

neither he, nor the women should be faithful to their mate. This is

evident in the lines:

Will no other vice content you? . . .

Or doth a fear that men are true, torment you?

Oh we are not, be not you so,

Let me, and do you, twenty know. . . .

Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?