Point of View

The poem is written in a rather distanced first person. The speaker, though present in the poem, does not figure heavily into the situations he describes. This perspective works well for the poem’s goal of making the reader feel the sense of despair that is so critical to the poem’s philosophy. The use of a first-person point-of-view gives the reader a central organizing principal – in this densely philosophical and abstract poem, having someone who is, as it were, talking to you makes it easier to understand the poem’s ideas. Conversely, the first-person point-of-view also frees Donne to move from idea to idea somewhat more freely, the way that a person would speak, rather than requiring the relatively rigorous organization that would go with more of a distanced, essay-like structure.

The poem is written primarily in present tense, which is appropriate because Donne...