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I have to do a project on a comparison piece to Meditation 17 by John Donne.... the work has to convey the genreal idea of Meditation 17 and/or the literary devices used in this work. The complementary work can be by John Donne or another offer. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Well if you want some contrast to show off in your project, just look up one of Donne's earlyer poems about love and sex and what not.
Baisicly the first part of the meditation with the "for whom the bell tolls" bit is pretty self explanetory. But as you go on he starts talking about the curch as a whole, which leads into his collectivism thing, eventually going onto the whole "no man is an island" thing.
A good thing to compare it to is one of his early poems because his ideals were radically diffrent but his devices stay pretty much the same.
Just think about rugby (if you have ever played any). It is the affair of a group, where each member gives his share of the game, and it is the cohesion of the whole that makes the game (or loses it, if the manager is more intent upon becoming a minister in the Government than winning the championship...). Which is not that the individual counts not!
The Italian writer Italo Calvino imagines Marco Polo detailing to Kublai Khan the various cities he's visited, and at one point stops to detail a bridge, stone by stone.
After a while, the Khan asks 'But, which is the stone which holds the bridge?' Polo answers, 'the bridge is not held by this or that stone, but by the arch which together they form.'
--Then talk to me of the arch, not of the stones!
-- Yes, but without the stones there's no arch...
Primitive societies know only the group, which must submit to the chief's will. Extreme individualism, like in our modern societies, leaves the individual disarmed against the violence of the mighty.
Truly modern societies are groups based upon solidarity. Just as a Rugby team.