Here is a selection of lines from Donne’s poetry. Given that he has the reputation of being one of the literary world’s great love poets, my question is, ‘does he express offensively sexist attitudes?'. Even if he isn’t ‘serious’, is this acceptable to our better-informed modern age? Should his work be banned from examination syllabuses?
“Hope not for mind in women ; at their best,
Sweetness and wit they are, but mummy, possess'd.”
from Loves Alchemy
Here Donne is saying that there is no point in expecting to find intelligence in women. The best you can hope for is “Sweetness and wit” but once you’ve ‘had them’ (I think that’s the expression), they are merely dead shells.
Now thou hast loved me one whole day,
To-morrow when thou leavest, what wilt thou say?
From Woman’s Constancy
The implication here is that woman can’t be faithful for more than a day.
I can love both fair and brown;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;
Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town;
Her who believes, and her who tries;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries.
I can love her, and her, and you, and you;
I can love any, so she be not true.
from The Indifferent
Here Donne lumps women into a series of simple categories according to things like hair colour and body shape. How demeaning!
The venom of all stepdames, gamesters' gall,
What tyrants and their subjects interwish,
What plants, mine, beasts, fowl, fish,
Can contribute, all ill, which all
Prophets or poets spake, and all which shall
Be annex'd in schedules unto this by me,
Fall on that man; For if it be a she
Nature beforehand hath out-cursèd me.
From The Curse
Now this is really nasty. He is saying that his curses, however vicious, cannot match the curse of being a woman.
When my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,
For graves have learn'd that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed—
from The Relic
Here he is saying that infidelity is a common female characteristic. How dare he make such negative generalisations!
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I'd rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.
from The Apparition
This is also rather nasty. The word ‘spent’ carries overtones of having had an orgasm. He is hoping the woman doesn’t repent because, having used her sexually, he would prefer to see her suffer than be contrite.
Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O, my America, my Newfoundland,
My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd,
Here, he is comparing women to countries and suggesting that women are ‘safest’ when ruled by just one man. He also sounds like a molester.
and
Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made
For laymen, are all women thus array'd.
Themselves are only mystic books, which we
—Whom their imputed grace will dignify—
Must see reveal'd.
from Elegy XX. To His Mistress Going To Bed
Here, he is comparing women to book covers! How sexist! He is also suggesting that ‘we’ need to see them naked. Does Johnny Donne not realise that there’s more to a woman than naked flesh?
If thou be'st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear,
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet,
Though she were true, when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three.
from Song (Go and catch a falling star)
These lines suggest that there is no such thing as an attractive faithful woman. I think he is also implying that faithful women are only faithful if they are ugly because then men won’t want them. He then changes it a bit to saying that even if you could find an attractive faithful woman, by the time you have told someone, she will have been unfaithful with two or three men.
Taken together, these comments seem like a damning indictment of women. Should such sexist propaganda be venerated as great Literature? Isn’t it merely legitimising hostility to women by including material like this on examination syllabuses?
Yours,
Outraged of Camden
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Originally Posted by Dark Lady
Sorry, I don’t like Browning, although My Last Duchess is worth reading and interesting from this perspective. 
This is the problem with ‘correct usage’ – you can’t win. ‘Syllabuses’ has been given official status as the acceptable plural and using ‘syllabi’ is now reckoned to be rather pedantic and pompous. As I say, either way you are damned – pedantic or incorrect. I used it here because the UK and international examination boards use ‘syllabuses’. 
