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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).......

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Approximate Word Count: 1242
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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