The Broken Heart

I finally received some fruit snacks today in class! The glorious, sugary snack has eluded my grasp on numerous occasions in the past, but no more! I ended my fruit snack drought today. Oh what a glorious feeling!

Besides my triumph today, we looked at another poem. Instead of reading poems inspired by Robert Morrison’s gruesome, yet admirable act of protest, we looked at a poem by John Donne. The specific poem we looked at was titled The Broken Heart and described his angry, depressing and cynical view of love and what love does to a person. I almost felt like I was reading a play by Shakespeare because several of the lines in The Broken Heart were very confusing to figure out. Despite the difficulty of lines in Donne’s poem, we (the class) were able to figure out the meaning by discussing it aloud. I came to actually like The Broken Heart once we dissected the meaning.

Donne has a very pessimistic view about love. If Donne had to say something positive about love, I doubt he could come up with something; it is that sorrowful. Although the poem projects a sad theme and tone, it is beautiful. It directly insults the flowers and sunshine that love is made out to be and describes the dark underbelly of love. Donne explores how destructive love can be and quick it can strike. With the quote, “Who would not laugh at me, if I should say I saw a flash of powder burn a day?” Donne compares gunpowder to love gone wrong. Gunpowder explodes instantly and can be destructive and deadly. Donne parallels this to the ferocity and speed in which love can take down its foe, which is a very powerful and accurate statement in my opinion.

Moreover, Brooke made an exquisite connection in class when she compared the line, “All other griefs allow a part to other griefs, and ask themselves but some; they come to us, but us love draws;” to the way humans almost seek out the grief that can be love. Other grieves, such as mental and physical grieves usually come to us naturally through our own actions and actions of others. We often do not need to seek these grieves… they find us. Brooke said that love, however, is different: we seek out the grief of love. It is the pain and torture that love can morph into that attracts us. Why there is that need to seek the pain of love is the million-dollar question. I was so happy when Brooke shared this insight because that specific part of the poem made no sense to me. Once she drew the line, I was able to understand the poem more as a whole as well as the introspective question that specific part poses.