Critical Appreciation of Geo and Catch a Falling Star by John Donne

Songs

At its most basic, a song is a short piece of music, usually with words. It combines melody and vocals, although some composers have written instrumental pieces, or musical works without words, that mimic the quality of a singing voice. The words of a song are called lyrics. Lyrics can include a series of verses, the longer sections of the song that tell the story, and a refrain, a short phrase repeated at the end of every verse. Songs can have a simple structure of one or two verses, or a more complex one with multiple verses and refrains. Songs usually have a meter or beat. Whether you sing or speak the lyrics, you can feel a pattern or pulse in the way the words move the song forward.

1.     Goe and Catch a Falling Star

2.     When I am dead, my dearest

Goe and Catch a Falling Star

John Donne’s work is divided into two main categories; love poems and divine poems. In love poems, Donne talks about women and their nature but he does not glorify their beauty. We merely find appreciation of beauty in poems of John Donne. Many former poets used to exaggerate women’s attractiveness. It is not the case with John Donne. In this regard, he is different from other writers.

Style of “Goe and Catch a Falling Star”:

       The poet has used colloquial style in the poem. Verse-pattern is neither conventional nor definable. Style of the poem changes with mood of the poet; it is, thus, dependent on emotions. There is a strange kind of music in it. Style analysis of “Go and Catch a Falling Star” reveals simplicity of the poem but it simultaneously is not conservative.

The narrator is directly addressing the reader.

Tones

Sometimes the tone is magical: ‘Go and catch a falling star’.

Sometimes the tone is harsh and cruel: ‘Get with child a mandrake root’

Sometimes the tone is self-pitying: ‘envy's stinging’.

Sometimes the tone is petulant [bitchy]: ‘I would not go, though at next door we might meet.’

Sometimes the tone is commanding or bossy: ‘Go …Get…Tell…Teach’.

Sometimes the tone is hopeful and caring: ‘If thou find'st one, let me know,

Finally the tone is sour: ‘Yet she will be false, ere I come, to two, or three.’

Imagery

v Donne uses many comparisons. He compares an honest female woman to something impossible and magical like ‘a falling star’. He compares finding such a woman to hearing ‘mermaids singing’ or to solving impossible mysteries like knowing the past or explaining the cause of the devil’s hoof.

v Note how Donne uses contrast, especially between ‘a woman true, and fair’ and a woman who ‘Will be false, ere I come, to two, or three.’

v Donne’s images are very vivid and dramatic:

          ‘Ride ten thousand days and nights,

           Till age snow white hairs on thee’.

v Donne uses exaggeration:

           ‘Go and catch a falling star’;

Sound effects

ü Alliteration

          [the repetition of first letters]:The repeated ‘b and 's’ sounds in ‘If thou be'st born to strange sights’.

ü Assonanc [repetition of vowels]: The ‘a' sounds in ‘Go and catch a falling star’.

ü Rhyming:

There is a regular pattern.[The first and third lines rhyme, the second and fourth lines rhyme, the fifth and sixth lines rhyme as acouplet and the last three lines rhyme at the end of each stanza]:The end sounds in the first stanza are as follows:‘ar’, ‘oot’, ‘are’, ‘oot’, ‘ing’, ‘ing’, ‘ind’, ‘ind’, ‘ind’.There is clearly a regular pattern.

The Meaning:

         In the first stanza of this dramatic monologue or love poem, the speaker addresses an unknown listener. He challenges the listener (auditor) to do impossible things: catch a falling star or teach him to hear mermaids singing. The speaker changes the meter to signify the change from the challenge to find these impossible things to a challenge to find something seemingly more possible: an "honest mind." His wish is to find an honest mind to avoid envious thoughts.

In the second stanza, it becomes clear that the speaker has felt envy because he has been rejected by a woman, or because he has a cynical attitude about women in general. He tells his listener that no matter what you've seen and where you've travelled, you have never seen a woman who is beautiful (fair) and loyal (true).

In the last stanza, the speaker asks his listener to inform him if he ever finds such a woman. But the speaker retreats to his cynical outlook that even if his listener is ever to meet a loyal and beautiful woman, by the time his listener sends him word of this discovery, the woman will have betrayed to at least two or three men.

Conclusion:

Donne is not a romantic poet. Even while praising beauty, his attitude remains unromantic. Analysis of “Go and Catch a Falling Star” reveals that the poet has a false belief for women; therefore, he jibes every beautiful woman on earth. He is not talking about any single woman but about every beautiful woman of the world. He is not against beauty but against disloyalty. Undoubtedly, the Poem is a masterpiece. The poet goes at the peak while describing impossibility of a work but suddenly comes down and says it may be possible; the only task, which is impossible in the eyes of poet, is to find a loyal and beautiful woman.

Theme:

The song is actually on feminine inconstancy. Its theme is the lack of fidelity of women. According to the poet, no woman, who is both true and fair, can be traced anywhere. This is well struck in the last two lines of the second stanza: “No where ,Lives a woman, true and fair.” However, this is not all. The poet even claims that constancy(faithfulness, loyalty) in women is not only rare, but also short-lasting. Even if a woman be found true and fair, she will change and prove false in no time – “Yet she, Will be, False, ere I come, to two or three.”