I can perhaps help you with Donne. Donne, in some ways,
is particularly suited for public performance.
First of
all, many lines of his poetry are conversational or informal in style. For instance,
the speaker begins "The Canonization" with "For God's sake, hold your tongue, and let me
love!" This poem is a beautiful glorification of the love between and man and woman,
yet it begins with such bluster and anger. "The Sun Rising" begins in much the same
way, "Busy old fool, unruly sun." Even his religious poems such as "Death, be not proud"
or Holy Sonnet 10, use such informalities.
Further, the
tone of the poems changes dramatically in many of his poems, making them especially
suitable for performing. "The Canonization" and "The Sun Rising" begin with irritation
and end with serenity. "The Fever" begins with a disconsolate speaker and ends with
acceptance of a loved one's death. Holy Sonnet 10 begins with defiance and ends with
triumph.
But most importantly is the dramatic situation
that many of Donne's poems employ. "The Flea," a seduction poem, concerns the speaker's
argument to a woman. In this poem, the speaker's intended audience is the woman: "Mark
but this flea." But the woman has a role in the poem as well. She responds to the
speaker's words, and the speaker fashions his argument according to her responses. As
she starts to kill the flea, the speaker pleads, "Oh stay, three lives in one flea
spare." When she kills the flea, the speaker responds with "Cruel and sudden, hast thou
since/Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence." You can find this type of dramatic
situation, to a lesser extent, in "The Good-Morrow" and "Break of Day." Even "The Sun
Rising" contains a specific setting (the bedroom), a specific audience (the sun), and
events to which the speaker responds, (morning
breaking.)
Hopefully I have given you a few ideas for your
talk.
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