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Air and Angels
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,

Love at first sight – as
one might sense an angel

Before I knew thy face or name;
Can appear by elements (fire)
or as a voice

So in a voice, so soft and shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be
...

But since my soul, whose child love is,

Love is child of soul

Takes limbs of flesh, and else nothing could do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
Speaker wants physical
love – love must acquire a
body

And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,

Love just between
souls isn’t enough

And fix itself in thy lip, eye and brow
...

Inequality in male and
female love

Women – air
Men - angel

Face – believed angels
needed air to manifest

Symbolism of Angels:
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


Metaphysical poem – angel as a long, ongoing metaphor
A symbol of the divine-like status of lovers
Ptolemaic astronomy – angels governed the spheres that surrounded the
centre of the universe

Love as ‘angelic’:




Love as a pure emotion, linked to the soul
Love cannot be seen without the presence of a less pure medium, in the
same way angels need air to manifest
The speaker cannot fully grasp the idea of love, as a human can never fully
understand angels/ the divine

Sexist Interpretation – Man as angel:






Women’s love isn’t as pure (is the air) as men’s (which is the angel)
Physical love over spiritual – ‘The Flea’
Broken women’s sense of ethereal pure love
Male speaker – characteristic of Donne
Or is it the opposite of this - is he the less pure one?

Other Interpretations:




Love cannot exist unless both the man and the woman are mutually in love,
need both air and angels to be ‘real’ or seen
Without a woman to receive it, man’s love doesn’t exist (it is just an idea)
Love governs the speaker as angels govern the spheres

Imagery – Ship:




Ship represents woman’s body – love needs women
Too much weight/expectation so it’s capsized
Is the speaker using the wrong medium for love – physical body? It’s not her
body but her love itself

Structure:
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

Two fourteen-lined stanzas
Rhyming within each stanza follows the same pattern (ABBABACDCDDEEE)



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