To His Mistress Going to Bed

Quiz: To His Mistress Going to Bed — John Donne

1. Recall – Form & Genre: To what genre or collection does To His Mistress Going to Bed belong, and which classical Latin poet's work directly inspired it?

1. Recall – Historical Context: Why was To His Mistress Going to Bed excluded from the first published edition of Donne's collected works in 1633?

1. Recall – Key Image: What geographical symbol does Donne use to compare his lover's body to, and what does this symbol suggest about how he views intimacy?

1. Recall – Key Image: What are Donne's "Atalanta's balls," and what role do they play in the poem's argument about undressing?

1. Comprehension – Religious Imagery: Donne compares his lover to an angel appearing in white robes but then immediately undercuts this with a theological joke. What is the joke, and what effect does it create?

1. Comprehension – Symbolism: According to the analysis, what does the act of removing clothing symbolise beyond the purely physical in the poem?

1. Comprehension – The "Mystic Book" Symbol: How does Donne use the image of a beautifully covered book to argue in favour of nakedness, and what does it suggest about the relationship between outward appearance and inner truth?

1. Analysis – Tone: How would you describe the speaker's tone throughout the poem, and how does the final couplet — in which he removes his own clothes — shift or complicate that tone?

1. Analysis – Religion and Eroticism: Donne repeatedly blends sacred and erotic imagery (e.g., the bed as a holy temple, the lover as an angel). What does this fusion suggest about his attitude toward physical desire?

1. Analysis – The Soul/Body Parallel: In the third section of the poem, Donne draws an analogy between the soul shedding the body and the body shedding clothes. Explain this philosophical argument in your own words and evaluate how persuasive or logical it is as a rhetorical strategy.

Answer Key

1. It belongs to Donne's Elegies, a collection inspired by Ovid's Amores, which featured openly erotic themes about undressing a mistress.

1. It was considered too sexually explicit for publication at the time and was only fully published in a later edition.

1. He compares her body to America — a newly discovered continent. This frames intimacy as an act of adventure and discovery, presenting her as vast, rich, and full of promise, though the comparison also carries colonial undertones that modern readers may find problematic.

1. In Greek myth, Atalanta was a swift runner distracted by golden apples dropped in her path. In the poem, jewels and ornaments serve the same function — they distract the eye from the true prize beneath, which is the lover's body itself.

1. The joke is that evil spirits also appear dressed in white, making it impossible to distinguish the holy from the unholy by appearance alone. This wittily undercuts the reverent comparison while maintaining a playful tone, subtly arguing that outward appearances (i.e., clothing) are unreliable guides to what lies beneath.

1. Removing clothing symbolises the shedding of social performance and the false public self, revealing the authentic, "real" person beneath — it is as much a spiritual and psychological uncovering as a physical one.

1. A beautifully decorated book cover draws admiration, but the real content — the text — is what truly matters and is accessible only to the right reader. Similarly, a woman's jewels and fine dress attract attention, but her nakedness represents her true self, shared only with those she chooses to honour with access.

1. The tone is consistently confident, witty, and playful. The final couplet introduces a moment of vulnerability and self-deprecating humour — by undressing himself as a demonstration, the speaker reveals genuine enchantment and exposes his own desire, slightly softening the assertive, argument-driven voice of the rest of the poem.

1. The fusion suggests that Donne views physical desire not as base or shameful but as something elevated and even holy. By placing erotic experience within a sacred framework, he argues that love and the body deserve the same reverence as religious devotion.

1. Just as the soul must leave the physical body to achieve pure spiritual joy in religious philosophy, the body must be freed from clothing to experience complete physical pleasure. It is a rhetorically clever strategy because it borrows the authority of serious theological thinking to justify a playful erotic argument — elevating the speaker's request and flattering the listener by making undressing seem like a profound, even spiritual, act.