ABSTRACT
Thinking feelings prompts one to think of feelings in a process whereby the poet's sensate experience cannot be conveyed by discursive reasoning but can be transmitted aesthetically through his metaphorical practice. John Donne conveys feelings which lock the rational mind in a bewildering mode of thinking wherein no single exegesis can fully explain their properties and aesthetic import. Donne's metaphoresis is a powerful vehicle that brings mind and body together in an attempt to convey the inexpressible and prompt the reader to encounter what transcends the powers of discursive reasoning to grasp. The ontological dualism is reflected in various places in Donne's poetry, as in 'The Extasie', where soules descend /Taffections, and to faculties. Donne draws an analogy between matrimonial marriage and the marriage of soul and body, asking of God to reconstitute in him purity by spiritualizing his body, that is, by having fallen ontological dualism collapse into monism.
