John Donne

A Fever

O ! DO not die, for I shall hate

Misogyny as threat

Emotional blackmail disguised as compliment—if you die, I'll hate all women because none will match you. Classic Donne move: love argument built on spite.

{{gap|1em}}All women so, when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate,
{{gap|1em}}When I remember thou wast one.
But yet thou canst not die, I know;
{{gap|1em}}To leave this world behind, is death;
But when thou from this world wilt go,
{{gap|1em}}The whole world vapours with thy breath.
Or if, when thou, the world's soul, go'st,

World's soul

**Anima mundi**—the Neoplatonic concept that a soul animates the cosmos. He's claiming her breath literally keeps the universe alive.

{{gap|1em}}It stay, 'tis but thy carcase then;
The fairest woman, but thy ghost,
{{gap|1em}}But corrupt worms, the worthiest men.

Apocalypse debate

Medieval scholars argued whether the world would end by fire or flood. He's saying philosophers missed the obvious: her fever could be the apocalyptic fire.

O wrangling schools, that search what fire
{{gap|1em}}Shall burn this world, had none the wit
Unto this knowledge to aspire,
{{gap|1em}}That this her feaver might be it?
And yet she cannot waste by this,
{{gap|1em}}Nor long bear this torturing wrong,
For more corruption needful is,
{{gap|1em}}To fuel such a fever long.
These burning fits but meteors be,

Meteors vs. firmament

Aristotelian cosmology: meteors are temporary atmospheric phenomena, but the firmament (celestial sphere) is eternal and unchanging. Her beauty is the latter.

{{gap|1em}}Whose matter in thee is soon spent;
Thy beauty, and all parts, which are thee,
{{gap|1em}}Are unchangeable firmament.

Final turn

After 24 lines of cosmic hyperbole, he admits the fever is just his own obsession—it's in his mind, not the universe. Then doubles down anyway.

Yet 'twas of my mind, seizing thee,
{{gap|1em}}Though it in thee cannot perséver;
For I had rather owner be
{{gap|1em}}Of thee one hour, than all else ever.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Argument Structure

Donne writes like a lawyer making increasingly absurd claims. He starts with emotional blackmail (stanza 1), escalates to cosmic necessity (stanzas 2-3), brings in academic authorities (stanza 4), applies scientific reasoning (stanzas 5-6), then admits he made it all up—but insists he's right anyway (stanza 7).

The poem's logic is deliberately broken. Stanza 2 claims she can't die because her breath is the world's atmosphere—pure nonsense presented as syllogism. Stanza 4 mocks "wrangling schools" of philosophy while using their exact methods. He's showing off his education (Neoplatonism, Aristotelian physics, eschatology) to win an argument he knows is ridiculous.

"Yet 'twas of my mind" (line 27) is the confession: this whole cosmic drama is just his fever dream. But instead of backing down, he claims one hour with her beats eternal ownership of everything else. The poem's structure mirrors obsessive thinking—grand claims, circular logic, awareness of absurdity, doubling down anyway.

What "Fever" Means

The title's ambiguous: is she sick, or is he? The poem never clarifies. "This her feaver" (line 16) suggests she's ill, but "'twas of my mind, seizing thee" (line 27) suggests the fever is his obsession projecting onto her.

Seventeenth-century fever theory matters here. Fevers were thought to consume the body's moisture, burning it up. "She cannot waste by this" (line 17) and "more corruption needful is" (line 19) reference medical theory: her fever lacks enough corrupted matter to sustain itself, so it can't kill her. He's using Galenic medicine as flirtation.

The meteors vs. firmament distinction (stanza 6) extends the fever metaphor. Meteors were thought to be vapors that caught fire in the atmosphere—brief, destructive, temporary. The firmament was quintessence, the perfect fifth element that couldn't change or decay. Her fever is meteoric (will burn out), but her beauty is quintessential (eternal). He's mixing cosmology with medical diagnosis to make a pickup line.