Study Questions on Donne's "Satire 3"

1.  What is the object of satire in this poem?  That is, what is the cause cause of the speaker's anger, scorn, and melancholy?  What is upsetting him?  What does he wish to accomplish through his "railing"?
2.  Who is the "we" of line 10?  The "Thee" of line 14 forward?
3.  In lines 15-32 criticize one kind of courage, calling the one who embraces it a "desperate coward," in order to urge a different kind of courage, which is the courage to "fear this" (15), i.e. to fear the scenario described in lines 11-15.  How do the two kinds of courage contrast?
4.  In lines 33-42, the speaker enumerates the three traditional enemies of God: the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.  (The baptismal rites of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England involve the new Christian's vow to reject these three.  How do these lines relate to the preceding discussion of courage?
5.  In line 5, the speaker refers to "our mistress, fair Religion."  ("Mistress" here means "lady love," in the chivalric or poetic sense, not "kept woman").  Consider the metaphor of religion-as-mistress in relation to the idea (stressed in the Epistles of St. Paul) that the Church is the Bride of Christ.  Consider also the metaphor's relation to the idea (stressed in Protestant polemical writings of the period) that the Roman Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon described in the Book of Revelation.
3.  In lines 43-69, the speaker expands on the idea of religion as mistress by characterizing men of various philosophies and various religious denominations as lovers devoted to different types of mistress.  What sort of religion does Mirreus practice?  Crantz?  Graius?  Phrygius?  Gracchus?
4.  Note that at lines 68-69, Donne makes a very dramatic enjambment, breaking the line in the middle of a word!  Why use such a striking distortion of form at this particular point in the poem?
5.  In lines 79-85, the speaker develops a metaphor in which the search for Truth is a laborious journey up a high hill.  How does this metaphor relate to the preceding section of the poem in which the speaker urges the addressee to "Seek true religion" only to ask himself "O, where?"?  How is "true religion" related to "Truth" in the poem?
6.  The last part of the poem addresses the problem of people's resigning responsibility for their own spiritual and religious choice by relying on political and religious authorities.  Explain the stream metaphor in this section.
7.  To what extent is this a religious poem?  A  political one?  How are the religious and the political intertwined in the speaker's world?  What is his attitude toward the relation between the two?
 

Questions on other works assigned:
1.  Is Jonson right about satire?  That is, is he correct in evaluating the narrowness of the audience that can take true pleasure in it?
2.  Both Donne's "Courtier's Library" and Jonson's, "On Something..." are satires on courtiers, the gentlemen and ladies who relied upon the favor of royalty and high nobility for their own wealth and well-being, and whose existence was wholly absorbed by the fashions and follies of court life.  What kinds of faults in courtiers does each work target?  What methods does each use for the attack?