Polytropy

I was recently called on to recommend a poem. I chose “The Undertaking” of John Donne. I want to say here why.

• The poem (quoted below) has a sound that impressed me when first I read it, more than thirty years ago.

• The poem alludes to ideals:

  • of recognizing what is good for its own sake;

  • of climbing a rung or two on Diotima’s ladder or stairway of love, recounted by Socrates in Plato’s Symposium (211c):

    And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love (τὰ ἐρωτικά), is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps (οἳ ἐπαναβαθμοί) only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms (τὰ καλὰ σώματα), and from fair forms to fair practices (τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα), and from fair practices to fair notions (τὰ καλὰ μαθήματα), until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is (ὃ ἔστι καλόν).

• The sound of Donne’s poem may seduce one into thinking the ideals worthy.

Two books that were my mother’s