ジョン・ダンの『危篤時の祈り』における肉体の病と魂の回復

type:Article

John Donne wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) after suff ering a grave illness in the winter of 1623. The work meditates on his physical sickness and its spiritual parallel in twenty-three stages from the first symptoms to recovery. Devotions has often been discussed in the context of traditional genres, such as private devotions, Ignatian meditations, Protestant sickbed manuals and spiritual autobiographies. Some critics have pointed out that Devotions represents the critical state of a particular individual not merely following generic conventions. Further, Donne's recovery from illness convinced him of the Resurrection of the body and soul at the Last Judgement. This essay analyses the relation between soul and body in Devotions. Although the soul is heavenly in nature, it can be sullied quickly in the earthly body with worldly sinfulness derived from the original sin. Despite his contempt for the human condition as bodily existence in this world, the sick body in Devotions has an essential role in Donne's struggle to find the grace of God in a sickbed. The sinful soul is never restored to health until the sick body proves the soul's sinfulness to the sick. Paradoxically enough, the sick body is the indispensable medium to contemplate God and to cure spiritual sickness. Donne's elaborate images of the body united with the soul will be examined here:"a Meteor" that "God suspends" and a couple that God has "married".