Donne’s pre-Christian love poetry is captivatingly beautiful. It captures some of the intensity of love, the beauty and power of love. His sacred poetry, however, while being beautiful, passionate and stirring, seems to lack the fire of his love poems. His sacred poems are beautiful and true, but they lack the laughter, the true to life absurdity of the human heart and of human love. His sacred poetry is dignified. While we can relate to his sacred poetry in a deep way, it is dealing with something other than humanity. There is something a bit foreign about loving God, whereas loving other people is loving something like us. Human love is comfortingly familiar, and loving and being loved by God seems a bit disorienting.
This tendency to prefer human love over loving, and being loved by, God, is dangerous. It is placing a lesser, albeit more well known, good over the greatest good. Yes, human love is familiar, and comfortable, but God is God. While his love is less comfortingly familiar, it is perfect, the ultimate good.
Love poetry, and especially excellent love poetry, is potentially dangerous because it tempts us to idolatry. It shows us the most beautiful aspects of the human heart, and unless it points us back to God, it tempts us to make love our highest good.
Non-Christian love poetry in particular is dangerous because poetry has the power to shape our emotions. It is a dangerous weapon, and used for ill it is deadly because of its power to shape our emotions without our conscious consent. If it not subject to God, it has the potential to corrupt its readers by shaping their emotions into something bad.
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