The Parody of Holy Communion in John Donne’s TWICKENHAM GARDEN

Abstract

Regarding John Donne’s use of parody in his poem “Twickenham Garden,”1 James Baumlin and Jesse Sharpe mention his mock Eucharist (Baumlin 174, and Sharpe 234). Baumlin describes Donne’s embodiment of “the language and liturgical practices” of “the Roman Mass” as “a communion in bitterness and sorrow” (174). Sharpe expands on Baumlin’s brief comment by claiming that “the sacrament of Communion is found to be a curse when used by Donne” (234). Sharpe concludes that “the poet is able to both destroy paradise and pervert its salvation” (234), and so “he is an anti-Christ” (234). However, I contend that Donne does not take such a bleak view of the sacrament. His witty inversion of Holy Communion is far more nuanced than these commentators suggest, since it reflects the speaker’s paradoxical perceptions of selfhood, suffering, love, and truth. I argue that Donne’s mock Eucharist identifies the speaker as a true sufferer and pilgrim seeking the path to salvation. “Twickenham Garden” commences with the speaker’s visit to that garden, but his introspective reaction to the physical surroundings transfigures it into an internal battlefield of mental and spiritual turmoil. In “You Have Refined Me,” a verse epistle to the Countess of Bedford composed in the same period as “Twickenham Garden” (ca. 1608-10), Donne describes visiting the garden as a “pilgrimage” (l. 43). The destination of the journey is the country home of Donne’s patroness, Lady Bedford, who “leased Twickenham Park in succession to Francis Bacon from 1607 to 1618” (Robbins 253). Donne adapts the concept of “pilgrimage” to a metaphorical voyage into the speaker’s inner world where he anticipates securing peace and freedom from the great anguish of unrequited love. As Claire Eager mentions, the garden within the park “is not merely a pleasant place, but a vision of ‘Paradise’ itself ” (532). The speaker comes to the garden of “true Paradise” (l. 9) where he desires “to seek spring/ And at mine eyes, and at mine ears,/Receive such balms, as else cure https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2022.2031845