Love's Alchemy

In “Love’s Alchemy,” John Donne sets up an analogy between the Platonists, who try, endlessly, to discover spiritual love, and the alchemists, who in Donne’s time, tried to extract gold from baser metals. This analogy allows Donne to express his beliefs that such spiritual love does not exist and those who are searching for it are only wasting their time. Donne cleverly uses language that both allows the reader to see the connections …showed first 75 words of 949 total…

…showed last 75 words of 949 total…sweet and witty woman is possessed, as in marriage, she proves to be the opposite. In this poem, John Donne expresses his utter belief that pure spiritual love does not exist. And those who claim to be in search of it are all fraudulent in their claims because all they really want is physical pleasure. And as is common in his literature, he also manages to include his idea that women are thoughtless, sex objects.