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Body and Soul, a la Shmoop. Way back in the seventeenth century, when

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John Donne<<Done>> was writing poems about love, people were fascinated by the soul.

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No, no, not that kind of soul… that hadn't been invented yet. We’re talking about the

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concept of the human soul.

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Everyone agreed that people had souls, kind of like how everyone today agrees that Nutella

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is all kinds of awesome.

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The only question was, where was the soul located? Was it part of the body? Was it the

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same thing as the mind? How did it all work together?

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Okay, that's four questions. You got us. As expressed in his poem “The Ecstasy”,

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Donne thought that the soul and the body were distinct from each other, yet still connected

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in important ways.

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For one thing, Donne thought the soul was able to separate from the body and chat up

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other souls it found interesting. Yeah, not creepy at all.

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Donne also believed the soul could be purely philosophical about love without getting…

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touchy-feely. But let's take a look at how souls and bodies

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interacted on a day-to-day basis… you know, while out grocery shopping or doing the laundry

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or stuck in traffic.

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According to Donne, the secret to how a soul lived inside its body was… blood, because

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sure, why not?

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While this theory sounds completely cray-cray to modern ears, things were different back

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in Donne's day. In the seventeenth century, scientists believed

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that blood produced “spirits”, kind of like spiritual red blood cells, that were

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half-soul and half-body.

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These “spirits” set up communication between the soul and its body, allowing the body to

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bring the soul both the 411 about the outside world via the senses...

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...as well as to help the body feel emotional and spiritual urges.

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Donne thought this was all just absolutely fabulous, and he wrote “The Ecstasy” as

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a kind of celebration of everything the body and soul can do together.

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And what was the coolest body-and-soul experience? Well… love, of course.

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See, the body would walk the soul around, allowing it to meet up with potential love

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interests.

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Then, the soul would take over, filling the body with feelings of joy and companionship.

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Remember those lovers on the bank in “The Ecstasy”? Kind of like that.

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The poem's take-home message is that, while the body and the soul have distinct roles…

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…they work together in the service of love, with the same goal.

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Ultimately, then, there's not a big difference in what the body and the soul are doing, and

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spiritual love equates with physical love.

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Or, as Donne puts it in the final lines, “He shall see/ Small change, when we are to bodies

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gone.”

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And there you have it. Donne and dusted.

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