The Typology of Woman in Donne's <i>Anniversaries</i>

(critical discussion of Donne's Anniversaries is particularly unresolved. Critical opinion is polarized between the view that the poems make no coherent sense and scholarly and historical defences ofthe poems's structure and general meaning.' But these defences, however illuminating, have not brought out convincingly the firm biblical pattern ofthe poems.^ Donne's symbolic allusions are more specific and controlled than readers have acknowledged. Donne's symbolism, like the poems themselves, develops; it moves in a significant and controlled direction. The symbolism, indeed, helps to define the movement of the poems.^ The main organizing principles are the three steps of formal meditation and biblical typology."* Donne's use of typology is crucial, as some readers have argued, but it has been misunderstood. Donne's characteristic emphasis, which has led to so much confusion, is upon incompleteness, expectancy, and process. Professor Lewalski in the most comprehensive study of typology in the poems asserts that Donne celebrates the restored image of God in the heroine of his poem; but Donne never implies that God's image has been restored in any living person.^ For Donne the divine image is only in process of being restored in the virtuous. His characteristic emphasis is upon