A stylistic study of euphemism in John Donne’s selected poems

Abstract EN

John Donne is known as the founder of Metaphysical poetry .He chose poetry as a medium of expressing emotions, ideas, and transmitting attitudes which require skillful and powerful use of language.

Donne‟s language is known for its richness with figures of speech that actually enables him to refer and discuss matters which otherwise are not published due to strict social censorship.

Such libelous issues are (religious fanaticism, political theories, sexuality, death etc.) which with euphemism the poet can freely tackle.

The present study investigates the linguistic act of euphemism in John Donne‟s three selected poems (The Flea, Death Be Not Proud, and The Good – Morrow) stylistically to see the types and the pragmatic strategies used for showing the act in his poems.

The study basically aims at analyzing the types of euphemisms used in the poems.

It also aims at investigating the strategies used for expressing the euphemistic expressions in the poems.

The study hypothesizes that (1) metaphor is the main pragmatic strategy used for showing euphemisms in Donne‟s poetry, (2) Sexual and Death euphemisms are given more attention than political and religious euphemisms in Donne‟s three selected poems, and (3)the interpretation of euphemisms in the three poems is contextually determined.

The present study verifies the hypotheses and yields that: (1) metaphor is the only strategy used by the poet for showing euphemistic expressions of „sex‟ and „death‟ in the three poems.(2) The poet has only limited his usages of euphemisms to the sexual and death ones in his three poems.(3) The interpretation of the euphemistic expressions used in the three poems greatly relies on the context.