The Apparition

... The Apparition The apparition is a seventeen-line poem by John Donne; this makes it a poem and not a sonnet, which consists of fourteen lines. The poem is a rather simple and straight forward witty poem that I interpret to be about a man who has clearly been wronged or pushed aside by a woman for the love of another man, or if not for the love of another man she will later or has replaced him with another man. The first line "when by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead, and thou that thinkst thee free from all solicitation from me," I understand this to mean that when she wishes he was dead and says bad things about him it almost kills him as though she has murdered him, and when he dies or goes away she will feel free from them their relationship and any interference from him.

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