'Mummy' in Donne's ＂Love's Alchemy＂

Abstract

The term "mummy," which figures in the crucial metaphor of Donne's "Love's Alchemy," has been the subject of some scholars. This paper purports to survey scholarly comments on Donne's use of the "mummy" and to offer an eclectic interpretation of the mummy metaphor based upon the scholarship and upon my reading of the poem.Literally here "mummy" means mindless dead flesh, and the image of conjugal union with a corpse is horribly repugnant; yet his basic point in the poem is just such a bitter recoiling from the horrible bestiality that he perceives love to be. "Mummy" also is a medicinal whose efficacy Donne seems to have believed in. Women are a sort of purgative for lust after all Platonic foolery is stripped away; they are mummy or dead flesh which men lust to possess.At yet another level "mummy" can be seen as pun on "mommy" without any Freudian ramifications. Such a pun is not unreasonable in view of Donne's penchant for the device and also in view of his "pregnant pot" and "hoarse minstrelsy" earlier in the poem. "Mommy possest" sounds as the mindless behavior of the female in mating season.(Hansung University)