"The Apparation"

After reading this poem for the first time, I was really confused about what it meant. After the group discussion today, we figured out that the narrator of the poem is trying to persuade and seduce the woman in the poem. Because Donne incorporated the word "solicitation", I began to understand the relationship between the two people in the poem. My group also questioned whether the narrator is dead or living in the poem because of the reference to death and ghosts. As we read closer though, we began to comprehend that the reference to ghosts and death was all figurative language. The repetition of those two words or themes in the poem also allowed me to better understand the tone of the piece. The narrator in the poem shows great anger and frustration toward the woman, which creates a tone of haunting and vengeance. Basically, the speaker was trying to convince the woman that he would haunt her as a ghost in the future if she did not give him what he wanted. There is also a suspenseful side to the poem, because the speaker states "what I will say, I will not tell thee now, lest that preserve thee". If he told her what he would say or do, then she would be able to prepare herself. Lastly, the title of the poem adds to the overall tone, because apparition means a ghost or an invisible spirit.