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John Donne- The Sun Rising
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This is a comprehensive analysis of John Donne's poem 'The Sun Rising.' It provides information on the context, form and structure and language and imagery of the
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By: alythomsxn • 6 year ago
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THE SUN RISINGFORM AND STRUCTURE
- The poem consists of 3 stanzas, through which a line of argument is developed
1. In stanza 1, the poet tells the sun to go away and leave him and his lover alone
2. In stanza 2, he tells the sun to go to the other side of the world and he will see that the poet
and his lover are the centre of the universe
3. The poet states that if the sun does shine on them, it will be warming the world as their love
is the centre of the universe
- The poet extends the philosophical notion of man as microcosm of the universe (link to
Elizabethan notion of ‘World Order’- in this poem, love is the microcosm of the universe
- The poem is logical and dialectical in structure
- The poem has a regular rhyme scheme (ABBACDCDEE) but an irregular rhythm to create the
rhythms of the natural speaking voice
- The poem is written from the perspective of the male speaker (similar situation to Good-
Morrow)
- Homily and identifiable situation presented
- The poet negates and dismisses the outside world (link to Donne in exile after injudicious
decision to marry Anne Donne without his parent’s permission)
- The poem is an Aubade (poem to the dawn)- However, Donne subverts this poetic form-
does not praise or glorify the sun but presents it as an intruder
- The poem is an irreverent address to the sun- the sun is the greatest life-giving force of the
universe
- Unlike ‘The Good-Morrow’, this poem is an apostrophe to the sun rather than the poet’s
lover
- The apostrophic nature of the poem emphasises its dramatic quality
LANGUAGE AND IMAGERY
Context
- Donne had just forfeited his job as a secretary and he was exiled from the world of affairs
and London
- This poem was written shortly after his marriage to Anne Donne (Donne was imprisoned for
failing to ask for her hands in marriage) and James I coronation
- The poem has a mood of optimism as the male speaker triumphantly challenges the sun
itself
- The traditionally accepted geocentric universe had been challenged and disproved by
Galileo’s heliocentric model of the universe. (This went against Church teaching that God
created man at the centre of the universe)The central conceit of the poem is a development
of this. For the male speaker, his self-contained world with his mistress is the new centre of
the earth. The poet wittily subverts and exploits the cosmological idea.
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