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Summary The sun rising IEB Poem
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In depth line by line analysis of The sun rising by John Donne
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The sun rising - John DonneBusy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys, and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late tell me,
Whether both the Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, 'All here in one bed lay."
She's all States, and all Princes I;
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic; all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
, Analysis
Following the metaphysical poetry style, many of John Donne's poems exhibit sudden and
explosive beginnings, and "The Sun Rising" is no exception. It opens with the speaker sharply
scolding the sun as a 'busy old fool.' This outburst is crafted to capture the sensation of
being suddenly and unwelcomely blinded by light, aiming to engage the reader's attention and
draw them into the verse. Once the reader is captivated, the speaker proceeds to draw a
comparison between the intensity of his love for the person lying beside him in bed and the
strength and force of the sun.
Beyond challenging the conventional perception of the sun as an all-powerful and majestic
center of the universe, the speaker uses the sun's intrusion to contrast the world of the
lovers inside with the world outside their window. Employing a series of provocative
exaggerations, the speaker argues that his feelings for his lover outweigh the significance
of the sun and its daily duties, as well as the everyday busyness of the external world. This
argument serves to assert that nothing holds greater importance than the two lovers,
effectively making their bed the center of the universe.
In this manner, the speaker disrupts the conventional idea that two individuals are relatively
insignificant when confronted by the vastness of the world and the universe. He
emphasizes the subjective, personal experience of being alive over the objective, external
experience.
The poem concludes with the speaker commanding the sun to forget everything else and
shine upon the lovers. This suggests that his hostility toward the sun arises from the
realization that the sunrise signifies his departure from the company of his lover and their
shared bed.
"The Sun Rising" consists of three stanzas, each containing ten lines. In each stanza, lines
one, five, and six are written in iambic tetrameter, while line two is in dimeter, and lines
three, four, and seven through ten are in pentameter. The rhyme scheme follows
ABBACDCDEE.
1. Busy old fool, unruly Sun, The first stanza of "The Sun Rising" elaborates on
the initial idea introduced in the poem's first line.
The speaker expresses his discontent with the sun
2. Why dost thou thus, for interrupting the intimate moment between him
and his lover. His disdain for the sun is evident in the
derogatory descriptions he uses, such as 'busy old
3. Through windows and through fool,' 'unruly,' and 'saucy pedantic wretch.' These
curtains call on us? descriptions reflect his irritation with the sun's
intrusion and set the tone for his questioning of
the sun's purpose. The speaker contemplates
4. Must to thy motions lovers' seasons whether the 'lovers' seasons' should be constrained
run? by the natural rhythms of life dictated by the
earth's orbit around the sun. This introduces the
idea that lovers exist in a world separate from the
cheeky, disrespectful, shameless daily grind of life. The speaker further distinguishes
5. Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide between the realm of love and the external world
by instructing the sun to depart from the lovers
fussy, exacting, critical scold, criticize
and instead wake up 'late school-boys,' 'sour
prentices' (young apprentices), 'court-huntsmen,'
6. Late school-boys, and sour and 'country ants.' The choice of these four groups
appears intentional. The reference to schoolboys
'prentices,
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