An Analysis of "The Sun Rising," by John Donne

"The Sun Rising," by John Donne, is a lyric poem about two lovers. The poem is divided into three stanzas, each ten lines long. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABBACDCDEE. This is a dramatic poem where the speaker and his lover are in bed together. The speaker personifies the sun, and is speaking to it throughout the poem. As the sunlight comes through the windows, the speaker tells the sun to leave them alone. He seems to feel that their life together is complete, and that the sun is being a nuisance. He then tells the sun that his lover is worth more than anything the sun can ever find outside their bedroom.

The sunrise has provoked the speaker to speak. The sun is symbolic of an intruder. Although the speaker acts extremely conceded in parts of the poem, perhaps he is actually insecure and fears that another man will steal the heart of his lover. Maybe the sun is symbolic of another man, which may be the reason that the speaker is really upset. It is also a possibility that the speaker realizes that he is getting old and is worried that his "time" is soon going to run out. He seems to worry a lot about "time." In the first stanza, he is saying how love is eternal and should not be measured by apprentices, seasons, hours, days, or months. On a more realistic level, I think that the speaker is trying to make the point that love is a reality, and that you cannot put a time constraint on love.

"The Sun Rising" is a love poem, but can also be categorized as an aubade poem, where "one of the lovers is waked by the sun and speaks." The speaker is commanding the sun to leave him and his lover alone.

The tone and emotion of the poem changes as the speaker goes on. The first stanza of the poem convey...

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...pectful as well. The speaker wants the sun to go out and bother someone else, such as schoolboys who are late for school. Donne uses a lot of sun-related imagery, such as eclipse and cloud. Because Donne uses such descriptive language, it makes it easy for his readers to envision what he is describing.

I can imagine the poem being directed towards another person, rather than the sun. Because Donne personifies the sun, many of the things the speaker says could also be directed towards a human being, particularly someone that has tried to get in the lovers' way. I enjoyed this poem and wouldn't change anything else. I think that Donne used this particular structure in order to express his creativity. He wanted to write a love poem where the speaker wasn't speaking to his lover, like in the typical love poem. He wrote a poem that stands out from all the rest!