The Sun Rising Poem Analysis

1120 Words3 Pages

The second stanzas in “The Sun Rising” and “The Good Morrow” develop Donne’s view that “the human being [is a] self-contained system” linked to a comprehensive global and cosmic network (McDuffie 2). As the speaker in “The Sun Rising” continues his jeering apostrophe, he manages to reverse the conceit and claim that he is more powerful than the sun. By a mere blinking of his eyes the speaker can choose to occlude the sun’s questionable “beams, so reverend and strong” (Donne “The Sun Rising” 11). Highlighting the importance of beholding the sight of his love over his celestial power, he chooses to “not lose her sight” by blinking (Donne “The Sun Rising” 14). The narrator shares this metaphorical celestial power with his lover, as; “her eyes” …show more content…

Greeting the day after a night with his lover, the speaker charms out the invocation, “good-morrow” to the dawn (Donne “The Good Morrow” 8). This positive apostrophe to the early dawn suggests that the morning has brought on a proverbial “waking [of] souls” (Donne “The Good Morrow” 8). This microcosmic imagery pervading the poem proves that the speaker’s passionate love affair has enough power to transform “one little room [into] an everywhere” (Donne “The Good Morrow” 11). Comparable to the second stanza in “The Sun Rising,” the speaker in the second septet communicates a rejection of materiality and earthly discoveries. Ignoring the conquests ventured by “sea-discoverers” to discover “new worlds,” Donne’s speaker argues that the world he has created with his lover is vastly superior to that of the macrocosm (Donne “The Good Morrow” 12). In this way the bedroom offers lovers the chance to “transform withdrawal” (Gorton par. …show more content…

The last word of the poem, ‘sphere,’ recalls the then out-dated Ptolemaic cosmological assertion that the sun and all other celestial bodies orbited the Earth (Ridpath par. 1). Rather than solely reject the sun, the speaker “starts demanding it centre upon the room of his love” for theirs is the only world that matters (Gorton par. 7). Donne’s extended conceit insists that the lovers microcosmic bedroom has replaced the earth; therefore, if the sun must complete its duty of warming the earth, “that’s done [the sun’s duty] in warming” the lovers in their bedroom (Donne “The Sun Rising” 27–28). The lovers are not withdrawn in seclusion; they paradoxically open themselves up to a more expansive space where “these walls” become “thy sphere” (Donne “The Sun Rising 30). The metaphysical world Donne’s speaker and his lover create in “The Sun Rising” is vastly superior to any monarchical power found outside of their

Open Document