The Sun Rising

Context

John Donne's Personal Life

• Donne's personal life, including his passionate and tumultuous relationship with Anne More, significantly influenced his poetry. The Sun Rising reflects a more positive and intimate view of love, likely during a happier period in their marriage.
• Donne's life experiences, including his struggles with financial instability and societal disapproval due to his secret marriage, often manifested in his poetry through themes of love, conflict, and resolution.

Literary Context

• The Sun Rising is part of Donne's Songs and Sonnets, a collection that demonstrates his metaphysical style. This style is characterized by the use of elaborate metaphors, intellectual wit, and the exploration of complex emotional and philosophical themes.

  

• Metaphysical poets like Donne, George Herbert, and Andrew Marvell often employed conceits—extended metaphors that draw surprising connections between disparate elements. In The Sun Rising, Donne uses the conceit of the sun as an intruder in the lovers' private world.

• The poem is a notable example of the aubade, a poetic form in which lovers lament the arrival of dawn and the necessity of parting. Donne subverts this tradition by confronting the sun and asserting the supremacy of the lovers' world.

Historical and Political Background

• The early 17th century was a period of great political and religious upheaval in England. Donne's conversion from Catholicism to Anglicanism and his eventual ordination as an Anglican priest reflect the broader religious tensions of the time.
• The Renaissance period was marked by a spirit of exploration and discovery, both geographically and intellectually. This is mirrored in The Sun Rising through its confident exploration of the lovers' universe and its defiance of external constraints.
• The poem also reflects the era's hierarchical view of the universe, with the sun traditionally seen as a powerful, almost divine figure. Donne's speaker challenges this hierarchy, placing the lovers' relationship above the sun's influence, thus elevating human love to a cosmic significance.

Structure and Form

Form, Meter, and Rhyme

• The poem is composed of three ten-line stanzas.
• The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABBACDCDEE.
• The predominant meter is iambic pentameter, with variations that include lines in iambic tetrameter.
• The poem's form and meter contribute to its rhythmic and lyrical quality, enhancing the persuasive and mocking tone of the speaker.

Speaker and Setting

• The speaker is a man addressing the sun, frustrated by its intrusion into his intimate moments with his lover.
• The setting is a bedroom, where the speaker and his lover are enjoying a private, timeless space, free from the constraints of the outside world.

Poetic Devices

• Conceit: The central conceit of the poem is the comparison of the lovers' bed to the entire world, and the sun's role is redefined within this microcosm.
• The sun is depicted as an old, busybody intruder that the speaker attempts to belittle and command.
• Personification: The sun is personified as an "old fool" and a "saucy pedantic wretch", allowing the speaker to interact with it as if it were a bothersome servant.
• Apostrophe: The speaker directly addresses the sun, creating a confrontational and intimate tone.
• Allusion: References to the "Indias of spice and mine" and "kings" situate the poem within a broader context of imperial exploration and power.
• Hyperbole: The speaker exaggerates the importance of his love, claiming it encompasses the entire world.
• Alliteration and Consonance: The poem employs both to create a musical quality, enhancing its lyrical and persuasive power.
• Assonance: Used subtly throughout to create smooth, harmonious sounds, contributing to the poem's overall tone and rhythm.
• Enjambment and End-Stop: The poem uses enjambment to maintain flow and urgency, while end-stopped lines provide emphasis and clarity.
• Caesura: The use of caesura creates pauses that add emphasis to key ideas and shifts in the speaker's argument.
• Euphony and Cacophony: The poem contrasts harsh, cacophonous sounds when describing the sun's interference with the smooth, euphonious sounds depicting the lovers' harmonious world.

Key Themes

The Authority of Love

"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, / Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time." (Lines 9-10)

• The poem elevates love above the natural order, suggesting that love is not bound by time or external forces.

Love as a Microcosm of the Universe

"S__he's all states, and all princes, I, / Nothing else is." (Lines 21-22)

• The lovers' bed is depicted as a microcosm, representing the entire world and asserting the centrality and completeness of their love.

Love and Divinity

"Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; / This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere." (Lines 29-30)

• The speaker's love is portrayed as so powerful that it elevates him to a god-like status, making their love the centre of the universe.

Line by Line Analysis

Lines 1-4

Why dost thou thus,

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?

"Busy old fool, unruly sun,"

• The speaker addresses the sun derogatorily, personifying it as a bothersome intruder.

"Why dost thou thus, / Through windows, and through curtains call on us?"

• The sun is accused of invading the private space of the lovers, shining through their windows and curtains.

"Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?"

• The speaker questions why lovers should conform to the sun's movements, challenging its authority.

Lines 5-8

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,

"Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide / Late school boys and sour prentices,"

• The speaker dismissively tells the sun to scold those who need to follow its schedule, such as school boys and apprentices.

"Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, / Call country ants to harvest offices,"

• The sun is instructed to attend to others who rely on its light for their duties, like huntsmen and farmers.

Lines 9-10

Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,"

• The speaker asserts that love transcends time and space, unaffected by the changing seasons or climates.

"Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."

• The conventional measurements of time are dismissed as insignificant in the realm of love.

Lines 11-14

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;

"Thy beams, so reverend and strong / Why shouldst thou think?"

• The sun's rays, though powerful, are questioned for their presumed authority.

"I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, / But that I would not lose her sight so long;"

• The speaker claims he could block out the sun by closing his eyes but chooses not to because he does not want to stop looking at his lover.

Lines 15-18

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,

Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.

"If her eyes have not blinded thine,"

• The speaker suggests that his lover's eyes are so bright they could blind the sun.

"Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,"

• He challenges the sun to check if the exotic lands (East and West Indies) are still where they were or if they have moved to his bed.

Lines 19-20

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

_"_Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, / And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay."

• The speaker claims that all the kings and their power are now embodied in the lovers' bed.

Lines 21-24

She's all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

"She's all states, and all princes, I, / Nothing else is."

• The speaker and his lover encompass the entire world, making everything else insignificant.

"Princes do but play us; compared to this, / All honor's mimic, all wealth alchemy."

• The speaker asserts that their love is more genuine and valuable than any worldly honour or wealth.

Lines 25-30

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 center is, these walls, thy sphere.

"Thou, sun, art half as happy as we, / In that the world's contracted thus."

• The speaker suggests the sun should be happy that the entire world is now concentrated in its bed.

"Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be / To warm the world, that's done in warming us."

• The speaker argues that the sun's duty to warm the world can be fulfilled by warming it.

"Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; / This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere."

• The speaker concludes by asserting that if the sun shines on them, it fulfils its duty, as their bed is the centre of the universe.