Intro 1:

Seventeenth-century England was characterised by a strict and hierarchical social

structure, with clearly de ned expectations and norms for each social stratum. In an era
which had strict expectations and codes of conduct associated even with romantic
relationships, John Donne expressed a strong and independent spirit through his
metaphysical love poetry as he often presented a passionate and assertive speaker who
de es authority in the pursuit of love. Despite being published posthumously in 1631,
Donne's work stands the transition from the Elizabethan to the Jacobean era, showcasing
his distinct voice in both courtly settings."The Sunne Rising" by John Donne is a
captivating poem that explores themes of love, time, and de ance within the context of an
intimate encounter between the speaker and his lover.

Intro 2:
John Donne wrote during the metaphysical period of the seventeenth century while giving
importance to physicality, earthiness, mutuality in love and making unabashed declarations
of love in his poetry. Donne’s poems register a clear departure from the sonnet
conventions of the Elizabethan court as he moves away from the idealistic platonic
approach of the courtly tradition to a more sensual Ovidian expression. Through his poetry,
Donne navigated the tensions between individual desires and societal expectations,
contributing to the evolving social and cultural landscape of his time. Donne's "The Sunne
Rising" emerges as a timeless exploration of human connection and the timeless pursuit of
love. In this poem, Donne borrows from the two poetic traditions of Ovid and aubade while
also subverting them by reinventing the conventions.

Poet:
• Donne died only about 15 years after Shakespeare, so his poetry is rooted in some of
the same Elizabethan court traditions.
- One such tradition was the use of sonnets not only to declare love, but also to
demonstrate poetic skill.
• Donne’s poems were chie y read in the manuscript form during his lifetime and were
published only after his death in 1631, and therefore, he is considered more of a
Jacobean poet.

Structure:
• This poem does not take any speci c, established form, but it does have formal
similarities with various versions of the sonnet.
• Whereas a sonnet has 14 lines, this poem has 30, which are divided into three stanzas
of 10 lines each.
• However, like most sonnets, the predominant meter of the poem is iambic pentameter.
• The rhyme scheme is also a hybrid of Italian and English sonnet rhyme schemes.
• Each stanza ends with a couplet that resolves the question or problem of that stanza.
• Donne’s The Sunne Rising is an imitation of the medieval European tradition of aubade
–a morning love song sung by the lover when the lovers separate at dawn.
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 • The poem is also in uenced by Ovid’s Amores that were playful and erotic love elegies.

Phrases:
• It is important to note, however, that the speaker's rise to power requires that he treat
the body of the woman in bed with him like an empire, free for the taking.
• Catholic parts of Europe, worried about the limits of the personal empowerment
Protestantism allowed. "The Sun Rising" certainly seems to test those limits.
• Not only does this poem begin with the theory of heliocentrism, but it also reproduces
the universal reorganisation Copernicus did by placing not the earth, and not the sun,
but the speaker at the centre of everything's orbit.

Personi cation:
• The speaker personi es the sun throughout nearly the entire poem as a self-important
old man in order to rob the sun of its authority.
• The speaker perceives the sun as actively interfering with his and his lover's private
world. By attributing agency to the sun, Donne highlights the speaker's de ance
towards external forces and his assertion of the primacy of their love.
• Phrases like "saucy pedantique wretch" and "through windowes, and through curtains
call on us." These descriptions create vivid imagery of the sun's persistent attempts to
intrude upon the lovers' space.
• Through this personi cation, Donne suggests that the power and importance of the sun
pale in comparison to the profound connection between the speaker and his lover.
• The personi cation of the sun in "The Sunne Rising" allows John Donne to convey the
speaker's de ance towards external forces and his assertion of the signi cance of their
love.

Themes:
• Personi cation of sun; de ance against external forces affecting love
• Metaphysicality; transcendence of love beyond physical and spiritual boundaries
• Love tradition; aubade
• Timelessness of love
• Gender hierarchy

Critic Notes:
• Catherine Belsey questions this kind of love expressed in terms of “conquest” with a
“wholly silent women” and goes on to identify “sexual politics with the cultural analysis
of femininity and masculinity”(219).
- Donne’s poems reveal an inherent gender hierarchy

The love tradition:

• At the time of Donne, there were mainly two ‘schools’ of love—the Platonic and the
Ovidian.
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• Courtly love ideal was revived by Queen Elizabeth following the classical and medieval
literary traditions of the courtly love poetry, where a nobleman pronounced his love for
a lady and idealised her as chaste and unattainable.
• Petrarch who talked about sublimation in love, and Ovid for whom love was a sport,
Donne gives importance to physicality, earthiness and mutuality in love
- Donne rejects this old platonic style which was devoid of passion and makes an
unabashed declaration of his love.
• Donne’s poems register a clear departure from the sonnet conventions of the
Elizabethan court as he moves away from the idealistic platonic approach of the courtly
tradition to a more sensual Ovidian expression.
• In complete contrast to Petrarch, Donne celebrates reciprocity in male and female love
relationships and there is a continuous assertion of mutuality and reciprocity in the
experience of love.
• Donne’s The Sunne Rising is an imitation of the medieval European tradition of aubade
–a morning love song sung by the lover when the lovers separate at dawn.
• The poem is also in uenced by Ovid’s Amores that were playful and erotic love elegies.
• The aubade genre typically deals with the tension between love and time, as lovers are
forced to part with the coming of daylight. In "The Sunne Rising," Donne subverts this
traditional theme by challenging the authority of time itself and asserting the eternal
nature of love.
• Furthermore, the aubade form enhances the intimacy and emotional impact of the
poem. The imminent separation of the lovers at dawn intensi es the sense of urgency
and desire in their exchange. The poem captures a eeting moment of intense
connection and love before the lovers must part ways.

Metaphysicality:
• The phrase ‘metaphysical poets’ was rst used by Samuel Johnson in The Lives of
Poets (1799) who applied it to the work of poets writing at the beginning of the
seventeenth century whose “manner resembled that of Donne”.
• Much of the metaphysical poetry is religious and frequently other concerns related to
soul, eternity and time do appear.
• A salient and distinguishing feature of metaphysical poetry is its use of conceits.
- Conceits are witty and intellectualised metaphors that draw a deliberate parallel
between two dissimilar objects/ideas.
- While metaphors imply straightforward comparison, a conceit likens two dissimilar
objects.
• Samuel Johnson identi ed Donne’s poetry as “metaphysical” for his rich use of
conceits
• Metaphysical poetry is characterised by its use of intellectual and philosophical
conceits, elaborate metaphors, paradoxes, and a blending of the physical and spiritual
realms.
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 • The main conceit or metaphor of “The Sun Rising” is the personi cation of the sun into
an old man – a "busy old fool" – whose business it is to get everyone out of bed and on
the way to work.
• This metaphysical conceit elevates the lovers' intimate space above the mundane
world and challenges the traditional order of authority.
• The secondary conceit is the metaphor that the speaker’s lover is "all states" – she is
all the treasures of the world. As a result, therefore, he is "all princes". Donne elevates
the importance of the relationship using this hyperbole.
• "Love, all alike, no season knows nor clyme." This paradoxical statement challenges
the conventional understanding of time as a linear progression and suggests that love
exists in a realm beyond temporal constraints.
• John Donne blends the physical and spiritual realms by intertwining elements of the
material world with profound expressions of love and spiritual signi cance
• The poem blurs the boundaries between the physical and spiritual realms. The intimate
space shared by the lovers becomes a microcosm that transcends the external world
and societal norms.
• The physical realm is represented by the sun, which symbolises worldly authority and
the passing of time. However, Donne personi es the sun and addresses it directly,
imbuing it with human qualities. By doing so, he blurs the line between the physical and
spiritual, making the sun more than a celestial object.

Timelessness:
• Throughout the poem, the speaker challenges the conventional perception of time as
an all-encompassing force that governs human existence.
• The speaker suggests that love transcends the passing of seasons, climates, hours,
days, and months, all of which are temporal aspects controlled by time. By
characterising time as "rags," the speaker diminishes its importance and emphasises
the timelessness of love.
• By challenging the authority of the sun, which traditionally represents the measure of
time, the speaker indirectly challenges the notion of time itself.
• This de ance serves to emphasise the eternity of their love, as it exists outside the
limitations imposed by the passage of time.
• The theme of time in "The Sunne Rising" invites the reader to contemplate the
signi cance of love in the face of temporal limitations.
• "Love, all alike, no season knows nor clyme, / Nor houres, dayes, moneths,
which are the rags of time.”

Gender hierarchy:
• By belittling the sun and refusing to yield to its perceived power, the speaker
challenges the established order and asserts his own authority within the intimate
space he shares with his lover.
• Though many of Donne’s love poems are addressed to women, the women in them
remain silent and subordinate to the male voice.
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• Women are objecti ed and become the subordinated ‘other’ –a kind of possession to
be gazed at, desired and conquered.
• Implicit gender hierarchy is revealed through the metaphor of colonisation, where the
lover becomes a ‘prince’ ruling over his ‘states’.
- With the lover rightfully declaring mastery over his beloved, the poet seems to
make it clear that the rule of the female monarch does not mean patriarchal
society is rethinking gender roles, and reaf rms the old hierarchy where men are
superior and women play a subordinate role.
• The speaker's language and tone throughout the poem can be interpreted as
possessive and authoritative
• For instance, the speaker refers to her as "beautie" and "all women," reducing her
identity to her appearance and suggesting a gendered expectation of women as
objects of admiration and desire.
• The poem challenges societal norms is through its emphasis on the primacy of love
over societal expectations. The speaker dismisses the authority of the sun and asserts
the supremacy of his love, suggesting that the power of their intimate connection
surpasses external hierarchies.
• Additionally, the poem challenges societal norms by presenting a passionate and
assertive male speaker who de es external authority in the pursuit of love. This
depiction challenges the societal expectation of male restraint and the subjugation of
personal desires for the sake of societal norms.

Line by line analysis:

1. Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'
seasons run?
2. Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

The speaker addresses the sun, personifying it as a busy and foolish entity. The conceit of
the sun runs throughout the poem and the sun presented as a vain voyeur, a peeping-tom
who bothers the lovers through the curtains and windows and interferes in their
lovemaking.

The lover upbraids the sun as “saucy” (impertinent) and “pedantic wretch” (haughty) and
asserts his superiority over the sun by calling it “a busy old fool

3. Late school boys and sour prentices,


Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest of ces,

The speaker uses mocking and derogatory language to describe the sun, calling it a saucy
and pedantic (pretentious) wretch. The speaker tells the sun to go scold late schoolboys,
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unhappy apprentices, court huntsmen, and even ants, suggesting that these trivial matters
are more deserving of the sun's attention than the speaker's love.

4. Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,


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

The speaker declares that love is unaffected by seasons, climates, hours, days, or
months, dismissing these temporal divisions as insigni cant compared to the power and
timelessness of love.

5. Thy beams, so reverend and strong

6. Why shouldst thou think?

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

The speaker acknowledges the strength and reverence of the sun's rays but asserts that
they could easily overshadow and obscure the sun with a mere blink of an eye. However,
the speaker refrains from doing so because they do not want to lose sight of their beloved
for even a moment.

7. If her eyes have not blinded thine,

8. Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,

Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine

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

Proclaiming that compared to these riches, what he has in his bed pales the treasures of
India.

By drawing into his bed these two places, located on opposite sides of the world, the
speaker turns his bed into a small-scale model of the entire globe.

By comparing his lover's body to the East and West Indies, the speaker thus turns her into
a colony to be plundered for its valuable resources.

It is by using the conceit of the sun that the lover elevates his beloved above all the
fragrance and the riches of the world.

9. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, All here in one
bed lay.

The speaker instructs the sun to inquire about the kings it witnessed the previous day,
suggesting that they are all present and united in the bed shared by the speaker and their
beloved. This implies that the speaker and their love interest hold supreme power and
importance, surpassing worldly authority.
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 10. She's all states, and all princes, I,
11. Nothing else is.

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

The speaker proclaims that their beloved encompasses all the qualities of royalty and
power. They assert that compared to their love, the power and status of princes are
insigni cant and merely super cial imitations, and wealth is like alchemy, an illusion.

For the lover, the entire world is illusive and only his love is real. It is the lovers that
constitute the entire world and all that is meaningful and worthy is concentrated in their
love for each other.

12. Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,

13. 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.

The speaker suggests that the sun is only half as happy as they are because the world is
con ned and limited in comparison to the intimacy and connection the speaker shares with
their beloved. The speaker acknowledges that the sun, in its old age, seeks rest and ease,
as its duty is to warm the world, a duty accomplished by warming the speaker and their
love.

Paradoxically enough, the lover who was initially impatient at the appearance of the sun,
now orders the sun to stay forever in his room.

14. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere; This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy
sphere.

The speaker implores the sun to shine upon them, asserting that if it does so, it will be
present everywhere. They declare that their bed is the centre of the universe, and the
walls around them encompass the entire world, making it the sun's sphere.

Donne still refers to the sun going around the earth and gives love the centrality he
believes it deserves/commands.
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