John Donne’s Poems-‘Sweetest Love’ and ‘The Sun Rising’

Name:  Nargis I. Saiyad

Paper: The Renaissance Literature

Topic: John Donne’s poems-‘Sweetest Love’ and ‘The Sun Rising’

Class: M.A.II, Sem.: I

Year: 2012/13

Submitted To,

 Dr. Dilip Barad,

Dept. of English,

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Bhavnagar.

John Donne’s Poems-‘Sweetest Love’ and ‘The Sun Rising’

                                                                  

·        About John Donne :-

                    John Donne is one of the metaphysical poets. Metaphysical poetry is difficult to understand because it demands of intellectual effort.

·        His Poetry :-

Donne’s Poetry shows the human struggle for harming between head and heart. Donne’s approach to love is very down-to-earth, sometimes we may shock but it is always original.

                                                                   Let’s see his two  

Poems:

·        SONG -‘SWEETEST LOVE, I do not go’ :

According to P.K. Thakar, we can understand the Poem in three levels. Let’s view it according to P. K. Thakar in levels.

·           Phonological level :-

In this poem the words like ‘deaths’ and ‘die’, He and ‘hath no and nor ‘so’ ‘But’ and ‘believe’, ‘speedier’ and since, add, another, and hour, alliterate each-other so, the device of alliteration is used hero.

·           Semantic level :-

The poem is about the departure of the loves. So, this is love poem. The title itself suggests it. It is a lyric.

“SWEETEST love, I do not go,

For weariness of three,”

Here, the poet wants to say that he is not going because he is tired of his beloved.

Moreover, he says that even he is going to get fitted love from the world. He compares his departure with the death.

In the second stanza he uses the metaphor of ‘Sun’. He says that even sun comes daily and goes out every-day. He says that he will also come like it.

This is the first line of the third stanza. Here he becomes philosophical. He says that man’s power is feeble. He adds that if a man wishes to add hour to good fortune, he can’t. Even he can’t recall a lost hour.

Then he gives the message that it all depends on man’s mentality. We give power to our misfortune.

In the fourth stanza, the lover aryls that he is so much a part of her, he is in her breath.

The first three stanzas tell about the departure and return of the lover but the last two stanzas tell about the harm that the beloved can cause.

In the last stanza, the poet says that his beloved should nod think ill about their future. He fears that if she continues take part to fulfill her fear. It is written here like this.

   

“Destiny may take thy part and may thy fear fulfill.”

At last he advises his beloved to imagine. She should think that both of them are on bed turning aside of each-other.

3.    Grammar Level :-

This is a lyric of five stanzas. Here the apostrophe ‘I’ is used that refers to the lover.

The archaic words are also used here like ‘thee’, ‘thou’, ‘thy’ etc...

·        The sun Rising :-

Ø    Theme :-

This is a love poem in which the lover complains to the sun that it should not shine and disturb him and his beloved.

Ø    Content :-

“Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Though windows, and through curtains, callous?”

So, he calls the sun as a “busy”, ‘old’, ‘fool’ and asks that why it is disturbing them?

Thus, he tells the sun to go and shine to late school-boys, Prentice, court-huntsmen, ants and disturb them.

He says that in love hours, days, month all are the waste of time.

The love is stronger than the sun-beams. He also says that he can eclipse and cloud them with a wink.

This reminds us Shakespeare’s “My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun” in one sonnet.

This was a standard Renaissance love-poem convention to proclaim his beloved’s loveliness.

In the final line, he gives Ptolemaic astronomic idea that the earth the centre of the universe and the sun rotates around the earth and this final line is,

“This bed thy centre is, these walk thy sphere”

Thus, here the poet-lover wants to say that their feelings of love are more important than anything in the world.

Ø    Structure :-

The poem has there stanzas and each are ten lined. The rhyming scheme in each stanza is ABBACDCDEE.

The tone is mocking and railing when he calls the sun as ‘busy’, old, fool. The sun is personified here.

The wards like ‘must’ and ‘notion’, ‘School’, and’ sour, call, and country, no and knows, alliterate each-other. So, the device of alliteration is used here the words like ‘thou’, through, go, ‘I’ ‘thy’, are repeated. So, the repetition is used in the poem.  

Ø    Conclusion :-

We can see paradox, belittling cosmic forces, love as both physical and spiritual, interconnection humanity etc. for example, in ‘The Sun Rising’ the lovers believe that their love is more important than the whole world. That refers to the belittling cosmic forces. In most of his love poems, he tells that there love is superior to any other.  This refers to the love as both physical and spiritual.  Donne’s imagination is great and we can see his greatness of writing the poem by these two poems.