Critically analyse Donne’s poem “The Sun Rising”.
Answers
The Sun Rising is a love poem set in the speaker's bedroom, where he and his lover lay in bed presumably after a night of passion. The sun is seen as an unwanted dawn intruder, invading the couple's space, and is initially insulted before being challenged.
Donne wrote many an amorous poem in his younger days, using the extended metaphor or conceit to explore in depth the relationship between himself, the cosmos and love. Poems such as The Flea and To His Mistress Going to Bed are particularly popular.
Because of his interest in love, religion and morals and inventive use of form and intellectual prowess, he is often known as the father of the metaphysical poets.
Later on in life he devoted himself to religion, eventually becoming dean at St Pauls cathedral in London. His Holy Sonnets and other religious verse are a counterbalance to his more erotic writings.
John Donne's poems were first collected and published in 1633, two years after he died. No copies of his handwritten poems survive but manuscripts were circulated during his life, passing amongst friends and other admirers.
The Sun Rising is one such poem. It begins with a rush of blood, a blunt telling off, as if the speaker's space and style has been cramped. He is annoyed. To allay the self-induced tension the speaker soon begins to compare himself with the sun, belittling the power of that mighty star, declaring love the master of all.
In the end the lovers and, more importantly, the bed in the room, become the focal point of the cosmos, around which everything revolves, even the unruly sun.