JOHN DONNE – THE SUN RISING – NOTES
Again, an aubade like the Good Morrow, hence two poems should be studied together.
The Sunne Rising belongs to John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets. It is a companion poem to The Good-morrow and should be studied alongside it. Both poems share the central conceit that the lover's world is a microcosm excluding all outside demands or realities. In fact, the world outside barely exists. The tone of the two poems is similar, too, being celebratory, idealistic and yet jocular and quite outrageous in the hyperbole. This has come to be one of Donne's best known love poems.
The first stanza
The whole of The Sunne Rising is a far-fetched apostrophe to the sun, which is personified quite disrespectfully. Donne calls it ‘Busie old foole’ and ‘Sawcy pedantique wretch’.
Conventionally, love poetry is aware of the seasons, particularly Spring, and the seasons are, of course, defined by the sun. Donne wants to reverse this. The lovers should define their own seasons and the sun should keep out of the business. Rather, it should do fairly ordinary, trivial things like ‘chide/ Late schoole boyes’ and other people who need to get up in good time.
The second stanza
Having established in his mockery of the sun the lovers' own timekeeping, Donne then gives the sun a job that would benefit the lovers. The sun can tour the earth and report back if there is anything of value or of royalty that is not already here in the lovers' bedroom, that is to say, in each other.
The third stanza
The expectation is that the sun won't have found a single thing. ‘All right,’ says the poet. ‘Just stay here and warm us.’ Donne proclaims that the sun will then be everywhere, since the lovers' world is a complete world of its own.
Themes in the Sun Rising:
The theme, as in The Good-morrow, is The nature and completeness of the lovers' world. Their existence together