Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context: ideas and innovations
- Aire and Angels
- A Hymn to God the Father
- A Hymn to God, my God, in my Sicknesse
- A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies day
- At the Round Earth's Imagin'd Corners
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Synopsis of Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Commentary on Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Language and tone in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Structure and versification in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Themes in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- A Valediction: of Weeping
- Batter my heart
- Death be not Proud
- Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- Elegie XVI: On his Mistris
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
- Lovers' Infiniteness
- Oh my blacke Soule!
- Satyre III: 'On Religion'
- Show me Deare Christ
- Since She Whom I Lov'd
- Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre
- The Anniversarie
- The Dreame
- The Extasie
- The Flea
- The Good-morrow
- The Sunne Rising
- This is my playes last scene
- Twicknam Garden
- What if this present
- Aaron
- Affliction I
- Death
- Discipline
- Easter Wings
- Jordan I
- Jordan II
- Life
- Love II
- Man
- Prayer I
- Redemption
- The Church-floore
- The Collar
- Vertue
- Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Hymn to St Teresa
- St Mary Magdalene, or the Weeper
- To the Countesse of Denbigh
- Ascension - Hymn
- Man
- Regeneration
- The Night
- The Retreate
- The Water-fall
- A Dialogue between Soul and Body
- On a Drop of Dew
- The Coronet
- The Definition of Love
- The Garden
- The Mower Against Gardens
- The Mower to the Glo-Worms
- The Mower's Song
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun
- The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- To his Coy Mistress
- Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
- An Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Paul's Dr John Donne
- To a Lady that Desired I would Love her
Imagery and symbolism in The Sunne Rising
There are three central figures in The Sunne Rising.
The sun
The first is the personification of the sun, used in a hyperbolic conceit.
- The sun divides time up into divisions, which are then dismissed as ‘rags'
- It is ‘unruly', since it does not abide by the lovers' rule, which is to stay in bed together as long as possible and enjoy the intimacy of that
- Donne challenges the sheer insistence of the sun: he has only to close his eyes, and he would not even see the sun. It would simply not be there!
- This conceit is immediately undermined with another: to close his eyes would be to lose sight of his mistress for a moment, and he could not bear to do that. (The term ‘mistress' at this time just means the woman he loves, whether girl-friend, partner or wife.)
Royalty
The second main figure is that of royalty. This includes images of luxury and riches.
- In a two-person world, one of them is bound to be the prince or king. Interestingly, the mistress is not seen as his consort, but his state.
- Her body becomes the geography as significantly as the contours of the bedroom. We notice this geography of the body in other poems, too, such as Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- The royalty image is seen in ‘Princes do but play us', ‘All honor's mimique'. The outside world is pretence and pretentiousness. Their love is the true authenticity.
Theirs the only world
The third image is the conceit of the lovers' world being the only world.
- Phrases like ‘thou art every where', ‘This bed thy centre is', ‘all here in one bed lay', and the splendid ‘nothing else is' are examples of this. It is very similar to the imagery of The Good-morrow.
Investigating The Sunne Rising
- Compare the images in this poem to those in The Good-morrow, especially the global images.
- In what way is the bed the centre?
- Pick out other examples of Donne's personification.
- Why is it so effective?
A form of expression, such as a metaphor or simile, which is intended to add beauty, variety or impact to a literary text.
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