The+Sun+Rising

 =**The Sun Rising** =  Busy old fool, unruly Sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us ? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run ? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school-boys and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride, Call country ants to harvest offices ; Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend, and strong Why shouldst thou think ? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink , But that I would not lose her sight so long. If her eyes have not blinded thine, Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday, And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."

She's all states, and all princes I ; Nothing else is ; Princes do but play us ; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, 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. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere ; This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

- John Donne

[|Click here to watch a virtual movie of poet John Donne reading his poem “The Sun Rising”]  =**After reading the poem, post your analysis of TIME on the discussion board.** =

=Poetic Techniques =

Apostrophe
Addressing an inanimate object, or force, such as Fate, or the Earth, is a technique known as apostrophe. Donne’s address to the sun falls somewhat short of respectful, calling it “busy old fool” and “saucy pedantic wretch”. He chides the sun, threatening that it is within his powers to darken the sun’s beams, to “eclipse and cloud them with a wink”, and then offering sympathy for the work which the sun has to perform in giving light and warmth to the world.

Hyperbole
Most of // Donne’s // style in this poem is conscious hyperbole; Donne makes excessive claims regarding the importance of himself and his lover such as “Sh’is all states and all princes, I/ Nothing else is.” This claim, like the earlier claim that by winking he could darken the sun, rests upon the poet pretending to mistake his own subjective viewpoint for objective reality. If he blinked, to him the sun would seem to have flickered, but of course it would have continued to shine for everyone else. “// The Sun Rising //” strikes us as powerful poetry, rather than complete nonsense, because it is an expression of the exhilaration of love, and a projection of intense internal feelings onto the external world. The poem retains its power because so many people can recognize the experience of feeling that only they and their lover matter in the whole world.





=**Biography of John Donne** =  John Donne was born in 1572 to a London merchant and his wife. Donne's parents were both Catholic at a time when England was deeply divided over matters of religion; Queen Elizabeth persecuted the Catholics and upheld the Church of England established by her father, Henry VIII. The subsequent ruler, James I, tolerated Catholicism, but advised Donne that he would achieve advancement only in the Church of England. Having renounced his Catholic faith, Donne was ordained in the Church of England in 1615. Donne's father died when he was very young, as did several of his brothers and sisters, and his mother remarried twice during his lifetime. Donne was educated at Hart's Hall, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn; he became prodigiously learned, speaking several languages and writing poems in both English and Latin.

Donne's adult life was colorful, varied, and often dangerous; he sailed with the royal fleet and served as both a Member of Parliament and a diplomat. In 1601, he secretly married a woman named Ann More, and he was imprisoned by her father, Sir George More; however, after the Court of Audiences upheld his marriage several months later, he was released and sent to live with his wife's cousin in Surrey, his fortunes now in tatters. For the next several years, Donne moved his family throughout England, traveled extensively in France and Italy, and attempted unsuccessfully to gain positions that might improve his financial situation. In 1615, Donne was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church; in 1621, he became the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, a post that he retained for the rest of his life. A very successful priest, Donne preached several times before royalty; his sermons were famous for their power and directness.

For the last decade of his life, before his death in 1630, Donne concentrated more on writing sermons than on writing poems, and today he is admired for the former as well as the latter. (One of his most famous sermons contains the passage beginning, "No man is an island" and ending, "Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.") However, it is for his extraordinary poems that Donne is primarily remembered; and it was on the basis of his poems that led to the revival of his reputation at the beginning of the 20th century, following years of obscurity. (The renewed interest in Donne was led by a new generation of writers at the turn of the century, including T.S. Eliot.) Donne was the leading exponent of a style of poetry called "metaphysical poetry," which flourished in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Metaphysical poetry features elaborate conceits and surprising symbols, wrapped up in original, challenging language structures, with learned themes that draw heavily on eccentric chains of reasoning. Donne's verse, like that of George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and many of their contemporaries, exemplifies these traits. But Donne is also a highly individual poet, and his consistently ingenious treatment of his great theme--the conflict between spiritual piety and physical carnality, as embodied in religion and love--remains unparalleled.

[|For a more descriptive biography about John Donne click here]