John Donne

John Donne

In John Donne’s “The Sun Rising” and his sonnet “Death be not proud,” personification is key to the development of a central conceit in the poem and the formulation of an argument.

This essay will explore the poem “The Sun Rising” and the sonnet 10 “Death be not proud” by John Donne. The essay will also answer certain questions regarding the poem and sonnet with the focus on the idea that personification is key to the development of a central conceit and the formulation of an argument. The essay will answer questions such as; what is the argument of the poem and how is it developed, who is the speaker and what is his/her situation, does gender of the speaker matter, who is the speaker addressing, what is conveyed about the speakers attitude and finally what has been the critical response to Donne’s poetry. This essay will conclude the importance of personification in developing a central conceit and also in the formulation of an argument in Donne’s poetry.

According to Grierson metaphysical poetry is poetry that has been inspired by philosophical conceptions of the universe and also the role of the human spirit in existence (3). Gardner means that metaphysical poetry is the indulgence in “nice speculations of philosophy” in unusual contexts (xix). It can be seen that metaphysical poetry has strong connections with philosophy. If this context of metaphysical poetry is put together with the work of John Donne, then it is easier to understand why Donne makes use of personification and why it plays such a significant role in his poetry. Donne’s work can be seen as written work with a philosophical view. Eliot signifies that it is difficult to define metaphysical poetry, but that John Donne often employs devices considered characteristically metaphysical (59-60). Thus Donne’s work can be seen as Metaphysical poetry and Donne himself a metaphysical poet.

The Sun Rising

In the poem “The Sun Rising” the speaker is a man who is in love with a women whilst lying in bed with her. In this case the speaker has to be male because the “prescribed” gender role of that time only allows the speaker to be male. The speaker could possibly be John Donne himself because the way the speaker speaks is consistent with the other poems of the poet. The speaker is addressing the Sun that is rising because it is disturbing the blissful night that the speaker and his lover had.

The argument that the speaker is making is that the Sun is disturbing their night. The speaker wants the Sun to go away and bother other people, but speaker shifts the idea from that to the importance of him and his lover and their room. The speaker then claims that the bed is the centre of the universe and that if the Sun only shine there then it is shining on the whole world.

In the first stanza the idea is that the Sun is bothering the speaker. This can be seen in the condescending way the speaker addresses the Sun and also in the rhetorical questions being asked “Why dost thou thus … call on us?” (2-3) and “Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?” (4), the latter meaning; do even the lovers have to do what you say? The speaker then tells the Sun to go bother other people e.g. “school boys”, “prentices”, “court-huntsmen” and “country ants”. The meaning of country ants would be farm workers. At the end of the first stanza, the speaker makes a romantic gesture. In line nine “Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,” which means that love never changes and then in line ten “Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time” which means he has eternal love for his lover.

In the second stanza the idea shifts from the Sun to the speaker himself. The speaker starts by saying that the Sun isn’t as powerful as he thinks he is. The speaker can “… eclipse and cloud them [Suns’ beams] with a wink” (13). The speaker makes yet another romantic gesture by saying that he wouldn’t wink because “[he] would not lose her sight so long” (14). The speaker then goes on to demonstrate his power and importance. He states that he has taken “Indias” and also that all the kings “here in one bed lay” (20). This means that all of the undiscovered riches, the Indies, and all of the kings are actually in his world.

In the third stanza “She is all states, and all princes, I, Nothing else is” (21-22) suggests that his lover is the lands and he has a right to take it (her). Furthermore he is also saying that nothing else exists, it’s just him and his lover. In line 26 he says that the whole world has been contracted into their bedroom, thus the importance of the whole world is now their bedroom. That is why he says “Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere” (29). He ends by saying “This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere” (30). This last line means exactly what he has been saying the whole time, that their bedroom is the centre of the universe, the most important thing.

The speaker in the poem starts the poem with “Busy old fool, unruly sun” (1). The attitude that is conveyed here from the speaker is condescending. “Saucy, pedantic wretch” (5) is another condescending line. The speaker also uses certain words that commands the Sun, word like “go” (5), “look” (16) and “ask” (19). The speaker addresses the Sun in a very condescending and disrespectful way.

Death be not proud

The speaker in the sonnet could be a woman or a man who is addressing Death. He/she is confronting death directly and in doing so does not show any fear. The speaker tells death exactly what he/she is feeling. In this case gender doesn’t play any significant role. The speaker could be male or female.

In the sonnet “Death be not proud” there are several arguments being made. In the octave there are two arguments; the first is that death brings people a delightful rest, the second is that all of the best people die young, this makes death seem somewhat attractive. In the sestet there are three arguments being made; the first is that death is a slave to “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” (9), the second is that death is associated with atrocities such as “poison, war, and sickness” (10), and the third is that death has no reason to be proud because it isn’t eternal, death is only a “short sleep” (13).

In the first two lines the speaker tells Death not to be proud, even though many people fear Death “though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful” (1-2), the speaker says that Death is not to be feared. The speaker means that Death thinks it is the victor, but he doesn’t really win when he kills people “For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, Die not” (3-4). The speaker then goes on to compare Death with “rest” and “sleep” which is something that brings humans “Much pleasure” (6). In the last two lines of the octave the speaker describes how the best people die young “And soonest our best men with thee do go” (7). This is what gives Death an attractive side. “Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery” (8) here the speaker acknowledges what Death is doing, letting their bones rest and giving their souls over to heaven.

The sestet begins to explain that Death is nothing more than a slave to “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” (9) and that Death is also associated with the things we deem bad like “poison, war, and sickness” (10). The speaker also then says that Death isn’t even needed when there is drugs and magic charms to help people sleep “And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well” (11) and that it is even better than death “And better then thy stroke” (12). The speaker asks Death after that remark “why swell’st thou then?” (12) Meaning why are you boasting then? The last two lines the explain that Death is only a short sleep and when the person awakens then they will live for eternity and the Death will be no more:

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die. (13-14)

There are certain lines that convey the attitude of the speaker towards the addressee. The sonnet “Death be not proud” starts defiant and patronising, this can be seen in the lines:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, (1-2)

The attitude is also very combative and this can be seen in the line “nor yet canst thou kill me” (4). The poem consists of subtle arguments being made and then it has certain bursts of emotion. The ending has a self-assured triumph that humans prevail over death.

Critical Response to Donne’s Poetry

Eliot says that the poetry of John Donne is of late Elizabethan and that the feeling of his work is very close to that of Chapman’s. “In Chapman especially there is a direct sensuous apprehension of thought, or a recreation of thought into feeling, which is exactly what we find in Donne[‘s] [work]” (Eliot, 63). Eliot also means that both poets are concerned with the perpetuating of love by offspring (63).

Willmott means that Donne always portrays his emotions in his work, either through writing “whining poetry” or “comically exaggerates his feelings as in ‘The Computation’” (12). Willmott also describes Donne’s work as going back to an earlier tradition of Ovid’s elegies, which is sexually frank, where he views love with cynicism (12) and still keeps it “strikingly original” (12). Donne’s work also has a certain variety and can speak to readers in a tender simplicity (Willmott, 12):

Sweetest love, I do not go,

For weariness of thee. (‘Song’, 1-2)

As a twenty-first century reader of John Donne’s two poems, I would respond to these poems by saying that it is very profound. This could be mostly because of the 17^th century English which it is written in. But it is also very interesting because the thoughts of literary men from that time can be seen in their poetry. The philosophical ideas and how they perceived the world is right there for us to study. The poem “The Sun Rising” is very intellectual. We have made significant advances in all aspects of human life, but it is amazing that a poem from the 1600s could still be seen as something intellectual.

The sonnet “Death be not proud” still relates to some of the Christian views of today. It is the belief that death is only the next step to eternal life. These views are strongly represented in the poem and the way in which John Donne writes the poem makes you believe that death can be conquered.

In both of John Donne’s poems personification is used. In “The Sun Rising” it is the sun that is personified and is addressed, in “Death be not proud” it is death that is personified and the speaker addresses it. In both of these poems it is because of the personified thing that a central conceit can develop and that an argument can be formulated. In both poems the personified things are being challenged. The attitudes toward these things are also condescending and disrespectful. The two poems are very different in nature. “The Sun Rising” is more of a love poem and has a certain pompousness where the sonnet “Death be not proud” is more a threatening and disapproval poem.

These two poems of John Donne is certainly metaphysical poems. It can be seen in the philosophical ways of thinking and also in the way in which the personification is used. There are certain characteristics that can be seen in the poems which goes along with the time in which it was written for example the knowledge of astrology, cosmology and cartography in the poem “The Sun Rising” and also the role of religion and the perception of life in the sonnet “Death be not proud”. The poetry of John Donne is aspiring even though it was written several hundred years ago. It is interesting to see the start of the enlightenment reflected in poetry.

Bibliography

Eliot, T S. Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot. Ed. Frank Kermode. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1975.

Gardner, Helen. The Metaphysical Poets. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Grierson, Herbert J.C. Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century. Ed. Alastair Fowler. London: Oford University Press, 1995.

Willmott, Richard. Four Metaphysical Poets: An anthology of poetry by Donne, Herbert, Marvell and Vaughan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.