"The Sun Rising"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines John Donne's "The Sun Rising," an aubade poem in which the speaker berates the sun for rousing him and his lover after a night of sexual bliss. It looks at how his relationship with his mistress becomes the axis around which both the poem and his life revolve and how in his mind, the vast outer limits of the universe contract to the small space that he occupies with his lover, the only space of any importance to him: his bed. It analyzes the diction of the speaker, the external structure of the poem and the transformation of cosmic symbols and celestial imagery throughout the poem. It discusses how the use of the poem's setting as a microcosm of the world illuminates the poem's central theme of the paradoxical nature of true love.

From the Paper:

"The speaker's interpretation of the sun's functions evolves throughout the poem, mirroring the fluctuations of his own passions. Initially, he belittles the sun by associating it with the distasteful tasks of rousing "late schoolboys and sour prentices" (6) and calling mindless automatons, or "country ants" (8) to work. In the second stanza, he further extends his arrogant deprecation of the sun's faculties by asserting both that he could shut out its rays by merely closing his eyes and that his mistress? eyes shine so brightly that they could eclipse its light. Such hyperbolic declarations mark the culmination of his condescending remarks and the climax of his reckless passion, for in the third stanza he tempers his bold assertions by finally recognizing the sun's true duty ?[t]o warm the world? (28)."

More papers on "The Sun Rising":

• Analytical Essay # 141545 : "Srimad Valmiki Ramayana" and "The Sun Rises And Sets"
• Book Review # 95957 : "The Sun also Rises" --An Analysis"
• Analytical Essay # 138754 : "Emasculation in "The Sun Also Rises"

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