John Donne ‘The Sunne Rising’ Essay Example

explains that despite the world being reduced to a single bed in a room, the old sun need not concern itself with warming the entire physical globe. Instead, as the lovers' bed has become the center of the world and its walls its sphere, the sun only needs to warm the lovers' space. By doing so, it will have effectively warmed the whole world as their love has become everything. The poet's argument revolves around this idea, highlighting that the love between the two individuals is so immense that it surpasses and outshines the external world. Ultimately, the sun could even cease its movement and simply warm and illuminate the lovers' bed to bring light to the entire world. Throughout the poem, the poet depicts the massive extent of love and even addresses the sun in a contemptuous manner, no longer revering it as a strong being but rather comparing it to a meddling old busybody.

The sun is depicted in a negative light in the poem's first line, with the noun "fool" and double premodification of "Busy old," which suggests an intrusive busybody interfering in others' affairs. The additional premodifier "unruly" implies the sun's intrusion is out of place, likening it to a scurrilous old gossip invading privacy for trivial talk, making it a "Saucy, pedantic wretch" who lectures and chides others. The poet instructs the sun to interfere with those who may appreciate its moral intrusiveness such as "Late school-boys and sour prentices," "court-huntsmen," and "country ants."

'The sun, personified as a lecture-loving schoolmaster who is disconnected from young love, is taught a lesson in verse two as he is lectured by the poet.

The lesson he receives is that the powerful lovers are superior to him, able to eclipse and even blind him. He is assigned homework to locate the true East and West Indies as well as to list the kings seen yesterday. The poet and his beloved correct the sun's past mislearning, teaching him that the bed holds the location of the Indies and that all the kings lay in one bed.'

The poet expresses pity for the sun in verse three and further emphasizes the point in the first four lines. However, the poet reassures the sun that it need not be unhappy and can be "half as happy as we." The reason for this is explained in a gentler way as the sun's great "age asks ease" and it can now relax into easier "duties." Rather than running about warming the entire globe, the sun need only "Shine here to us." The poet's relationship with the sun and his mistress is that of superior to inferior, where pity is finally taken on the meddlesome old schoolmaster sun, allowing it a peaceful retirement.

The poem showcases Renaissance astronomy theories, specifically the Ptolemaic view that the sun rotates around the earth, in contrast to the modern Copernican world view of the earth rotating around the sun. Additionally, the concept of celestial spheres, or planetary and solar rotation along particular lines, is utilized in the poem, with the last line stating "This bed thy center is" as a reference to this idea.

The poem 'The Sunne Rising' uses the celestial path of the sun's rotation to assert the poet's immense and permanent love. It works alongside 'The Good

Morrow' in portraying the microcosm of human relationships dominating over the macrocosm of the created world, using Renaissance science imagery. However, while 'The Good Morrow' takes a serious tone, 'The Sunne Rising' is more playful and jocular.