Whereas ‘The Flea’ is set about his argument to get his lover to bed, ‘The Sunne Rising’ is about the morning after. It is an example of an ‘aubade’ (dawn poem) in which lovers express displeasure for the nights end. In this poem the persona is angry at the sun for disrupting his perfect moment with his lover. ‘Why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains, call on us?’ It also contains the same rhetoric as evident in ‘The Flea.’ It gives the persona a very forceful and direct tone, aimed at the sun. ‘Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide late school boys.’ This tone changes through the poem to one that is less angry, yet his view of his relationship is still the most important thing in the world. ‘This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.’ The displacement of the outside world in favour of two lover’s inner world serves to support the feeling of the centrality of human love in a constantly changing and prying universe. ‘Busy old fool, unruly sun.’ The sun is prying and changing, and is the true centre of the universe, while the persona wishes him and his lover were.
The use of typical metaphysical devices helps make both poems seem much more believable than they should be. The witty, intellectual personas and Platonic concepts that feature in metaphysical poets are very common in both. The far-fetched metaphors, such as comparing the flea to sexual intercourse, though crazy do work when spoken with the intellectual ability of the personas.
The scene of a small room is evident in both ‘The Flea’ and ‘The Sunne Rising,’ with the latter being based in only one bed, albeit a rather larger one. This emphasises the points being put across about nothing else needing to matter. In ‘The Flea’ nothing else matters now that the two bloods have been mixed, so the woman has no more need to worry about her chastity as it has already been lost. Whereas in ‘The Sunne Rising,’ as the act of intercourse has happened, nothing else, even the inevitable rise of the sun, matters to the persona and his lover. The persona even goes as far as saying that his mistress’s eye could blind the sun. ‘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.’ He is questioning whether the sun realises that his lover is more beautiful that all the spices from the East and West Indies, well known in the Elizabethan time as areas of high wealth. Whereas Shakespeare in Sonnet 130 mocks the idea of comparing people to things they are not, such as ‘My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun,’ Donne exaggerates this idea to put across the point that she is better than the sun. This use of Petrachan concept paired with hyperbole works well in getting an almost arrogant tone across, seeming to reduce the sun, something the persona is aiming for.
The main portrayal of relationships changes between the two poems. ‘The Flea’ almost degrades women and the value of relationships, but it is done in a humorous way that John Donne would have done to impress his friends as a youth.’ O stay, three lives in one flea spare, where we almost, yea, more than married are.’ His argument using the fly as a bargaining chip is ridiculous when looked at. The process of using a small room speeds up the interaction. ‘This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.’ He seems to stay very stoic in manner as he doesn’t seem to see the callousness in his speech.
‘The Sunne Rising’ gives a much more positive view of relationships and being in love. As his conquest of his lover has been completed he doesn’t want the sun to ruin his moment with this beautiful woman. Along with mentioning his lovers superior power to the sun, he also mentions how easy it would be to turn away from the sun and close his eyes ‘but that I would not lose her sight so long.’ He just doesn’t want to lose a moment of looking at her, when she is next to him. It is one of Donne’s most charming poems, much more accessible to the masses than ‘The Flea’ which was written with his friends in mind. He implies that the things that he feels, overpower the sun’s power. The scene of the small room emphasises his feelings, something also helping to degrade the power of the sun.
