A Common Donne Theme, In Three of his Poems.

Essay #3                                                                          Rakesh Penumalli

A Common Donne Theme, In Three of his Poems.

        In the poems “The Sun Rising,” “The Good Morrow,” and “The Canonization,” John Donne emphasizes on the power of the lovers’ unity, which is identified through his idiosyncratic style.  Donne accomplishes this through his diction, and the effective use of imagery and structure throughout these poems.  

        In “The Sun Rising,” Donne conveys to the reader that this unity, attained by these lovers, is all encompassing; including the whole world which the speaker says is in the lovers’ room, with their bed and unity at the core of this world (lines 28-30).  Similarly, in “The Good Morrow,” Donne informs his audience of how the world of the speaker in this poem, is in his “little room” (line 11), unlike the all encompassing one in the other poem, is perfect, without the imperfectness of the real world like “sharp north” (line 18).  Then there is “The Canonization,” where Donne includes the point of unity among the lovers, but uses it rather to argue for the point that they deserve to be sanctified for this incredible unity.  In all three of these poems, Donne creates a progression from “bad” to “good.”  In “The Sun Rising,” as the title suggests, Donne starts out using early dawn, which is bad for the speaker because he has to wakeup since the sun is bugging the lovers with his overwhelming appearance “Through windows, and through curtains,” and as the poem continues, the reference is made to morning, and the second and third stanzas refer to the bright part of day.  Likewise, in “The Good Morrow,” Donne refers to the sun yet again, but this time it is not as blatantly stated. In the first stanza he starts with the time before dawn, alluding to how they “snorted … in the seven sleepers’ den.”  Stanza two refers to dawn, from early to late. And then the third stanza refers to the time after dawn and into midday.  Quite to the contrary, in “The Canonization,” there is no such allusion to the sun, but it does start out with “bad” connotations, and ends up with positive ones by stanza five.