Commentary on Donne’s “The Sun Rising”

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Commentary on Donne's "The Sun Rising"

John Donne was possibly the greatest metaphysical poet of the seventeenth century, and his greatness has endured. His blending of the intellectual with the emotional, and the spiritual with the physical has made him one of the most admired poets in the twentieth century. His work may be roughly divided into three groups1. The first group contains profane, often cynical love poetry in which women are treated as objects. The second is also composed of love poems, but these focus upon the spiritual aspects of love, as well as on the physical. In these poems, the lovers are united and human love is shown in its purest form. The third group comprises Donne's religious works, which deal exclusively with spirituality, divinity, and faith in association with religion. The Sun Rising, with it's assertion of the power of love over time and space, and the spiritual unity of the two lovers, belongs clearly to the second group.
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In The Sun Rising Donne proudly vaunts the power of love in two declarations: love creates its own time and establishes its own space. The first declaration is stated in the first stanza: "Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time." The second declaration is presented first in the second stanza, "All here in one bed lay", then repeated and clarified in the third stanza when Donne says " the world's contracted thus" in their love. When these two declarations are taken together, Donne's message becomes clear: if ...

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