"The
Good-Morrow"
Did, till we lov'd? Were we not
wean'd till then?
But suck'd on countrey pleasures,
childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers
den?
T'was so; But this, all pleasures
fancies bee.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but
a dreame of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking
soules,
Which watch not one another out of
feare;
For love, all love of other sights
controules,
And makes one little roome, an every
where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds
have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds
have showne,
Let us possesse one world; each hath
one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine
appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the
faces rest,
Where can we finde two better
hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without
declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixed
equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou
and I
Love so alike, that none doe
slacken, none can die.
The subject.
This is one of Donne's best known
poems, and a perfect sample of his way. The subject is love, love seen as an
intense, absolute experience, which isolates the lovers from reality but gives
them a different kind of awareness; a simultaneous narrowing and widening of reality.
The contents:
The poem is divided in three
stanzas:
- In
the first one the lover rejects the life he led until he met his present love.
He describes it as childish ("were we not weaned,"
"childishly") and unconscious, a kind of sleep ("Or snorted we
in the Seven Sleepers' den"?). His past loves must not be considered as
serious, since he was not completely aware of himself at the time. So, they are
rejected:
. . . But this, all pleasures
fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but
a dream of thee.
- The
second stanza is, in contrast, a celebration of the present. Each soul has
"awakened" to the other, and has discovered a whole world in it. The
union is self-sufficient; the "little room" where they are is all the
world, "an everywhere." Consequently, the outer world is rejected,
under the symbols of maps and discoverers. Up to now, the poet has cut off his
superfluous experience; past time (the first stanza), external space (2nd
stanza). He seems to be saying "Here and now."
- The
third stanza shows the perfect sincerity and adequation of both lovers, and it
adds a hope for the future to that assertion of the present we have met in the
first stanza. This perfect love is not only immortal: it makes the lovers
immortal, too:
If
our two love be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken,
none can die.
3.
Metrical scheme
1 U _ U / U
U _ /_ _
U _ 10 A
_/
U U _/ = U
U _ U _ / 10 B
U
_ U
_ U _ U /
_ U U / 10
A
U
_ U
_ UU_ U _ U _
/ 11 B
5 _
_/ U _ / = _ U
_ U _ / 10 C
U _ U
_ U _ U _
U _ / 10 C
U
_ U _ /
U _ //_ U U _ U _ // 12
C
U
_ _ _
U U UU _ U _ / 11
D
U _
U _ U _ U _ U _ / 10 E
10 U
_ _ _ U _ U _ U _ / 10 D
U
_ U _
U _ U _ U _ / 10
E
__ U _ U
U =_ U _ / 11 F
__ U _
U/_ U _ U _/ 10 F
_
U U _ _ _//_ U _ U_ _// 12 F
15 U
_ U U
= /_ U _ U _/ 11
G
U
_ _ _ U U U _ U _/ 10 H
_
U U _ _ _ U _ U _/ 10 G
U U _ _/ U
U U _ U _/ 10 H
U
_ U _/ _ U UU_ U U/ 10 A
20 U U _ U
U _ / U _ U _ 10
A
_
U U _ U _ U _ U // _ _ _// 12 A
I use (/) to mark internal pauses
and verse pauses; (//) to mark caesura and strophic pause.
This stanza form is not traditional:
it may have been invented by Donne. The decasyllables are used in the sonnet,
but Donne adds a 12-syllable line at the end which gives a nice and nearly
imperceptible variety to the scheme and rounds off the stanza.
It is worth noting that some of the
rhymes have changed sound since the seventeenth century: "one" (line
14) does no longer rhyme with "gone" (line 12) or "shown"
(line 13). The rhymes "childishly"/"I" and
"equally"/"die"/"I" are now imperfect ones.
Although the rhyme in /ai/ resumed at the end of the poem makes Donne repeat
one rhyming word, "I" (1ines 1 and 20), the two instances are far
apart and this is not a major defect in the rhyme-scheme.
Lines 9 and 11 have no real metrical
regularity, unless we pronounce "fear" (line 9) as a monosyllable and
"discoverers" (line 11) in the
relaxed form [dis'k^vr¶z], not suitable to poetic style.
But then syllabic regularity is not essential in English verse, which is mainly
accentual; foreign schemes must adapt themselves to the characteristics of the
English language. Some of the stresses (marked =) would be anomalous in an
Italian or Spanish decasyllable (or rather hendecasyllable), but Donne was
never too careful with this kind of harmony - in Ben Jonson's words, "for
not keeping of accent, he deserved hanging". Donne would not subordinate
the idea to the rhythm. Whether this is a vice or a virtue is a matter of
opinion.
4.
Ornamentation
We are going to examine in the first
place those figures of speech that contribute to enhance musicality, not sense;
those that could be appreciated on hearing the poem even by a person with no
knowledge of English. Of course, the main of these are the metrical scheme and
the rhyme, but these are taken almost for granted in a poem of the seventeenth
century, and deserve a separate section.
- Alliteration is a device
frequently used by Donne. There are several instances in our poem:
Line
2: ". . . Were we not wean'd till then?"
Line
4: "Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?"
Here
alliteration has an onomatopoeic character; alliteration in - s appears in two words related to sleep,
"snorted" and "sleepers", helping thus to underline the
sense.
- Anaphora in lines 12, 13
and 14; "Let sea-discoverers . . . Let maps . . . let us . . . "
- Epanadiplosis in line 1
(though perhaps a chance one):
"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I . . . "
- Parallelism of construction
on two occasions:
Line
18: without sharp north, without declining west
PREP ADJ N PREP ADJ N
Line 15: M y face in
thine eye, thine
in mine . . . "
POSS+N PREP POSS+N POSS.Pron. PREP POSS Pron.
Both parallelisms are strongly
emphasized byt the pause in the middle of the line. They appear in association
with other figures, such as
- chiasm: Line 15: My face in thine eye, thine
in mine . . . "
1st p. poss. 2nd. p. poss. 2nd pl. poss. 1st p. poss.
- Reduplication (present too in several other instances):
Line 10: "For love all love
of other sights controls"
Line
13: "Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown"
The
word "world" or "worlds" is also present in lines 12 and
14, but the effect is not so conspicuous.
Line
14: "Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one"
Line
15: "My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears"
(1) (2)
It
is of no consequence that (1) is an adjective while (2) is a pronoun; the
effect is the saqme as far as the ear is concerned.
Line
18: "Without sharp north, without declining west"
Line
21: ". . . love so alike that none do slacken, none can
die"
Now for the figures of speech which
add to the sense: it is in these that Donne's imagination ran more freely:
- Rhetorical interrogative - The
first four lines are a series of these:
-
"I wonder . . .what thou and I / Did, till we lov'd?"
Were we not wean'd till then?
But
sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or
snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?"
- Exclamation: Line 1:
"by my troth"
- Invocation: In line 8, the
poet addresses himself to his soul and his lover's, and wishes them a
"good-morrow". In fact, the whole of the poem is a sort of
invocation; the poet is speaking to his lady, who doesn't intervene.
- Metonymy: Line 6: "If
ever any beauty I did see"
Beauty = beautiful woman. In fact,
this is everyday speech. The same occurs in lines 8 (souls = minds, people) and
16 (heart=mind, especially if in love). A far more interesing metonymy is
developed in line 14:
"Let us possess one world; each
hath one, and is one".
So, each lover is a world for the
other. If I consider this a metonymy rather than a metaphor, it is because of
Donne's cultural background. At that time it was widely held - it was the
traditional belief - that man was a "microcosm": everything was
ordered in the "macrocosm" or universe just as it was in man; fluids
governed the body just as elements governed the macrocosm; man's destiny was
already fixed in the stars. Knowledge of the world was knowledge of man, and
vice-versa. So it was not difficult for a 17th-century man to think that a
person can assume the proportions of a whole world. Love makes the lover's
attention focus on a part of that great whole. The part is named with the name
of the whole (metonymy).
- Metaphors are fairly
frequent:
Implicit metaphor in lines 2-3
"Were we not wean'd till then? But suck'd on country
pleasures, childishly?" The state of the lovers prior to their falling in
love with each other is identified with childhood. The explicit metaphor would
be "we were babies before we loved".
There is another implicit metaphor
in line 4. It runs much in the same way as the other: "Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?"
This time, the previous state of
both lovers is identified with sleep. Explicitly: "We were asleep before
we loved".
Line
5: "But this, all pleasures fancies be".
Line 6-7: ". . . any beauty
I did see . . .was but a dream of thee".
This metaphor is the direct
consequence of the one in line 4: if the lover was asleep, it is altogether
fitting that anything he saw should be a dream. It is easy to see how these
metaphors enhance the contents of the poem.
Line 8: "And now good-morrow to
our waking souls".
This is but another extension of the
metaphors in lines 3 and 7. We have already seen that the first stanza deals
with the past, and that the metaphors were those of unconsciousness (childhood
and sleep). The second stanza deals with the present, with the lovers having
discovered one another, and, accordingly, this is dealt with with a metaphor of
waking in the first line of the stanza. "The "good-morrow" with
which Donne addresses the two lovers could be interpreted as a metaphor of the
whole of thie poem, if we suppose the latter to be autobiographical and as
sincere as as it seems to be; the "good-morrow" in the poem is the
lover's rejoicing because of the love he and his lady have found in each other;
"The Good-Morrow" (the poem) amouts to very much the same in real
life. The title would be fully justified.
Line 11: "Love . . . makes one
little room an everywhere".
This is in the same line as the
metonymy "lover = world". The outer world is discarded and the little
room becomes an "everywhere".
Line 16: "And true plain hearts
do in the faces rest".
Sincerity is depicted as a heart
"resting" on a face: no secret intentions for the lovers; their faces
show their hearts. They are externally and internally just as true to one
another.
Lines
17-18: "Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without
sharp north, without declining west?"
The lovers were called
"worlds" in line 14. Now the idea is rounded off; they are not
worlds, they are "hemispheres". This adds three notions to the
previous idea. First, the lovers aren't complete by themselves, they need each
other. A hemisphere is a perfect metaphor for any incomplete thing.
Second, once the lovers are together, they form not only a complete body, but a
whole world (the word "hemisphere" suggests half of the world).
Third, the being they form when they are together is perfect: perfection has
been associated with the spheric shape since Greek times (Democritus,
Parmenides). So the world they form will have no imperfections, no sharp north
or declining west. "Sharp" may stand for quarrels between the lovers,
and "declining" for the gradual decay of love because of time. This
last metaphor opens the way for the final conceit, which states the idea in a
bolder way: immortal love makes the lovers immortal.
This last metaphor is an implicit
one. It is quite complicated, for it takes Donne three lines to develop it:
Whatever
dies, was not mix'd equally;
If
our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love
so alike that none do slacken, none can die.
The first line (19) is, poetically
speaking, rather superfluous, but it is necessary to make the reader understand
the nature of the metaphor that follows. It is an allusion to a scholastic
theory concerning matter, which is based on Aristotle's ideas on heavenly and
sublunary bodies. According to that theory, heavenly bodies are eternal, they
don't change, while sublunary matter is composed of elements in endless
changing combinations and warfare. Sublunary matter cannot reach stability
because it is not "mix'd equally". Donne applies this as a metaphor
of eternal love in lines 20-21. If the total love which is formed with the love
of each of the members of the couple is in perfect poise, that love will be a
perfect body, a heavenly being, and it will never die. If love can never cease,
it means that the couple will go on living and loving each other forever. This
image is very typical of Donne, and a perfect sophism.
So much for the figures of speech.
One more thing to note: the overtly hyperbolic character of the metaphors, in
accordance with the subject of the poem. In line 4, the hyperbole already
present in the metaphor of sleep is rounded out with an allusion to the Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus; these were seven Christian youths who slept for two
hundred years in the cave where they had been immured during Decius'
persecution (AD 251).
5.
Conclusion
The general characteristics we
attributed to Donne's poetry in section 1 are all present in this poem. In
section two, we have seen that it follows one of Donne's two optional views of
love, love as a nearly mystical experience which defies mutability, in contrast
to the cynical attitude of other poems ("The Flea", or "Woman's
Constancy" among the best known). In section 3, the metrical scheme has
proved itself to be original, although slightly imperfect. Donne's poems gain
nevertheless in conversational directness and sincerity what they lack in
rhythm. In section 4 we have observed the imagery to be in perfect tune with
the contents of the poem. Even figures of speech such as parallelism or chiasm
help to underline a sense of reciprocity between the lovers. As for the
metaphors and other figures of thought, they carry Donne's seal. It is
interesting to compare the last and most important metaphor of the poem to
these lines of "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning":
Dull sublunary lovers love
(Whose soule is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
The allusion is the same and is used
in much the same way. It is not difficult to understand why Donne was termed a
"metaphysical" poet.
The poem is a moving one: the
emotion it carries can be seen even in the language, which is overtly
emphatical; there are three instances of affirmative clauses with
"do" in only 21 lines (liness 6, 16, 21). Even the adverb
"everywhere" (line 11) is turned into a noun to make the expression
stronger. The impression of totality, of closeness and of rejection of the
outer world that the poem conveys finds here its perfect expression, although
it can be found in other poems by Donne, such as "The Sun Rising",
whose last three lines run thus (the poet is also in a room with his lover,
addressing the sun):
.
. . since thy duties be
To
warm the world, that's done in warming us,
Shine
here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This
bed thy centre is; these walls, thy sphere.
========================================================================
The first stanza
The first stanza of the poem is where the speaker,
who is one of the lovers talking to his partner, looks back to when they were
not in love. That time seems unreal. They were children, naïve, asleep even.
Whatever pleasures they experienced were mere unrealities (‘fancies’) compared
to what they have now. Any beauty (we presume any female beauty) was, again, a
mere dream to be set against the present intense and concrete reality.
The second stanza
The second stanza of the poem suggests that the lovers have woken now into
true reality, out of the shadows of night. In fact, they make their own
reality. The room where they are in bed is their world, and nothing exists
outside its walls. Yes, the poet says, there may be worlds out there: let
discoverers go and find them or map-makers draw them, but let us use our time
possessing our own private world.
The third stanza
One complete world suggests that each is a hemisphere perfectly
complementing the other. The poet concludes by
suggesting that if they can stay totally constant as lovers, then they cannot
die, since, according to current thinking, only what is contrary or of
different measure can disintegrate. A perfect harmony or completeness will be
theirs.========================================================================
Metaphysical Poets
- Metaphysical poems and metaphysical poetry has really
become an epitome of english poetry.
- With poets like John Donne, the tentacles of metaphysical
poetry has really spread far and wide.
- Some popular metaphysical poets of seventeenth century
are DONNE,VAUGHAN, MARVELL and
TRAHERNE, and popular figures like ABRAHAM COWLEY are
sometimes included in the list.
I WONDER by my troth, what thou and
I
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.
Did, till we loved ? were we not wean'd till then ?
But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly ?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den ?
'Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be ;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.
Understanding
the Theme of the poem Good Morrow by John Donne
- This Good Morrow meaning will help the readers in understanding the link
which:-
- Donne draws from medieval alchemy towards the end of
the poem to explain the immortality of the love which he shares with his
beloved.
- The poet says to his loved one that their love is
indestructible since it is pure.
- It is the hardest to relax the bonds of pure
substances.
- The mixing of two things causes impurity which
threatens the longevity of substances.
- The lovers do not feel this threat since their love is
not mixed with any selfish demands or intentions of any kind and is
perfectly pure.
- With such a strong bond of love between them the poet
is convinced that nothing can ever decrease or stop the stream of love
which flows between his beloved and him.
The
Good Morrow Meaning - Stanza One
- In the beginning of the Good morrow
poem, the poet asks his beloved how they used to spend their
lives before they had met each other. With his beloved in arms, the poet
realizes how empty his life was before he had met her. He considers that
phase of their lives to be as meaningless as the ones spent in slumber by
the seven sleepers of Ephesus in the den when they were trying to escape
wrath of the tyrant Emperor Decius. Being without his beloved was as
insignificant as those years which the seven sleepers had spent sleeping.
It means that those years bore no importance in his life anymore. During
those days when he was yet to discover true love, he would make up for
that emptiness by indulging in other pleasures of life but now after
understanding the meaning of love he realizes that those pleasures were
very artificial. Now it seems to the poet as if he was a small child
during those days who was being weaned on these materialistic pleasures
of the world in the absence of true love which was like mother’s milk to
that child. During those days all objects of beauty that he came across
were nothing but her beloved’s reflection. To the poet her beloved was
like a beautiful dream which was turned into reality. In this Good
morrow analysisit is worth mentioning that through false pleasures
the poet might be indicating towards his various liaisons with other
women which were just a reflection of the beauty which his true lover filled
him with.
And now good-morrow to our waking
souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear ;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.
Which watch not one another out of fear ;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone ;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown ;
Let us possess one world ; each hath one, and is one.
The
Good Morrow Poem Analysis - Stanza Two
- In the second stanza of “The good morrow” the
poet sheds light upon the bliss which envelops the lovers. He says that
their souls rise in the light of the new morning of love in their lives.
Their hearts are devoid of any kind of fear of commitment,
misunderstanding or losing the one they love. Their presence in the each
other’s life means so much to them that nothing catches their attention
anymore. Donne proposes his loved one to turn their tiny room in which
they make love into their only world. He says that he does not care about
how much the sea discoverers expand the boundaries of the world with their
discoveries. During those times when maritime discoveries were given
utmost importance, the new inclusions to the map of the world meant
nothing to the poet since his world only comprised of his beloved and
him.Their respective worlds have now been fused into one. This drawing of
an intellectual parallel from astronomy and geography strengthens the
metaphysics of the poem.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine
appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west ?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west ?
Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally ;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
Summary
of Good Morrow - Stanza Three
- Next the poet talks about theunique beauty of the
lovewhich he and his beloved share. Donne says that that sometimes he
and his beloved stare into each other’s eyes so longingly that they can
see their faces in the other’s eyes. This refection of faces in the eyes
reveals the true hearts of the lovers. Their hearts are true and spotless
in love. This means that their love for each other enables the lovers to
get rid of all their bad traits and harsh feelings towards the world which
helps them become better people. The poet further adds that unlike the
world which is divided in hemispheres, their world of love knows no
boundaries. It does not have a sharp cold northern hemisphere. Nor does it
have a western hemisphere which has to bid farewell to the sun. By drawing
this reference to Geography again, the poet tries to give us an insight
into theunparalleled bliss of his world of love where it is
always warm and sunny.
Conclusion
to the poem The Good Morrow
Thus through “The Good
morrow” we see that love is capable of elevating a person to new
heights from where he views his love and the world around him in a different
light.
