The good morrow by John Donne

The Good-Morrow by John Donne: Analysis. The Good-Morrow, by John Donne, chiefly deals with a love that advances further from lusty love to the spiritual love.The poem makes use of biblical and Catholic writings, indirectly referencing the legend of the Seven Sleepers and Paul the Apostle's description of divine, agapic love – two concepts with which, as a practicing Catholic, Donne would have been familiar.

1. Good morrow, kids! [although it’s not morning, I know ]

2. The Good Morrow by John Donne [1572-1631] A poem of 21 lines divided into 3 stanzas. It was published in his 1633 collection  Songs and Sonnets

3. Meaning of the title! Good Morning or A New Beginning

4. I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I  Did , till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?  But sucked 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 . 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.  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 mixed equally;  If our two loves be one, or, thou and I  Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

5. Let’s go through the poem line by line! Lines 1-3 I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly ? ---- the speaker wakes up and starts to question himself [rhetorical question] , what on earth did we  do  before we were together? ("By my troth" is an old-school version of "what on earth.") -- Like all rhetorical questions, this one is not really meant to be answered! Instead the speaker uses it as a way to get his poetic monologue rolling, to get his lady friend thinking about love and why their relationship is so fantastic. 

6. Have a look at the words “weaned” and “Sucked”  "Weaned" and "sucked" supposedly refer to breastfeeding. However these two words might give us sexual imageries as in the above lines, the speaker’s addressing the woman in the morning after having spent the night together . "Country pleasures" takes it to a new level.  On the surface, "sucked on country pleasures, childishly" is another breastfeeding reference, with "country" implying that childhood fun is rustic (of the country) and unsophisticated . But it can also be understood as a reference to gross sexual gratification in this context!

7. Lines 4-5 Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. Here, the Seven Sleepers refer to a an allusion of a legendary group of Christian children who were walled up alive by the Roman emperor Decius (AD 249-251).  But instead of suffocating or starving to death, these children slept miraculously for a really long time. When a random builder un-bricked the entrance 187 years later, he found them alive and well.

8. Allusion? An allusion is a  figure of speech that references a person, place, thing, or event. Each of these concepts can be real or imaginary, referring to anything from fiction, to folklore, to historical events and religious manuscripts . For example, a woman might say to her husband, "Thanks, Romeo ," after he's offered some type of romantic gesture. Traditionally , Romeo (from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) is looked upon as one of the most romantic fictional characters in history. In this example, the wife would have succeeded in telling her husband he's wonderful, simply by alluding to this fictional romantic man. These references can be direct or indirect, but they will often broaden the reader's understanding. 

9. Why this allusion? With this allusion the speaker suggests that anything before this relationship was (1) childish , (2) boring (because everyone was asleep), and (3) something to be hidden or afraid of . He asserts that compared with their true love (“this”), all past pleasures have been merely “fancies ,” and the women he “desir’d, and got” were only a “dream” of this one woman.

10. Lines 6-7 If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee. The final two lines of the stanza sum it up. Thinking back on his life, the speaker says that any beautiful woman he saw and desired was merely a dream of his current beloved. C ompared to the love he's experiencing now, those affairs had no substance, no importance ultimately , no reality .

11. The second stanza opens with a triumphant greeting to their souls as they awaken into a constant, trusting love. The first stanza was all about bodies. Stanza two wakes up the souls and starts to shows us what exactly this true love is. Check out the lines below, And now good-morrow to our waking souls, Which watch not one another out of fear ; The point the speaker's making is that true love, the kind that involves the souls, is totally without fear. They watch each other and feel only the pure joy of being together.

12. For love, all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere. The reason these souls are so perfectly satisfied is that erotic love overpowers the love of anything else.  But at the same time that the outside world begins to mean nothing to you, love is turning your bedroom smaller version of the world. True love is so perfect and all-consuming that it can contain the whole universe . This hyperbolic claim shows us some serious geographic and cartographic imagery in the poem. These lines reflect the Renaissance idea that an individual held within them the universe.

13. 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 triplet of stanza two uses anaphora: the repetition of the same word(s) at the beginning of succeeding lines. Here it's "let," which really underlines the speaker's suggestions . Since love has made their bedroom the equivalent of the whole world, these lovers are no longer interested in traveling anywhere else.  T hese lovers aren't interested in tearing up a new jungle. Through their love, they already possess the whole world, right there in that rumpled bed .

14. More to consider… The speaker contrasts the physical worlds sought by explorers and map readers with the spiritual world of the lovers . When he asserts that each of them is a world in itself, he is referring to the view that every man and woman is a miniature universe, with the same qualities and components as the greater universe . [ That makes this bedroom (which is also the whole world) a pretty world-saturated sanctuary. ]

15. In the third stanza the speaker initially gets close up and personal. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest ; The speaker sees his own face reflected in her eyes and assumes that she can see his too . Gazing into her eyes, he claims that emotional honesty resides in the face. Their true love is written in their eyes and the expression of their mouths.

16. Where can we find two better hemispheres, Without sharp north, without declining west? Another rhetorical question about these hearts, using a  conceit  (an extended metaphor) to compare them to two separated hemispheres . These heart-hemispheres are perfectly designed and perfectly matched. With no cold wintry north, these hearts are full of warm southern love; and with no west, where the sun sets every day, bringing darkness to the world, they hold nothing but constancy and light.

17.  H ere, "declining west" or sunset slyly brings the poem back to its title, emphasizing that this is about waking up to true love and starting a new day . So,  if love = wholeness, it makes sense that these lovers compare themselves to halves or hemispheres. In their union of love, they recognize that they're making themselves whole.

18. Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. The triplet begins with an observation that seems a bit out of context. In medieval theories of medicine, death was thought to be the result of imbalances in the body's elements . However, the speaker here, concludes that if their feelings for each other are the same or really similar, then their love is so healthy that it will never weaken or die.

19. By comparing their love to a human body, the speaker argues that their passion is not just strong and lusty; it's also well-balanced and in proportion.  The concept behind the fifth line here, is that the earthly sphere is composed of heterogeneous substances which are unstable, ever-changing, and therefore mortal. The heavenly sphere is formed of homogeneous spiritual substance, which is pure and eternal . Sensual love is earthly and subject to change and decay, whereas the love enjoyed by the speaker and his beloved is “equal,” a state of oneness, a pure and changeless union.

20. Things to remember Donne is considered an innovator in the area of love poetry. The Renaissance style relied heavily upon convention : the predictable nature of the love affair, the idealized qualities and appearance of the woman , the subservient role of the poet, and the courtly language in which he addressed the woman. Donne broke all these conventions. He shocked readers of his century and the next with his direct, dramatic style, his colloquial language, his open approach to physical aspects of love, and his use of the broken rhythms of real speech. He was also criticized for perplexing the women in his poems (traditionally addressed in terms of uncomplicated emotion) with complex metaphysical matters .

21. Donne begins “The Good-Morrow” with a typically dramatic opening—no less than three insistent questions to the woman, in the style of everyday speech. The entire poem has the air of being part of an intimate conversation which keeps one always conscious of the immediate presence of the woman . The language and imagery of the poem, however, are deliberately exaggerated, with a strong element of paradox .

22. Metaphysical Conceit Extended metaphor Two vastly different images combined Dive into greater depths of comparison The metaphysical conceit is the bread and butter of metaphysical poetry, which was popular during the seventeenth century.

23. During the 17th century, the  metaphysical poets  such as John Donne, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham Cowley used a literary device known as the metaphysical conceit. A  metaphysical conceit  is a complex, and often lofty literary device that makes a far-stretched comparison between a spiritual aspect of a person and a physical thing in the world. Quite simply, a metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor, which can sometimes last through the entire poem. A metaphysical conceit works to connect the reader's sensory perceptions to abstract ideas. Although the conceit slowly went away after the 17th century, due to being perceived as artifice, some later poets like Emily Dickinson used it. Let's take a look at some metaphysical conceit examples from a few famous poems.

24. John Donne is considered the pioneer of metaphysical poetry, and he made an extensive use of the metaphysical conceits in his poetry.