THE GOOD MORROW - John Donne
I wonder, by my troth, what thou
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.
ABOUT THE POET
John Donne was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, and satires. He is also known for his sermons. Donne died on 31 March 1631 and was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral where a memorial statue of him by Nicholas Stone was erected with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself.
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| John Donne |
BACKGROUND TO THE POEM
Donne is a pioneer of the metaphysical poets. This group of poets regarded poetry as an intellectual endeavour, rather than an emotional one. They used paradox, metaphor, pun, irony, etc. to bring home their points. “The Good Morrow” was written while Donne was still a student at Lincoln's Inn, where he studied theology, history and poetry.
The poem was written at a time when England was undergoing a lot of intellectual, political, social and literary transformations. England, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I had just gone through the climax of Renaissance period in the sixteenth century. Her reign ushered in a new phase in the evolution of the art and literature, explorations to the Americas, increased trade, increased sea travel, etc. This brought about increased wealth, relative peace and the emergence of a prosperous middle class in the English society.
This culminated into a delightful atmosphere that provided enough Serenity of mind for the people to appreciate literature, especially poetry. Donne's poem attests to his artistic ingenuity, as he takes himself and his lover out of out of all these epochal occurrences and into a blissful world of serenity and equanimity. In that realm, he talks about love, enchanting love that is powerful and timeless.
SETTING OF THE POEM
The geographical setting of the poem is England, around the seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. To the people of that time, Donne's style was very much like a normal conversation between a man and his lover, unlike the high poetic language used by the Elizabethan poets. “The Good Morrow” was written during the Age of Discovery, the period of intense European sea exploration lasting roughly from the 15th to 17th centuries. This context informs the poem's second and third stanzas, with their focus on "sea-discoverers," "new worlds," "maps," and "hemispheres." The poem compares the desire to chart new lands with the pleasures of love itself, and finds the latter to be more powerful and exciting. Indeed, the speaker finds love so pleasurable that he or she proposes to withdraw from the world in order to dedicate him or herself entirely to that love. Instead of seeking adventure, the speaker proposes that the lovers “make one little room an everywhere.” For the speaker, then, love creates its own world to explore.
SUMMARY OF THE POEM
The Good Morrow” is an aubade—a morning love poem—written by the English poet John Donne, likely in the 1590s. In it, the speaker describes love as a profound experience that's almost like a religious epiphany. Indeed, the poem claims that erotic love can produce the same effects that religion can. Through love, the speaker’s soul awakens; because of love, the speaker abandons the outside world; in love, the speaker finds immortality. This is a potentially subversive argument, for two reasons. First, because the poem suggests that all love—even love outside of marriage—might have this transformative, enlightening effect. Second, because of the idea that romantic love can mirror the joys and revelations of religious devotion.The Good Morrow was written while Donne was a student at Lincoln's Inn, the poem is one of his earliest works and is thematically considered to be the "first" work in Songs and Sonnets. Although referred to as a sonnet, the work does not follow the most common rhyming scheme of such works—a 14-line poem, consisting of an eight-line stanza followed by a six-line conclusion—but is instead 21 lines long, divided into three stanzas. "The Good-Morrow" is written from the point of view of an awaking lover and describes the lover's thoughts as he wakes next to his partner. The lover's musings move from discussing sensual love to spiritual love as he realises that, with spiritual love, the couple are liberated from fear and the need to seek adventure. 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 practising Catholic, Donne would have been familiar.
Stanza 1 - The poem opens with the poetic persona talking to his lover (a woman). The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue, whereby the lover he addresses is not given the opportunity to respond to what he says. He starts with a rhetorical question and says he wonders the type of life or what picture of reckless pleasures govern him and his lover before they actually engaged in real love. What was their experience like before they met and became lovers? Were they not like infants who depended on their mother's breasts for survival? This means they might still be infants then and never bothered about love. He also wonders if they were asleep then in “the Seven Sleepers’ den” at this period of their infancy “The Seven Sleepers’ den” is an allusion to seven Christian children who were sealed in a cave where they slept for about 200 years, by Emperor Decius at 250 AD.
The poetic persona is optimistic that the time he has to spend with her lover can only be described as sheer bliss (heaven-on-earth) kind of experience. He asserts that the past years which they didn't meet to start loving each other was a waste; and from henceforth, the only thing that occupies his mind is the thought about his woman (lover). He is now brought back to his sanity and focus; having seen the woman of his dream.
Stanza 2 - The poet persona now uses ‘good-morrow’ (which in seventeenth century was the way of saying ‘good morning’ in England.) That is, their period of their being together has come, unlike when they haven't known or met as lovers. The poet persona paints the picture of the two love-birds being on the bed, in the same room—"And makes one little room an everywhere.” Their union and bonding mean the whole world, and it's more than everything.
The poet persona talks about the importance of true love, one Not inhibited by fear, but is predicated on mutual love, respect and trust, A romantic relationship devoid of trust often collapses. The poetic persona states further that sea-discoverers may discover New worlds men may voyage across the sea to other lands; maps May be spread and men may even chart the location of the other worlds, but himself and the lover are not interested in all that. They are not even interested in looking for other suitors, but that they are satisfied with each other and the love they share: “Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.”
Stanzas 3 - Here in this last stanza, the poetic persona looks into the eyes of his lover. In many climes, the eyes are usually accepted as the symbolic windows to the human soul. The fact that they can see each other's reflections in, the eyes shows that they are now fused into one indivisible soul, body and spirit. This buttresses the spiritual angle of their romantic escapade.
Being a metaphysical poet, Donne forays into Geography and Astronomy, where he compares their love to perfect hemisphere and the loss of sunset. The poet persona talks about love that is mutual and eternal, not a transient or fleeting love. Many romantic relationships collapse because of inconsistencies and unpredictability of human beings. As people grow, their value system changes, and this affects their love life, too. A man might be dating a dark lady today, and tomorrow, he prefers a fair one, and vice versa.
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| Hemisphere |
In conclusion, the poet opines that if two people genuinely love each other; and their love is mutual, the romantic relationship will never die, but will stand the test of time. He puts it more clearly: 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.
THEMES
The emptiness of life without enduring and true love - The poet asserts that life is empty if there was no true and enduring love. Life would be barren and boring. He tries to regret the cause of their not meeting earlier than they did. He sees the time they didn't meet yet, as wasted years. He then asks if it was because they were children sucking milk from their mothers' breasts. He expresses joy that having met, there is heaven-on-earth kind of bliss waiting for them. As far as he is concerned now, the lover is the most beautiful person in the entire world; she is the only she dreams about. No wonder when God made man, He made a woman for him, to fill his emptiness. It takes the union of male and female to consummate procreation.
The power of true love - The poet persona shows clearly the power of true and mutual love. He opines that if two lovers get lost in love, would involve their body, spirit and soul. It even goes beyond physical to the spiritual. The two lovers were contented with their love as they call their small room, the whole world.
The poet asserts that their hemispheres are superior to the Earths hemispheres as their love has no boundaries. In conclusion, he says their love never dies, but It's permanent This is because they are already mixed equally and they do not slack.
Sensuality - The poet uses Several imageries to show the amorous relationship existing between the two lovers. There is a small room, which they call their whole world. Male and female who are lovers often stay in the same room, and on the same bed before they explore each other. “Worlds on worlds” shows the fusion of the body and soul of the two lovers. They ‘possess one world’, and they look into each other's eyes. There is often a war between the spirit and the flesh. The flesh wants to fulfill its pleasures of lust, while the spirit revolts against it.
Infancy and growth — The poet takes readers through two important stages in man's life. First, a person is born, and sucks his mother’s breasts in infancy. Then, he grows to become an adult where he searches for true love. It is at this maturity level that a man tries to woo a woman.
Love as an Awakening
“The Good Morrow” is a celebration of love, which it presents as an intense and unparalleled pleasure. All the joys that the two lovers experienced before they found each other pale in comparison to the joy they experience together. Indeed, love is so powerful that the speaker describes it as an awakening of the soul: it is almost a religious experience. And like a religious experience, it reshapes the lovers’ attitude to the world at large. Like monks or nuns who dedicate themselves to religious practice, the two lovers dedicate themselves to love above adventure and career success. “The Good Morrow” thus translates romantic—and erotic—love into a religious, even holy, experience. Love itself, the speaker suggests, is capable of producing the same insights as religion.
“The Good Morrow” separates the lives of the lovers into two parts: before they found each other, and after. The speaker describes the first part of their lives with disdain: the pleasures they enjoyed were “childish.” Indeed, they were not even “weaned”: they were like babies. Like children, they had a limited understanding of life. They were aware of only some of its “country” (or lowly) pleasures, going through the motions of life without knowing there could be something more.
But once they find each other, it feels as though their eyes have been opened. The speaker realizes that any “beauty” experienced before this love was really nothing more than a “dream”—a pale imitation—of the joy and pleasure the speaker has now. “Good-morrow to our waking souls,” the speaker announces at the start of stanza 2, as though the lovers had been asleep and are just now glimpsing the light of day for the first time.
Since the sun is often associated with Jesus Christ in Christian religious traditions and light is often associated with enlightenment, the speaker’s description of this experience is implicitly cast in religious terms. That is, the speaker makes waking up alongside a lover sound like a religious epiphany or a conversion experience. The consequences of this epiphany are also implicitly religious. Having tasted the intense pleasures of love, the lovers give up on adventure and exploration: instead they treat their “one little room” as “an everywhere.” In this way, they become like monks or nuns: people who separate themselves from the world to dedicate themselves to their faith.
Immortality
The lovers' devotion to each other wins them immortality: “none can die,” the speaker announces in the poem’s final line. Immortality is more commonly taken to be the reward for dedicated religious faith, not earthly pleasures like romantic love. In describing this relationship in religious terms, the speaker breaks down the traditional distinctions between love and religion. Where many religious traditions treat erotic love as something potentially harmful to religious devotion, the speaker of “The Good Morrow” suggests that erotic love leads to the same devotion, insight, and immortality that religion promises.
However, the speaker doesn’t specify the nature of the love in question. If the lovers are married, for instance, the reader doesn’t hear anything about it. Instead, the speaker focuses on the perfection of their love, noting the way the two lovers complement each other. Unlike other poems that argue for the holiness of married love specifically (like Anne Bradstreet’s “To My Dear and Loving Husband”), “The Good Morrow” holds out an even more subversive possibility: that all love is capable of producing religious epiphany, whether or not it takes a form that the Church sanctions, like marriage.
FIGURES OF SPEECH AND POETIC DEVICES
Language - The diction used by the poet depicts the time setting of the poem which is in the seventeenth century. There were archaic words like 'troth' (truth, faith, loyalty); ‘thou’ (you); 'good morrow’ (good morning). This might make the poem a bit difficult for the contemporary readers to decipher.
Mood/Tone - The mood of the poet is that of love and romance. The tone is largely sensual and amorous.
Metaphor - The poet uses metaphor extensively throughout the poem. In the first stanza, the poetic persona compares his lover and himself to children being "weaned". This shows their infancy and immaturity before they met. He further uses 'waking souls’ which depicts that they have gone beyond their infancy, and now mature to step into love. ‘Worlds on worlds have shown' metaphorically compares the bodies of the two lovers to the physical world that we live in. This has sensual undertones, as sexual explorations between two people must involve the fusion of their bodies. The bodies of the two lovers are their own worlds. The poet also puts it more succinctly: “Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.”
Dramatic monologue - The poet talks as if he was in a conversation with an addressee. It is a one-sided conversation delivered by the poetic persona. “Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one/If our two loves be one, or, thou and I”.
Hyperbole - The poem opens with some hyperbolic expressions. He goes out of the ordinary to ask what both of them had been doing before they met. And he says maybe, it was because they were still sucking their mothers’ breasts then. “If ever any beauty I did see,/Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.” Here, the poetic persona uses exaggeration to Say the only beauty he sees in the world is that of his lover (but in reality, his lover might not be the most beautiful woman in the world), and that he only dreams about his lover.
"And makes one little room an everywhere.” Here, the poetic persona says their love has converted their small room into an entire universe. “If our two loves be one, or, thou and I/ Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.” Here, the poetic persona talks about the immortality of the love that exists between them. Love often stops at the death of either party, but the poetic persona Says their love cannot die, which also means that they themselves won't die.
All these above expressions are overstatements, for the purpose of emphasis.
Anaphora - This is the repetition of words at the beginning of two or more consecutive lines of poetry. Examples:
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
Repetition - The word “love” is being repeated for the purpose of emphasis. This shows clearly that the thematic preoccupation of the poem is ‘love’.
Alliteration - This is a poetic device that involves the repetition of an initial consonant sound —
"Were we not weaned till then?” (‘w’ alliterate);
“Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?” (“s” alliterate)
Allusion - The poetic persona alludes to “the Seven Sleeper’s den”. He further alludes to one of the lines of Shakespeare in his play Macbeth, though with some alterations. The poet's line: ‘And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;' alludes to a statement made by King Duncan: ‘There is no art to tell the mind's construction on the face.’
Here is also a case of Biblical Allusion:
The poet's line: 'Which watch not one another out of fear;' alludes to 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love (King James Version).
Synecdoche - This uses a part to represent a whole. Examples –
The poet uses 'face', ‘eye’, 'hearts' to represent the lovers.
Metonymy - The poet uses “beauty” to represent his lover(woman) and uses 'loves' and 'worlds' to represent the two lovers.
Imagery - As seen from the poem, there is a struggle between spirituality and sensuality; and the poet tends toward satisfying his fleshly pleasures. As one reads the poem, one fantasizes about two lovebirds on a bed, apparently unclad. The word like “weaned” suggests the images of a woman's breasts that a child sucks until it outgrows it. “Country pleasures” suggests the images of hedonism (drinking, dancing, lasciviousness and prostitution) that engulfed the entertainment of the lower classes in the English countryside. “Love”, and “worlds on worlds” point to how two lovers try to explore each other's body.
Rhetorical question
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Flashback - In the first stanza, the poet takes an excursion into the past lives of the lovers.
Enjambment - It is when an idea in a line of poetry flows into the next line or lines before a complete thought is achieved. This also known run-on-line:
I wonder by my troth, what thou and
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
In the stanza above, line 1 flows into 2.
Structure - The poem is written in three stanzas of seven lines each. Each stanza has the rhyme scheme — ABABCCC. This type of rhyme Scheme is called the septet.
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