September 24, 2015
If you wonder what poetic devices occured in the poem? Personification has to be reckoned with. John Donne is known to be poet of personification and in this poem_ like several others, the sun personified a lot; it was written like a proper noun in the poem "Sun". It was also made a workaholic and a prying person "busy old fool, unruly sun/...through window, and through curtains, call on us" (in line 1 and 3) there are other poetic devices as hyperbole "if her eyes have not blinded thine", simile "Thou Sun art half as happy as we", there was also rhetorical questions in the poem "Must to thy motions lovers' seasons' run"(in line 5) "Thy beams, so reverend, and strong/ Why shouldst thou think"(in line 11 and 12) alliteration in line 8 "Call country ants to harvest offices" in line 23 "Princes do but play us" in line 28 "To warm the world", etc.
If you wonder what themes of the poem are then Pride of love and beauty will come to mind. After that comes The supremacy and consistency of life's events. The third theme is duty and it positive and negative effects.
(i) the pride of love and beauty was made evident when the poet downcast the sun by giving it derogatory names like "Busy old fool, unruly Sun" "Saucy pedantic wretch" but placed much importance on his love and the beauty of his lover. John Donne believed so much in lo
ve he said in line 9 and 10, "Love, all alike, no season knows, no crime,/ Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time"
(ii) The supremacy and consistency of life's events. John Donne was of the support that love is supreme and consistent than the sun working so hard to be supreme. He pointed that the sun couldn't last all the time unlike love withstands all odds hours in hours out, days after days, months after months, etc. He took the whole stanza 2 of the poem to belittle the sun:
"Thy beams, so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both the Indians of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay."
(iii) Duty and it's positive and negative effects. Duty has both positive and negative effect based on the busy performed by the sun in the poem; part of the positive of the sun is its ability to create awareness "through window, and through curtains, call on us" was in line 3 referring to the sun. Another positive duty of the sun is its ability to warm people "...and since thy duties be/ To warm the world, that's done in warming us" (line 27 and 28) the sun also performs the duty of lightening the whole during the day. The negative aspect of it duty is that it disturbs people where the poet was not even an exception and the poet even made us see that its duty can be limited by darkness.
If you wonder what the poem is about in a simple narration, The Sun Rising by John Donne is a three stanza poem with a little bit old english usage. It had a daytime setting with an attacking tone where the characters are the Sun, ants, apprentices, King's servants, school boys. John Donne described how he felt about the busy old fool, unruly Sun that moves around in the break of each day disturbing his and his lover. He was so pissed by the Sun that he rained abuses on the Sun; he even undermined the brightness of the Sun, saying that he could eclipse and cloud them with a wink. John Donne concluded that the Sun lacked much happiness as he and his lover did; "Thou Sun art half as happy as we,/ In that the world's contracted thus".
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Samuel C. Enunwa aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings soaring greatness)
