Metre : • Meter in Poetry | Iamb...
Sonnet : • SONNET (SHAKESPEAREAN ...
Archaic words : • Archaic words |THOU | ...
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line by line analysis of the poem in hindi and English
Summary
Figures of speech discussed
Rhyme Scheme at the end
POEM: THE SUN RISING
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams, so revered and strong
Why shouldst you 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 th’ Indias 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.
She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be John Donne
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
APPRECIATION OF THE POEM
Donne’s tone is colloquial and deliberately irreverential. He is trying to imitate the attitude of seventeenth century scientists who were trying to research planetary motions and were entirely rational and objective in their
approach? The sun and other stars were objects of study, not of worship. Donne
goes a step further and calls the sun a busy old fool, brushing aside all
reverence that theology suggested.
Words and phrases like motions, Indias of spice and mine, all states, alchemy, thy
centre, thy sphere have been taken from astronomy and politics. Not only they
connect the audience with contemporary scientific attitudes, they give a new
orientation to poetic activity. It is no longer an entry into the recesses of emotions
and feelings; it is an interiorization of the external world.
The use of hyperbolic expressions is quite abundant. The defiant mood of the
lover is established thereby.
The poem is developed as a thesis that proves that the bedroom is the centre of
the world. Something of the traditional glorification of love is however still there
in Donne’s claim that all wealth and power are perishable; being in love alone gives a
joy that is eternal.
The beginnings of a dramatic monologue can be felt in a poem like this where the
speaker, in a specific situation of his life, speaks to a silent listener. There is
enactment of drama; the changing gestures and verbal attacks create varieties of
scenes. The concentration and slow movement of a lyric have been substituted by
fast tempo.
Three stanzas, each ten lines long, make this an unusual aubade (a dawn love poem). With irregular line length and regular rhyme scheme of abbacdcdee .
Figures of speech :
Assonance: Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /oo / in ‘Busy old fool, unruly sun’ and the sound of /o/ in ‘Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime’.
Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line in quick successions. For example, the sound of /th/ in ‘Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride’.
Apostrophe: An apostrophe is a device used to call somebody or something from afar. Here, the poet has used an apostrophe to call the sun to express his feelings. For example, “Busy old fool, unruly sun.”
Consonance: Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line. For example, the sound of /t/ in “In that the world contracted thus” and the sound of /l/ in “Busy old fool, unruly sun.”
Enjambment: It is defined as a thought in verse that does not come to an end at a line break; instead, it continues to the next line. For example,
“Whether both th’Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.”
Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “Through windows, and through curtains call on us” and “This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.”
Personification: Personification is to give human qualities to non-human things. The poet has personified the sun throughout .
Symbolism: Symbolism is a use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings different from their literal meanings. Sun symbolizes powerlessness, whereas the room is the symbol of the universe.