In his youth, poet John Donne wrote racy libertine verse that insulted women and advocated for intercourse with multiple partners. The subject matter of his poems changed when he fell in love with his employer’s niece, Anne More, and married her. Nuptial bliss seemed to alter Donne’s outlook and priorities, which can be seen reflected in his later works, works like “The Sun Rising” and “The Canonization”. It’s easy to imagine Donne composing these odes to and about Anne. As a writer, Donne belongs to the school of poetry known as ‘Metaphysical’ poetry. Metaphysical poetry is widely known for containing a ‘conceit’: an odd and lengthy comparison between two things that bear little in common. For instance, Donne once wrote a poem where he compared a tear to a navigator’s globe. Conceits differ from simple metaphors in that they are sustained throughout the length of the poem; they can also be played with by reversing the conceit, adding new conceits, and so on.
Donne’s “The Sun Rising” is a stellar example of his wit, dexterity, and authenticity of sentiment. The speaker and his beloved (let’s presume that they are Donne and Anne) awake next to each other in bed. They are so content with the scene and so very in love that they fear any intrusion on their perfect bliss. But intruded upon they are are, only it’s not his employer nor her father, but the morning sun peering through the window and the curtains like a prying neighbor. The rising sun signals the start of a new day and chores to be done, appointments to be kept, food to be bought and prepared, and so on. It’s normally regarded as a harbinger off possibility, for the day is young and anything could happen. But Donne and Anne rue the intruding sun, for it is an interruption on their intimacy and love:
“Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,/ Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of
time.” (lines 9-10)
Donne and Anne feel that they are above such mortal constraints as time; they believe that their love frees them from having to rise and attend to their duties. Donne implies that love keeps its own hours and schedule. Indeed, the pair believe that they are exactly where they should be: in bed and in love.
Donne is so angry at the intrusion of the sun that he starts calling the sun unsavory names, like “Busy old fool” (1), “unruly” (1), and “Saucy pedantic wretch.” (5). This is Donne’s conceit: he has personified the sun, treating it as if it were a person. He suggests other things the sun should go do in place of intruding upon the couple, telling the orb to “….go chide/ Late school boys and sour prentices,/ Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,/ Call country ants to harvest offices….” (5-8), anything other than disturb his love. Donne is petulantly peeved at the sun, an inanimate thing, and responds by acting as if the sun were intentionally interrupting his lying with his beloved Anne. In Donne’s view, not only is the sun intruding, it is actively choosing to do so. He asks of the sun: “Why dost thou thus /Through windows and through curtains call on us?” (2-3) The lovers want to be left alone, and the intruding beams of light are interrupting their time- together as if the sun had knocked at the door and then burst into their chamber.
Donne’s response is to flip the conceit and aver that he is the sun and, thus, has all of the powers and attributes of the star. He mocks the sun for presuming that it has any power in this situation, asking: “Thy beams, so reverend and strong/ Why shouldst thou think?” (11-12), which is Donne’s way of dismissing the sun’s strength and influence. He then boasts that he, himself, is the sun and asserts that “I could eclipse and cloud them (the sun’s beams) with a wink.” (14). Not only is Donne now the sun, but he can do what the sun does “with a wink”, that is to say, more easily. The only thing preventing him from making good on his boast is the fact that, if he did, his beloved would not be able to see him: “But that I would not lose her sight so long.” (14) He then goes on to flip the conceit once more and states that Anne is the sun: “If her eyes have not blinded thine” (15), which suggests that Anne, too, wields the power of the sun’s rays and can blind the true sun just by looking at it.
Donne than avers that everything that is of worth or wealth in the world is already present with him and that, “Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,” (25) He concludes his piece by averring that, since the sun is intent on shining, then it is best that it it warm the couple:
“….and 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 center is, these walls, thy sphere.” (27-30)
Donne vacillates from ruing the rising sun, to claiming that he is superior, to, finally, putting the star to work in warming the couple as they lie in bed in love.
Another of Donne’s works, “The Canonization”, also focuses on love, and, once again, the speaker is trying to be prevented from loving. The piece opens mid- intervention: someone or a group of people are trying to dissuade the speaker from loving, because they deem the love immoral, impractical, inappropriate, or embarrassing. The speaker, however, wants none of this criticism, he retorts, “For God’s sake, hold your tongue, and let me love,” (1) He clearly feels that this unsolicited
advice is unnecessary and lists other critiques that he would rather hear instead, critiques of his manhood, state, age, reputation, and fortune. He would rather be subjected to disapproval of any of these than be prevented from loving.
The speaker has some suggestions of his own for his critics:
“ With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve,
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his honor, or his grace,
Or the king’s real, or his stampèd face
Contemplate; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.” (4-9)
He is essentially telling his detractors that their energies would be better spent on other pursuits; he cares not what they are, so long as he is left alone to love. Presumably, these very pursuits are the things his critics believe the speaker should be striving for. The fact that he is not turns his love into an act of rebellion: he will not do as the others do, he will do what he wants, and that is to love.
The speaker asks the rhetorical question of his critics, “Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?” (10) and proceeds to list all the ways in which his love has not harmed anyone. Rather, life appears to be running its usual course:
“Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.” (16-18)
But his critics are treating his love as if it were a threat to the stability of the status quo and must be contained or halted, a sentiment the speaker is clearly arguing against.
The speaker’s defiant countermove is to frame his love as a spiritually productive entity. He retorts:
“We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;” (28-30)
It’s almost as if the speaker, in a moment of enlightenment or foreseeing the future, has predicted the composition of this very poem. He resists his detractors, refuses their pleas, and, essentially, makes a religion out of his love, canonizing the thing he values above all else.
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