the sun rising Flashcards
themes
attitudes to sexual love; love poets traditionally evoked the sun or the dawn. Ovid and Petrarch offer celebrated examples
busy old fool, unruly sun, why dost thou thus, through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
dramatic, abrupt opening of metaphysical poetry
speaker chiding the sun- negative, insulting language to describe the sun
personification of the sun
must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
rhetorical questions- rising sun is an intruder on the intimate world of the lovers, authoritative tone from the speaker through rhetorical questions
love is not subject to season or to time; why must the lovers adapt themselves to your timekeeping
saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
late school-boys and sour prentices,
saucy-anger at the sun is conveyed through impertinent adjective choice
aggressive imperative tone
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
reference to King James an enthusiastic huntsman
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days months, which are the rags of time
all alike-love never changes
hours days months-insulting metaphor
these lines explore the tension between praise of a permanent unchanging state (love) and a fascination with the physical world which is subject to time and change
slight tonal change, becomes more elevated- if love is unchanging why must the sun disturb the- hyperbole
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
why shouldst thou think?
direct address- tone of respect
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink
But that i would not loose her sight so long
undermining/mocking the sun
he can block it out by closing his eyes
joyful arrogance is perfectly tuned to the consciousness of a new lover, he doesn’t want to not see her
if her eyes have not blinded thine
poets frequently wrote of the brightness of their lovers eyes and compared them to the sun
look and to-morrow late tell me
her beauty should blind the sun not the other way round
hyperbole/imperative tone continued
whether both th’Indias of spice and mine
be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
east and west Indies; images of spices and golds, suggestive of the alluring richness of the lover- metaphorical conceit
ask for thou kings who thou saw’st yesterday
and thou shall hear, ‘all here in one bed lie’
she makes him feel like royalty, she is like royalty to him-hyperbolic
she’s all states, and all princes I ;
Nothing else is;
emphatic tone
hyperbolic metaphor, their love constitutes the basic realities of the world
princes do but play us; compared to this,
all honour mimic, all wealths alchemy
their love is so full of honour that princes will try and imitate them
alchemy- medieval science which tried to turn all metals into gold, their love is already gold and what everyone else should aspire to-metaphorical conceit
Thou sun aren’t half as happy as we
direct address, simile, personification of the sun
“In that the world’s contracted thus”
the world is contracted into their bed- all the sun has to do is shine on their bed and it shines on the whole world
lovers as a microcosm
shine here to us, and thou aren’t everywhere;
this bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
rhyming couplet clinches the moral argument of the verse of the lovers as a microcosm
form
30 line poem
3 parts
rhyme scheme- abbacdcdee
first 4 lines- sonnet like
poem doesn’t flow v well its frustrated only wants his loved one
iambic pentameter
