Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Sun Rising


The Sun Rising by John Donne is filled with many images, especially images of power. Donne uses these images to show that the power of love is even greater than the power of the sun. He does this by comparing these images of power to the love shared between the speaker and his lover. Donne writes "To warm the world, that done in warming us." This shows how the speaker views love, because if the sun's job is to warm the earth, its work is finished as long as he and his lover are warm.
Another way that Donne shows the power of love is through the tone of the poem. Almost immediately, there is a distinct, scolding tone towards the sun. The speaker has just been woken up, and scolds the sun, calling it the chider of "late schoolboys, and sour prentices." As the poem moves on, the speaker's tone changes to a more dismissive tone, as if to tell the sun to go on and leave them alone because their love is much more important than the sun.