Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term - Senior Secondary School 1
Reading and Content Analysis of Non-African Poetry: Good-Morrow by John Donne.
Reading and Content Analysis of Non-African Poetry: Good-Morrow by John Donne.
SUBJECT: LITERATURE-IN-ENGLISH
CLASS: SS1
DATE:
TERM: 3RD TERM
REFERENCE
WEEK SIX
Reading and Content Analysis of Non-African Poetry: Good-Morrow by John Donne.
I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
‘Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be;
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ‘twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone;
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown;
Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix’d equally;
If our two loves be one, or thou and I
Love so alike that none can slacken, none can die.
Analysis of The Good-Morrow Stanza by Stanza
Stanza 1
Knowing that the title means good morning (Good-Morrow is archaic, an old fashioned way of greeting someone. Donne liked to join some of his words with a hyphen) the reader has a clue that the scene is set early in the day.
The first line takes the reader into the mind of the first person speaker, who is either asking himself or his lover a puzzling question. Note the language, it's 17th century English, so thou means you and by my troth means in all honesty or truth.
The first line runs on into the second (enjambment) and the caesurae (pauses caused by punctuation) ensure that the reader cannot go too quickly through these words. This is a carefully phrased question.
And that small phrase Did, till we loved?is important because it gives sense to the previous line and sets the poem off proper. Just what kind of existence did the pair have before they became lovers, before they fell in love?
It's a question many lovers have asked because when two become firmly entrenched in love it's as if the time previous to their meeting holds no value. They never lived, they didn't do anything meaningful.
Were we not weaned till then? To be weaned is to be influenced from an early age; to be a baby or an infant gradually given adult food whilst coming off a diet of mother's milk. The speaker is implying that they were infants before they loved.
The third line reinforces this sense of childish existence the two had to go through. The country pleasures are either crude sensualities or immature sexual pleasures, mere surface experiences.
Or they lived life asleep as it were. The allusion is to the Seven Sleepers, Christian youths who fled from the Roman emperor Decius (249-251) and were sealed in a cave. They slept for nearly two hundred years so the story goes, waking up in a world where Christianity had taken hold.
So the implication is that these two lived as if asleep until they fell in love and woke up - their love became a kind of new religion for them.
These four lines, with alternate rhymes, form a quatrain. The end three lines consolidate meaning, have the same end rhymes and have that final hexameter, a longer line.
Twas so; ...the speaker confirms that, yes, before they were lovers any pleasures were not real; it was as if they were infants asleep, not really awake but merely dreaming.
And Donne being Donne he goes on to say that his desires were fulfilled - he got what he wanted out of beauty - but even that wasn't real, it was only a dream.
Stanza 2
Having concluded in the first stanza that the lovers weren't really alive, or hadn't done anything, until they fell in love and became aware, the speaker wishes both of them a good morning as they wake.
There is no fear in their relationship; they are totally devoted, 100% in love, which is the be all and end all. They see the world through their love, through love.
And makes one little room an everywhere....the room the lovers are in is small, a microcosm, yet because their love is universal, it goes everywhere their love goes, and is whole, a macrocosm.
This line reflects the Renaissance idea that an individual held within them the universe.
The last three lines of this stanza are related to exploration of new worlds. Donne's use of metaphor is cutting edge for his time - explorers were discovering new terrestrial worlds using the latest maps, and astronomers were beginning to seriously chart the stars.
The known world was expanding rapidly. Donne connects this fact with the world the lovers have created.
Let us possess one world (in some versions this is our world)...the speaker affirms that they have their individual worlds but their love world they possess, they totally own a whole new world which they are free to explore.
Stanza 3
In the third stanza the speaker initially gets close up and personal.
Donne's fascination with reflections and imagery comes to the fore. As the lovers gaze into each other's eyes they see each other reflected. Evidence of more bonding, of two becoming one.
The lovers are true and plain - they don't have to pretend or show off or be fancy - in front of one another.
The speaker reverts to questioning again, as in the first stanza, and asks Where can we find two better hemispheres (semi-circles) ...which could be their eyes and faces.
Without sharp North....the cold north, relating to a cold relationship
without declining West...the sun sets in the west, end of the day, end of a relationship.
So the speaker in these four lines reinforces the idea that the lovers are a single entity; their relationship isn't cold or about to end, it is warm and rising.
Whatever dies was not mixed equally....In medical theory of the time death was thought to be the result of imbalances in the body's elements.
If our two loves...the speaker suggests that their two loves are not at all imbalanced, their loves are so alike that they can never die.
This is an idealistic end to the poem but Donne's original take on what love is remains with us today in popular musical lyrics for example.
EVALUATION QUESTIONS
GENERAL EVALUATION/REVISION QUESTIONS
READING ASSIGNMENT
Read the poem in Exam Focus and discuss the themes.
WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT
THEORY
Comment on the poem.
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