In his poem "The Good Morrow," Donne's main vehicle to
describe his vision of love is spatial; he uses many maps, globes, and locations in the
poem, and they are his way of understanding the nature of love. In the first stanza,
Donne merges time and space by wondering what he and his beloved did before they met: he
imagines them inhabiting many locations separately, such as "the seven sleeper's den,"
and in a "country," pastoral setting. The two lovers' meeting, however, has
repositioned them to a new location. By the third stanza, the beloved's "face" appears
in the speaker's "eye," and he appears in his beloved's. As a result, their falling in
love results in a literal movement across space. The poem also suggests that love has
the power to manipulate space, in that it can "make one little room an everywhere."
Similarly, Donne employs other map and exploration metaphors when he states that he and
his beloved are "two better hemispheres" than those found on the literal earth. The
poem seems to eschew actual, earthly locations (such as those that can be mapped and
explored physically) for the higher level of existence embodied by love (this also
resonates with his use of mythical locales like the sleeper's den and the pastoral
wood). In other words, basically, love is simply otherworldly.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Can you describe Donne's treatment of love in the poem "The Good Morrow"?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Comment on the setting and character of "The Fall of the House of Usher."How does setting act as a character?
Excellent observation, as it identifies how the settings of Poe's stories reflect the characters of their protagonists. Whet...
-
x + 2y = 8 3x + 4y = 16 Multiply, the everything in the first equation by 3 By multiplying, your equation should l...
-
Every reader enjoys a twist at the end of the story. Sometimes when that happens the reader has to re-read the story to find th...
-
To answer this, just look at two things. First, what should it look like if the Ministry of Plenty did a good job?...
No comments:
Post a Comment