The Sunne Rising by John Donne Essay Example for Free

The Sunne Rising by John Donne Essay The poet, John Donne wrote The Sunne Rising poem. The poem is metaphysical. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of the reality of things, including questions about being and substance, time and space, causation and change, and identity. Metaphysics presents the theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science of being and knowing. Metaphysics provides sense relating to philosophical speculation and intellectual abstraction. Metaphysics belongs to the nature of transcendentalism, philosophical depreciative thoughts of reasoning and ideas. Metaphysics is excessively subtle and incredibly abstract. Transcendentalism surpasses and excels others of its kind beyond ordinary limits. Transcendentalism is pre-eminent, superior and supreme, something extraordinary. Transcendentalism is elevated above ordinary language as a lofty idea or concept. It transcends comprehension. Transcendentalism is obscure and abstruse. As applied by the Schoolmen, transcendentalism predicates which by their universal application were considered to go beyond the Aristotelian categories or predicaments. The Ten Categories, accordingly lists ten attributes or predicamenta[1], predicaments, which can be used to speak of things which engages ones interest in order to become an object of scientific investigation. A substance denotes a subject or thing in terms of what exists in itself and not in another. A substance cannot be attributed to another subject or thing. It is an ens per se, a being by and of itself.[2] The other categories are denoted by quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, place, time, posture, and habit. Those categories are used to speak of a thing, identified as a substance. Those last nine categories either inhere or exist in a substance as a substance and are affirmed. For example, the quantity and quality of a given thing given the matter and form. [3]as accidents while the subject or thing to which they refer remains substantially the same. Some categories, refer to relations or connections which can exist between a substance and its external environment. For example, the action and passion of a substance: What a substance does as a subject and receives from the activity of another source. Transcendentalism goes beyond the Aristotelian categories or predicaments. Those nine may refer to external causes and circumstances that should be noted in talking about anything. For example, habit, time, and place.[4] These later properties come and go. In transcendental terms, the poet expresses his love for his mate. The love poem consists of three regular stanzas. Each stanza is ten lines long, and follows a line stress pattern of 4255445555. The meter is basically iambic with a few variations. The variations from the iambic meter highlight significant passages in the sonnet. As well, highlighting significant passages are varying stress patterns. The stress pattern in lines one, five, and six, it is in tetrameter. However, the pattern in line two is in dimeter, and the pattern in lines three, four, and seven through ten are in pentameter. The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABBACDCDEE. In the first stanza, the poet chastises the sun by calling it a Busie old foole, unruly Sunne, eagerly habitual motion of primeval and shabby action which lacks good judgment, a simpleton, Not amenable to rule or discipline, ungovernable, disorderly and turbulent star (1). The interference of the sun at this moment, belittling the significance of the sun elevates their act of love above the central body of the solar system, around which the earth and other planets revolve. The other planets are kept in their orbits by the suns attraction and supplied with light and heat by its radiation. Obviously, the sun is not insignificant, but their moment in bed is more important. This is an example of transcendentalism, the exaggeration or elevation of emotions beyond the importance of the central body of the solar system, the sun. The poet presents a rhetorical question, Why dost thou thus (2). For what reason, cause, motivation or purpose do you, referring to the sun, act so foolishly and make a mess of things? Using dost thou in reference to the sun, shows reproach or contempt for the suns action in a manner now being indicated or exemplified to this extent and in this degree (2). How did the sun behave foolishly? Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us? (3) Through the windows and curtains, the sun awakens us to begin our day of duties. Through the windows and curtains, the sun beckons us to rise from our slumber. Through the windows and curtains, the sun forcibly detracts us from the bed we share together. Must to thy motions lovers seasons run? (4) Why must lovers time end based on the rising of the sun? (4) The word motions is used to reference not only the motion of the sun, rising of the sun, but as well, the motion of lovers, the act of sex, both the sun and sex rise and sets, as do seasons , based on time (4). The poet places the motion of lovers above the motion of the sun, a sign of transcendentalism in the form of a lofty analogy. The poet admonishes the sun, placing the importance of the poet before that of the sun. The poet calls the sun a Sawcy pedantique wretch (5). A sawcy pedantique wretch is a despicable and vile person, one of opprobrious or reprehensible character, a mean and contemptible creature, insolent or impertinent with wanton lasciviousness through pedagogic schoolmasterly to superiors (5). The poet tells the sun to goe chide (5)/ Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices (6). The poet speaks directly to the sun. The poet tells the sun to move towards quarrelling and wrangling with truant school boys and unpleasant and disagreeable, gloomy and sourer apprentices (6). Both school boys and apprentices are bound by to serve an employer in the exercise of some trade or profession, for a certain number of years, with a view to learn its details and duties, in which the employer is reciprocally bound to instruct him (6). In this analogy, the poet is the employer, and the sun is the sowre prentice (6). The poet continues admonishing the sun by telling the sun to Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride (7), Call countrey ants to harvest offices (8). The poet tells the sun to move towards Court-huntsmen the kings manager of a fox-hunt, a man whose business is to take charge of a pack of hounds and direct the pursuit of game. The sun needs to awaken the court-huntsmen because the King will ride (7). The king is going to ride in the fox-hunt. The poet tells the sun to Call countrey ants to harvest offices (8). The word offices means duties. The sun awakening country ants to harvest duties is important because those ants do not infest indoor structures as did the sun. Those ants do not invade houses and buildings as the sun did, but rather they establish their nests around the outdoor gardens and yards, destroying vegetation rather than copulation. The analogy has changed to infer that the sun should awaken things that destroy foxes and vegetation, rather than things that creat e life through the act of copulation. The poet closes the first stanza by informing the sun that Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme (9), Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time (10). When the partners love is in complete unity, time does not understand. The sun telling time by way of its own artifice is analogies to beggars raising sores on their bodies without pain. Hours, days and months are the parts of time, analogies to sores, raised by the sun without pain. The analogy is the sun is the beggar who raises time, represented by sores, without pain. In the second stanza, the poet asks, Thy beames, so reverend, and strong (11)/ Why shouldst thou thinke? (12) The speaker wonders why the sun should think its beams to be so worthy of respect and reverence, commanding respect by ability, and powerful with the ability to exert great force? The poet to the sun says, I could eclipse and cloud them with a winke (13), But that I would not lose her sight so long (14). The speaker may obscure those beams by closing his eyes, yet he would not like to lose sight of his beloved for so long. The poet places the power of himself eclipsing the sun rays above the power of the suns beams. The poet has become a sort of godlike power, and that is another sign of transcendentalism. The poet to the sun inquires, If her eyes have not blinded thine (15), Looke, and to morrow late, tell mee (16), Whether both the Indias spice and Myne (17)/ Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with mee (18). If the suns eyes have not been blinded by her beautiful eyes, look late tomorrow whether the treasures of East Indies spices and West Indies gold mines be where you left them, or do the treasures of the Indies lie here in bed with me? The poet considers the abstraction of beauty between the treasures of the Indiies and the beauty of his beloved, as a symbol of transcendentalism. The poet closes the second stanza with a sublime statement; Aske for those Kings whom thou sawst yesterday (19), And thou shalt heare, All here in one bed lay (20). The poet to the sun-ask all those Kings that the sun beamed its rays upon yesterday, and you shall hear-they will choose to lie in bed with his beloved. The poet tells the sun that if the kings had a choice between the spices and gold, or lying in bed with his beloved, they would all choose to lie in bed with his beloved. The poet exalts the value of his beloved above that of the Indies spices and gold, an abstraction. Yet, the abstraction is a transcendental metaphor. In the third stanza, the poet to the sun describes, Sheis all States, and all Princes, I (21), Nothing else is (22). The speaker describes her soul as all countries in the world, and he represents a King for nothing else exists or is real. The poet supports his claim, Princes doe but play us; compard to this (23), All honors mimique; All wealth alchimie (24). The speakers informs the sun that princes only dabble with frivolity; compared to what he has in bed with his beloved. The poet explain what he has in bed with his beloved is imitated with honor, and a miraculous power of extractions with wealth. According to the poet, neither honor or wealth is as real as what he has in bed with his beloved. The poet to the sun claims Thou sunne art halfe as happyas wee (25), In that the worlds contracted thus (26). The speaker claims the sun is half as happy as him and beloved because the sun need only to beam onto this bed that represents the world. The poet supports that claim by pandering to the suns age. The speaker says, Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee (27)/ To warme the world, thats done in warming us (28). Since the sun is growing older, it desires ease. In order to perform its duties to warm the world in ease, it needs only to warm himself and beloved in bed for they represent the world. The poet argues to shine on their bed is to shine on the world. The poet to the sun closes the third stanza with Shine here to us, and thou art every where (29); This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare (30). The poet has successfully moved from the external to the internal world of the soul, represented by the world. The speaker explains to shine on us, the sun shines throughout the world. The world is an abstraction for the internal world of the soul. The perimeter of the soul is the suns center, and its walls, its sphere or dimension. The variations in stress patterns in each line represent the poets claim, support for that claim, and conclusion. Each stanza has two claims, represented by the stress patterns in lines one and two being the first claim, and five and six representing the second claim. The stress patterns for lines one, two, five and six are 4,2,4, and 4, respectively. In each stanza, line two represents the question or issue at hand with an extremely short stress pattern of only two. The claims are supported in lines three, four, seven, and eight with stress patterns of 5,5, 5, and 5. The argument is then concluded in each stanza in lines nine and ten with a stress pattern of 5 and 5. The poet connects the external to the internal world with a great deal of tension. Tension is that which can be understood by the mind, but not yet accepted by the emotions. Tension may also be interpreted as the stress between that which is grounded, West Indies spices and gold mines, by that which is elusive, to shine on this bed is to shine throughout the world.