Intro 1:

The Elizabethan and Jacobean era witnessed a notable ourishing of cultural and
intellectual pursuits. It was a time of heightened exploration, both in geographical terms
with voyages to new lands and in intellectual realms through the exploration of
philosophical and metaphysical concepts. A prominent metaphysical poet of the time, John
Donne’s poetry re ects a unique blend of passion and intellect, seamlessly merging
romantic emotional expression with philosophical inquiry. Donne’s ‘The Good Morrow’
emerges as a contemplation on the transformative nature of love amidst a society in which
love was sometimes perceived as a means of forging alliances, securing social status, or
ful lling societal expectations.

Intro 2:
John Donne, a signi cant gure in the literary landscape of the time, embodied the spirit of
intellectual curiosity and poetic innovation of the 16th and 17th Century, particularly the
Elizabethan and Jacobean era. Donne's poetry offers a nuanced exploration of love within
a broader cultural framework. "The Good Morrow" serves as an example of Donne's ability
to do so as his vision transcends the super cial and materialistic aspects of love, delving
into its profound and transcendent nature. It celebrates the unity and indivisibility of two
souls connected by love.

Poet:
• Refer to sunne rising ref sheet

Structure:
• The poem is organised in two parts; the rst part (stanza-1) deals with the life of the
lovers before they experienced love. The second part deals with the awakening after
experiencing love.
• Rhyme scheme ABABCCC
• The rst 6 lines in the stanza are in iambic pentameter and the last line is an iambic
hexameter
• The poem ‘The Good Morrow’ like ‘The Sunne Rising’ is an aubade
- This poetic genre seems to have originated in medieval France.

Phrases:
• Child suckling at its mother’s breast
• Seven sleepers den
• Metaphysicality
• Comparison of faces to hemisphere
• Lack of balance = death

Themes:
• Lovers’ live before experiencing love
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
fi
fi
fl
 • Overall, the poem explores the transformative power of love, contrasting it with
previous experiences and emphasising the all-encompassing nature of true love. It
celebrates the unity and indivisibility of two souls connected by love.

Critic Notes:
• A.J. Smith suggested that country pleasure stand for sexual pleasure, which the poet
considers to be an ‘infantile’ pursuit compared to the exalting qualities of adult love

Infantile approach before love

• The words ‘not weaned’ ‘suck’d’ and ‘childishly’ draw our attention to the immaturity of
their actions.
• The speaker then suggests that before they found love, their lives were lled with
simple, country pleasures that they enjoyed in a childlike manner. This may allude to a
time of carefree innocence and naivety when they sought pleasure in uncomplicated
and unsophisticated ways.
• To further emphasise the limited nature of their previous life, the speaker uses an
allusion to the Seven Sleepers, who slept in a den for an extended period. By
referencing this legend, the speaker suggests that their lives before love were dormant
and inactive, lacking genuine awakening or true ful lment.

Conceits:
• First conceit is found in the meaning of the word ‘awaking’. Since the poem is an
aubade, one of the meaning is the literal awakening from sleep as the lovers prepare
to face each other in dread of parting

• Donne also talks about the spiritual awakening as he has realised the transformative
power of love such as he has realised that before he fell in love with his beloved, his
life has been meaningless which he emphasises by starting the poem with rhetorical
questions

• Donne directly mentions this abstract spiritual awakening as he talks about ‘our
waking souls’

• By referencing the story of the seven sleepers, Donne suggests that the speaker's life
before love was like a dormant state, lacking true awakening or ful lment. This conceit
highlights the profound impact of love on their existence.

Metaphysicality:
• One prominent aspect of the metaphysicality of the poem is its exploration of the
transformative power of love. Donne delves into the metaphysical aspects of love,
presenting it as a force that goes beyond the physical realm and has the ability to
awaken and unite souls.

• The poem also incorporates vivid and unconventional metaphors to convey its ideas.
For example, Donne compares their love to the merging of two hemispheres, the
re ection of faces in each other's eyes, and the transformation of a small room into an
everywhere. These metaphors create unexpected and thought-provoking connections,
fl
fi
fi
fi
 inviting readers to contemplate the profound nature of love and its impact on the
human experience.

• The poem presents logical arguments and engages in philosophical contemplation. It

explores the contrast between illusory pleasures and the reality of true love, using
intellectual discourse to convey the depth and signi cance of the speaker's
experience.

Waking of souls:
• The speaker greets and acknowledges the awakening of their souls as a result of their
newfound love. The phrase "good-morrow" signi es a morning greeting, symbolising a
fresh start, a new beginning, or a renewed perspective on life. By extending this
greeting to their "waking souls," the speaker suggests that their souls were previously
dormant or unaware until they experienced love.

• Furthermore, the reference to waking souls can also be seen as a metaphysical

exploration. It aligns with the metaphysical tradition of Donne's poetry, which delves
into philosophical and intellectual inquiries. The concept of waking souls implies an
expansion of consciousness and a heightened spiritual awareness, re ecting the
metaphysical themes of the poem.

Transformative power of love:

• The poem portrays the speaker's curiosity about their lives before love, questioning
what they did and experienced. This curiosity suggests a yearning for something
deeper and more meaningful. The poem implies that before love, their lives were
characterised by simple and childish pleasures, lacking true ful lment.

• However, with the arrival of love, the speaker experiences a transformative awakening.
The phrase "good-morrow to our waking souls" in line 8 symbolises this awakening,
as their souls were previously dormant or unaware.

Line by line analysis

1. I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
2. Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

Basically, here the speaker asks rhetorical question which is a literary device used for
highlighting the meaninglessness of the proposition. Here the speaker basically wants to
imply the meaninglessness of life before loving. The use of the phrase ‘by my truth’ only
emphasises that paradox

3. But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

The metaphor of sucking emphasises the infantile pursuit of worldly pleasure reinforcing
the image of the unweaned infant from the previous line.
fi
fi
fi
fl
4. Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

Catholic story of seven young christian young men hid themselves in a cave/ ‘den’ to avoid
Roman persecution, and came out after close to 200 years when the cave was reopened.
In this metaphor the Cave symbolises the womb, and the emergence from it after centuries
of sleep, a rebirth

This fable has been deployed ironically to imply someone who is not in touch with the truth
of life, for the speaker this truth to which he has woken up is the state of being in love

5. ’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

Found in the Sunne rising too, the speaker considers the worldly pleasures to be imitations
of love and fake

6. If ever any beauty I did see,

7. Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

First interpretation: all the beauty that the speaker has experienced or acquired before he
fell in love was all just a dream or a shadow compared to the beauty of the beloved

Second interpretation: all the beauty of the beloved that the speaker has managed to
comprehend was only a dream implying the real beauty remained fully unachievable

In the common poetic conceit of the courtly love tradition, the beloved remains necessarily
unachievable and hence the love in unrequited. Donne plays on this and even reverses it.

8. And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

9. Which watch not one another out of fear;

This line has led critics to categorise this poem into the genre of aubade. The lovers are
not able to face each other as there is a feeling of dread because they will have to part
soon as the dawn as come.

It is worth nothing that the morrow is not a function of time but of waking of the souls. This
also plays with the theme of timelessness that Donne applies in his metaphysical love
poetry.

10. For love, all love of other sights controls,

This line talks about the two different kinds of love talked about in this poem. The rst type
of love is the true love which the speaker is experiencing right now with his beloved and
fi
the other kind of love is the ones which the lovers have experienced before falling in love
which is merely the pursuit of worldly pleasures.

The inferior kind of love requires an object and is therefore dependent on sight. It's also
implied that the love they share is so intense and ful lling that it overshadows any previous
feeling they may have had for other people or things.

This is also a reference to the Neo platonic ideal of erotic gradation as erotic love is placed
on a lower pedestal whereas intellectual or spiritual love constitutes top layer.

11. And makes one little room an everywhere.

This ideas was also present in Donne’s the Sunne rising as love in its true form expands
and intensi es the limitations of the real world. This idea appears frequently in Donne’s
poetry.
He suggests that when two people are deeply in love with each other, their connection
transcends physical boundaries and limitations. Their love expands to such an extent that
it can make a small room feel like it encompasses the entire world.

The experience of love in which the body and soul work in harmony, is sacred, and allows
the lovers to transcend the world of time and space, and makes “one little room an
everywhere”.

The compression of the entire universe into a little room is an excellent example of a
metaphysical conceit

12. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

13. Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
14. Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

Elizabethan age was a period of voyages and discoveries of new lands hitherto unknown
to the western world. The ‘little room’ which is the lovers universe, stands in stark contrast
to the ever expanding universe.

The speaker says that, what the voyagers, explorers, and astronomers have discovered is
only one small part of the universe and not the whole of it, and even that part they will
never ‘possess’. The lovers have surpassed them because without moving from their little
room they have made it an ‘everywhere’ and unlike the explorers they ‘possess’ it too.

The following line, "Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown," refers to the maps
that illustrate an expanding understanding of the world. It suggests that these maps depict
an ever-increasing awareness of multiple worlds and dimensions, reinforcing the idea of
the vastness and complexity of existence.
fi
fi
 In a world dictated by material wealth and possessions, the lovers have created their own
world based on their mutual love which is free from the demands and constraints of time
and space.

The Eurocentric political economy led to ‘discovery’ of new lands, materials, etc and on the
other hand, the common poetic use for navigational imagery is rejected has the lovers nd
the whole world in the room occupied by them

Both the lovers are made complete by each other’s existence

15. My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
16. And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

The phrase "My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears" suggests a mirrored re ection or
an intimate exchange of gazes between the speaker and their beloved. When they look
into each other's eyes, they see their own re ection, symbolising a deep connection and
unity. It implies that their identities merge and intertwine within the context of their love.

The subsequent line, "And true plain hearts do in the faces rest," emphasises the
authenticity and sincerity of their love. The word "true" implies a genuine and unambiguous
affection, while "plain" suggests simplicity and honesty. It indicates that their hearts nd
solace and peace within each other's faces. The faces become a resting place for their
true, unaffected emotions and intentions. In the presence of their beloved, their hearts nd
comfort, transparency, and a sense of belonging.

These lines encapsulate the idea that their love transcends super cial appearances. It is
not con ned to physical features but reaches the depths of their souls. This can also be
linked to earlier in the poem when the speaker is talking about the inferior kind of love
which depends on sight and needs an object.

In these lines, the speaker talks about the deep and genuine connection the lovers share
with each other as they share an intimate gaze where they are able to to see themselves
in their beloved. Their love becomes grounded and they transcend the worldly pleasurable
aspect of love. The word ‘true’ symbolises the genuine affection and “plain” chastity and
honesty from both of the lovers.

17. Where can we nd two better hemispheres,

18. Without sharp north, without declining west?

The speaker questions whether it is possible to nd a better pairing of individuals or

soulmates than themselves. The lines also suggest that their relationship transcends
geographical or directional limitations.
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
fi
The reference here is to the sharp cold winds of the arctic north and the declining sun in
the west. The mention of "sharp north" and "declining west" adds further depth to the
metaphorical meaning. "Sharp north" could symbolise a direction associated with
uncertainty or harshness, while "declining west" might imply the fading of light or
diminishing aspects.

19. Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

20. If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
21. Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

He uses this metaphor to make clear that their love is balanced physically and emotionally.
Their perfect balance is accomplished due simply to the presence of the other. It is the
combination of their emotions that keeps them together.

The phrase "If our two loves be one" suggests that the speaker and their beloved are so
deeply intertwined in their love that their individual loves have merged into a single uni ed
entity. This emphasises the idea of oneness and unity in their relationship, symbolising a
profound bond that is unbreakable.

The lover here suggests that if their love is true and does not slacken, they can continue to
experience love permanently- “none do slacken none can die”. The death is only
temporary for they will rise again and again to experience love. By using the word
"slacken," Donne suggests that their love does not weaken or lose its intensity over time. It
remains steadfast and enduring, unaffected by the passing of days or the trials of life.

Through these nal lines, Donne conveys the notion that their love is eternal and
indestructible. It exists beyond the con nes of time and physical limitations
fi
fi
fi