CC - IV: "The sun rising" as a metaphysical Love poem ?/ combination of Passion and wit

          "Tradition and the individual talent"-if this be the motto of modernity, John Donne can safely be regarded as a pioneer of it, particularly in his treatment of love. The sun rising, In this respect remains no expectation. In fact, the 'metaphysical' of the poem lies in his fresh attitude to love as well as its presentation. To begin with, his not just a platonic version of love as of the Petrarchan variety but a neo-platonic one in as much as it is a body-mind phenomenon. Secondly, and more important, it is not a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling", but a fusion of emotion and intellect, passion and reason, thinking and feeling, thanks to the poet's use of far-fetched and fantastic wit and images namely 'conceits'.

                 "Busy old fool, unruly sun,/why dost thou thus ,/through windows, and through curtains call on us ?/must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?"-so begins the poem and it immediately brings out some of the 'metaphysical' features of the poem, say, Sudden or abrupt beginning, dramatic mode more so because of the colloquial, conversation language used by the poet-lover. The fourth line of the quoted passage also brings out another vital characteristic of the poem as a 'metaphysical' one, and that is, it's argumentative quality. The speaker-lover's contention is that love is not subject to time(symbolically represented here by the sun)-"love, all like, no season knows, nor clyme, /nor  hours, days, months, which are the rags of time", As he further assets. It is immediately reminiscent of Shakespeare's emphatic declaration in in Shakespeare's sonnet no. 116-"Love's not time's fool....".

                                Nevertheless, what of the 'metaphysical' Strikes most is the intellectualisation of emotion in the poem. The poet-lover filters heart through to add and edit the emotion drawing analogies from different branches of knowledge like cosmology, Geography, Chemistry etc. And analogies are between two incompatible or heterogeneous things, which is the hallmark of 'metaphysical conceit'. For example, the poet lover challenges sun by saying,"..... Tell me,/whether both the Indians of species and mine/Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me./ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,/and thou shalt hear, all hair in one bed lay". Here, conceit is piled on conceit to establish the merit of his mistress. On the one hand, he compares her to the East and West Indies rolled into one, and on the other, he likens her to all the kingdoms of the world put together. His suggestion is obvious. To him, his mistress is as full of spice as the East Indies and as valuable as silver and gold ('mine') of the West Indies. Understandably, the poet's here is a conceit based on geographical knowledge. He draws comparison between things apparently unlike. And its culminates in the central conceit of the poem, and that is the  'bed' image as a replica of the world at large, an epitome of the world or the world in miniature.

                  The poet lover carries the said idea into conclusion in the final stanza. He first says, "she is all states, and all princess, I,/nothing else is/princes do but play us; compare to this,/all honour's mimic; all wealth Alchemy". Here the conceits are based upon the knowledge of geography as well as medieval 'alchemy'. According to the first one, he compares his fiancee to all the Kingdoms ('states') put together and himself to the prince of all princess who enjoy it. His implication is that out of their shared passion and feelings, they could create a world of their own which is as good as the geographical globe. It may even be better then that. The princess of the world appear to be false ('play') princes compared to him. He is the original having the privilege of enjoying the beauty and charm of his sweetheart which others may be deprived of. Again, in comparison with the glory and dignity("honour") of love, every other honour including the royal one is but imitation('mimic') because it may be divided of the glow and warmth of love. Side by side, all well except the wealth of amorous feeling each but counterfeit ("alchemy'). The medical alchemy could  turn base metal into gold but that was in essence base metal in comparison with real gold, that is their love.

                               Their life revolves round love, and he presents it in terms of the solar system . He adopts the Ptolemic system of the universe to his idea. The Sun should revolve round the axis("center") of their bed. He seeks to drive home the point that love transcends time, and thereby confirms its supremacy over the same. He, therefore, ends by showing a playfully patronising attitude to the sun-"shine here to us, and thou are everywhere". And  consummates the 'bed' image finally-it is the microcosms of the macrocosms as it were. One is reminded of the same idea in "the good morrow"-"... Makes one little room, an everywhere". Thus, the poet "affects the metaphysics" by using abstruse terminology of The scholars (to show the relationship between man and his universe) effecting  "an alliance of  levity and gravity"