CC-IV: John Donne: The Good Morrow Explanations

 1. "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".

- These lines are extracted from John Donne's metaphysical love poem "The Good Morrow". Here, the poet-lover speaks of the realization and experience of true love which has been shared by both partners.

                The poet-lover bids good morning to their awakened souls, thereby acknowledging the mutual understanding by each other. He also admits that their love  is so true and real that no vile human feelings like jealousy and suspicion('fear') enter into their hearts. In other words, in the exclusive world of love, there is no intrusion of an unknown element as the lovers themselves thoroughly know each other. The poet-lover points out their love is so intense and vigorous that no other sights of beauty can divert their minds. That is to say that love has a controlling power which can keep away the attraction of enjoying any other beauty on this earth. He establishes the fact that the lover's bedroom is a microcosmic version of the macrocosmic world. By using a striking metaphysical conceit(based on the knowledge of Geography), he means to say that their bedroom is a good as the geographical world. It is a miniature of the world at large. His point is that the lovers reign exclusively in the world of their own.

                These lines clearly express the superiority of love and convey the idea of enabling effect of true love. It also highlights the unique power of love.

2. " Let sea-discovers to new worlds have gone,

      Let maps to other worlds on worlds have shown

       Let us posses one world, each hath one, and is one".

-These lines are extracted from John Donne's metaphysical love poem "The Good Morrow" Here, the speaker-lover speaks of the spiritual experience shared by lovers.

                    The poet-lover makes it a point that the world discovered by the lovers is superior to the world discovered by the navigators. He seeks to suggest that sea-discovers undertake strenuous voyages to distant corners of the earth and cartographers chart out the newly-discovered geographical regions in the form of maps and globes. But they are unaware of the vast world of spiritual experience shared by lovers. To his, each of the lovers is an explorer, a sea-discover, and each discovers in love a world of his or her own. Nevertheless, the individual worlds of the lovers merge and coalesce into one world, i.e. the world of love. It suggests that individual identities become one in love. Here, the poet-lover proves that the world discovered by the sea-explorers.

                    These lines once again establish the superiority of the lovers' world and the poet makes his point clear by a beautiful fusion of passion and intellect which is a remarkable characteristic of metaphysical poetry. 

3."Whatever dies was not mixed equally:

     If our two loves be one, Or, thou and I

    Love so alike that none do Slacken, none can die," 

-These lines are extracted from John Donne's metaphysical love poem "The Good Morrow". Here, the poet-lover speaks of the immortality of love.

                 The speaker-lover says that the physical world in which the elements are not properly mixed up is bound die, but not the lovers' world in which the mixture of the elements has been made in equal proportions. He establishes his point of view by referring to the scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Acqninas. Accordingly, the lovers' world is not subject to decay and death. because similar elements merge into one another in perfect agreement, and therefore it is beyond death. In other words, the two souls of the lovers are one world and mixed in equal proportions thereby attaining immortality in love.

                        These lines show love as a spiritual force which conquers time and death. It also establishes the immutability and eternity of love through a method of ratiocination.

-----------