Good+Morrow

THE GOOD MORROW
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we loved?were we not weaned till then, But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

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. Let sea discoverers to new worlds have gone, Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown: Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; Where can we find two better hemishperes, Without sharp North, without declining West? 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.

__**OVERVIEW:**__

//The Good-Morrow// is a 21 lined poem divided into 3 stanzas. The poem addresses a woman he spent the night with in an attempt to please his lover. The poem uses wit to please his intellectual counterparts. The poem is an "aubade" where the poet is "talking to his lover the morning after". Breaks Elizabethan conventions of love poetry- where the lover worships the mistress from afar. It is likely that Donne wrote this poem for his wife Anne More.

__**The Title:**__

"The Good Morrow" has two connotations: i. Morrow means morning, and the phrase "good morrow" is an Elizabethan way to say "hello, good morning" ii. Good Morrow also symbolizes the awakening of the true spiritual love between his lover and him.

__**Themes and Imagery (the main body of an IOC):**__

//Imagery of Childhood:// i. "were we not wean'd till then?": The word "wean'd" is the time of an infants life where he/she is getting used to food other than his/her mother's milk. Donne is suggesting that before they met, were they "not wean'd" or only drinking of their mother's milk, implicitly implying that they were not accustomed to each other (another meaning of wean is accustom to managing without something someone is dependent on). The use of the rhetoric question shows his wonder and amazement.

ii. "suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?": Country pleasures refer to wet nannies that rich babes would be breast fed off, as their mothers wouldn't feed them. This comes right after the phrase about "wean'd" and makes sense in the entirety- Donne seems to be implying that they had never experienced true love. All other love was juvenile in comparison. There is also an innuendo within this phrase; in Donne's time it insinuated sexual gratification.

iii."snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?": Snorted is something babies generally do and therefore seems rather childish. The Seven Sleepers' is an allusion to a fable where 7 youths were in a deep slumber for 200 years as they were hiding from the Pagans (as they were Christians-during the Holy Wars) and when they awoke, Christianity had triumphed. This implies that when the two of them woke after making love, true love had triumphed.

Overall, the imagery of childhood implies that their love before meeting each other was immature and purely physical; what the person now has with his mistress is a spiritual love. The rhetoric questions in the first 3-4 lines show the wonderment at the romantic awakening. The opening is typical of Donne's poetry- it is arresting and dramatic. It starts as if the persona is in the midst of an intimate conversation.

//Use of Caesuras in the first stanza:// i. In line 5, "Twas so ; but this, all pleasures fancies be;" the Twas so was the past which is separated from the present where Donne tells his lover that "all pleasures come true with you". Caesuras are used to demarcated the past from the present.

ii. Line 7: "Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee". The two commas are caesuras also separating the past (desired and got) from the present (dream of thee). The use of "which" and "got" make his old love affaris seem like mere objects and as he boasts to his lover about sexual conquests it seems a bit strange until he further sweet-talks her by saying that his lover is a true beauty and they were shadows of her love.

//Lovers: (cross reference to Sunne Rising)// This can be subdivided into the themes of exploration, geo-centric view of the world, and spiritual love.



__Exploration:__ In the 1700's the New World was being discovered, and Donne is known to integrate contemporary ideas into his poetry: Phrases like "Sharp North" (winds) and "declining west" (sun-set) and his references to the "hemispheres" show his use of the theme of exploration. "Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone; Let maps to other, world on worlds have shown; Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one"

i. The anaphora shows the discovery of the OUTSIDE world. ii. Exploration in these three lines shows that new worlds have been "found" but they've already found love and now they are exploring love and each other. (possession of one world). iii. Cordiform Map: (line 15-16) 2 halves of the world, like two faces. As in the two maps there are two profiles, therefore their faces appear in each other. Discovered true love and they complete each other like the two hemispheres complete the world. iv. "Without sharp north, without decline west"- their love doesn't face the winds and will never set like the sun. (cf Sun Rising) Conceit used compares the face of the lovers to the halves of the hemisphere. They see the world in each others' eyes. Sounds cliched to a modern audience but would have been an innovative idea for during Donne's time.

Geo-centric View: The ego centric attitude of lovers. How the outside world doesn't matter as long as they have each other. 1."One little room an everywhere": this one room becomes their world. 2. "one world" - the world is theirs, how the world is just the two of them. (the lovers). use of hyperbole 3. The lovers occupy a spiritual world of love and constancy unlike the earthly world of changes with the cold North wind and the declining sun. cf: //A Valediction Forbidding Mourning//). Theirs is a true discovery.

Spiritual Love: "Which watch not one another out of fear; For love all love of other sights controls," The diction is important: i. fear: they are not fearful of each other and have trust in each other (the two lovers) through their steady gaze. Shows how true their love is. Contrasts with the roving eye of the philanderer in the first verse. ii. "sights controls": how the persona is rebuked for his other conquests. How false his old loves seem in comparison to this true love. Donne, in his last 2 lines talks about eternal love and juxtaposes this with the literal sun as the persona says love can never die, while the sun can set, and his love for his lover/mistress is considered more eternal than the sun. (cf: //A Valediction Forbidding Mourning//)

Paradoxes: Uses the language of sexual desire and lust through the innuendos- 'country pleasures', 'slackens', 'possess' to convey the passion of spiritual love.

ELIZABETHAN CONCEPT OF THE HUMOURS



(from: []) Essentially, this theory held that the human body was filled with four basic substances, called **four humors**, which are in balance when a person is healthy. All diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. The four humors were identified as [|black bile], [|yellow bile], [|phlegm], and [|blood]. [|Greeks] and [|Romans], and the later [|Muslim] and [|Western European] medical establishments that adopted and adapted classical medical philosophy, believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in the body, depending on diet and activity. When a patient was suffering from a surplus or imbalance of one fluid, then his or her personality and physical health would be affected. (from: []). Donne refers to this concept of the humours in line 18 'was not mix'd equally'