Metaphysical Poetry — The Good Morrow
Question — Essay-type
Attempt a critical appreciation of Donne’s ‘The Good Morrow’.
Introduction
In the field of love poetry, the contribution of the metaphysicals is considerable. When Donne appeared on the stage, Spenser and his followers were following the petrarchan tradition of sentimental love poetry. Donne’s treatment of love is entirely unconventional. His poems are the expression in unconventional and witty language of all the moods of a lover. Dryden says, “He affects metaphysics not only in his satires but also in his amorous verses….and perplexes the minds of fairsex with nice speculation of philosophy…”
The Good Morrow — A Metaphysical Love Poem
Donne’s poem ‘The Good Morrow’ is a typical metaphysical love poem. Here the poet as a lover bids good morning to his beloved whom he has met after both were awakened from a long slumber and is consumed with the passion of love. He speaks of the time before their first meeting. He wonders how they had lived before before they met each other. The poet suggests that till they fell in love with each other, they were like infants or the unsophisticated people who enjoy only rustic pleasures. It may be that they had slept a long sleep before they met each other. He is sure that he always dreamed of his beloved.
Logical Development of Thought in the Poem
There is a logical development of thought which is a characteristic feature of metaphysical poetry. The poet follows the device of what Helen Gardner calls ‘contraction’, or ‘intellectual analysis of emotion’. The first stanza describes the contrast between a life without love and a life of all absorbing love. In the subsequent stanzas, Donne advances argument after argument to drive his poem home. The poet concludes that as their souls have awakened to a new life, they become absorbed to each other. They are united by love. He suggests that it is only through such love that immortality can be attained.
A reader coming from the smooth fluency and mellifluous sweetness of the Elizabethan love poetry is sure to be struck by certain qualities of this poem.
Uses of Conceits
Donne’s using of extravagant conceits, in which the poet’s thought is clothed, is the most striking thing about this poem. The conceits are drawn from a wide range of experience and learning. They starkle the reader and make his head reel. The conceits are drawn from various sources. The conceit of ‘seven sleepers den’ refers to a legend. According to this legend, seven Christian youths sought shelter in a cave to escape the persecution of the Persian emperor Decius. They fell into a miraculous sleep and awoke after three centuries. There are also references to Geography.‘Sea-discoverers’, ‘Maps’, ‘hemispheres’ are taken from Geography. When the poet says, “Whatever dies, was not mixed equally”, he refers to scholastic philosophy. The comparison between the lovers and two suggests metaphysical wit, because here we find the ordinary and extraordinary, the small and sublime.
Uses of Imagery and Poetic Style
Various images are taken from various sources, but they have been fused into a coherent whole. The poem thus provides a fine instance of ‘unification of sensibility’, for which T.S. Eliot praised the metaphysical poet. The poem also contains the mixture of the splendid and the colloquial– another characteristic of metaphysical poetry–colloquialism is imported to the poem by the use of the words like; ‘suck’d’, ‘snorted’ etc.
Sensation, emotion and thought are here interfused in the poem in an admirable manner. The poem reminds us of Geierson’s remark about Donne. In Geierson’s opinion, “Donne is primarily a poet, a creature of feeling and imagination whose acute and subtle intellect is the servant of passion and imagination, though sometimes an unruly servant.” Donne becomes highly emotional when he says–
“If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.”
Conclusion
All these suggest the poet’s profundity of thought and sincerity of emotion. Though Donne is a metaphysical poet, the thought in his poetry is not his primary concern. His profound emotion stimulates his intellectual analysis. Still passion is controlled by the combination of wit and logic which offer a healthy corrective to Elizabethan poetry which was often fluent, facile and extravagant.