The Good-Morrow by John Donne: Analysis. The Good-Morrow, by John Donne, chiefly deals with a love that advances further from lusty love to the spiritual love.The poem makes use of biblical and Catholic writings, indirectly referencing the legend of the Seven Sleepers and Paul the Apostle's description of divine, agapic love – two concepts with which, as a practicing Catholic, Donne would have been familiar.

1. GOOD MORROW, KIDS!
[ALTHOUGH IT’S NOT
MORNING, I KNOW ]

2. The Good Morrow by
John Donne [1572-1631]
A poem of 21 lines divided
into 3 stanzas.
It was published in his 1633
collection Songs and Sonnets

3. MEANING OF THE TITLE!
Good Morning or
A New Beginning

4. 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 other, 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 hemispheres,
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.

5. Let’s go through the poem line by line!
• Lines 1-3
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?
---- the speaker wakes up and starts to question himself [rhetorical
question] , what on earth did we do before we were together? ("By
my troth" is an old-school version of "what on earth.")
-- Like all rhetorical questions, this one is not really meant to be
be answered!
Instead the speaker uses it as a way to get his poetic
monologue rolling, to get his lady friend thinking about love
and why their relationship is so fantastic.

6. HAVE A LOOK AT THE WORDS
“WEANED” AND “SUCKED”
• "Weaned" and "sucked" supposedly refer to
breastfeeding.
• However these two words might give us sexual
imageries as in the above lines, the speaker’s
addressing the woman in the morning after having
spent the night together.
• "Country pleasures" takes it to a new level.
• On the surface, "sucked on country pleasures,
childishly" is another breastfeeding reference, with
"country" implying that childhood fun is rustic (of the
country) and unsophisticated.
• But it can also be understood as a reference to gross

7. LINES 4-5
OR SNORTED WE IN THE SEVEN SLEEPERS' DEN?
'TWAS SO; BUT THIS, ALL PLEASURES FANCIES BE.
• Here, the Seven Sleepers refer to a an allusion of a
legendary group of Christian children who were walled up
alive by the Roman emperor Decius (AD 249-251). But
instead of suffocating or starving to death, these
children slept miraculously for a really long time.
When a random builder un-bricked the entrance 187
years later, he found them alive and well.

8. ALLUSION?
• An allusion is a figure of speech that references a person, place,
thing, or event. Each of these concepts can be real or imaginary,
referring to anything from fiction, to folklore, to historical events
and religious manuscripts.
• For example, a woman might say to her husband, "Thanks, Romeo,"
after he's offered some type of romantic gesture.
Traditionally, Romeo (from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) is
looked upon as one of the most romantic fictional characters in
history. In this example, the wife would have succeeded in telling
her husband he's wonderful, simply by alluding to this fictional
romantic man.
• These references can be direct or indirect, but they will often
broaden the reader's understanding.

9. WHY THIS ALLUSION?
With this allusion the speaker suggests that anything
before this relationship was (1) childish, (2) boring
(because everyone was asleep), and (3) something to be
hidden or afraid of.
• He asserts that compared with their true love
(“this”), all past pleasures have been merely
“fancies,” and the women he “desir’d, and got”
were only a “dream” of this one woman.

10. LINES 6-7
IF EVER ANY BEAUTY I DID SEE,
WHICH I DESIRED, AND GOT, 'TWAS BUT A DREAM
OF THEE.
• The final two lines of the stanza sum it up.
Thinking back on his life, the speaker says that any
beautiful woman he saw and desired was merely a dream
of his current beloved.
• Compared to the love he's experiencing now, those affairs
had no substance, no importance ultimately, no reality.

11. The second stanza opens with a triumphant
greeting to their souls as they awaken into a
constant, trusting love.
• The first stanza was all about bodies.
Stanza two wakes up the souls and starts to shows us what exactly
this true love is. Check out the lines below,
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
The point the speaker's making is that true love, the
kind that involves the souls, is totally without fear. They
watch each other and feel only the pure joy of being
together.

12. For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
• The reason these souls are so perfectly satisfied is that
erotic love overpowers the love of anything else.
• But at the same time that the outside world begins to
mean nothing to you, love is turning your bedroom
smaller version of the world. True love is so perfect and
all-consuming that it can contain the whole universe.
• This hyperbolic claim shows us some serious geographic
and cartographic imagery in the poem. These lines reflect
the Renaissance idea that an individual held within them
the universe.

13. Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
• The triplet of stanza two uses anaphora: the repetition of the same word(s)
at the beginning of succeeding lines.
• Here it's "let," which really underlines the speaker's suggestions.
• Since love has made their bedroom the equivalent of the whole world,
these lovers are no longer interested in traveling anywhere else.
• These lovers aren't interested in tearing up a new jungle. Through their
love, they already possess the whole world, right there in that rumpled
bed.

14. MORE TO CONSIDER…
• The speaker contrasts the physical worlds sought by
explorers and map readers with the spiritual world of the
lovers.
• When he asserts that each of them is a world in itself, he
is referring to the view that every man and woman is a
miniature universe, with the same qualities and
components as the greater universe.
[That makes this bedroom (which is also the
whole world) a pretty world-saturated
sanctuary.]

15. In the third stanza the speaker initially gets
close up and personal.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
The speaker sees his own face reflected in her eyes and
assumes that she can see his too.
Gazing into her eyes, he claims that emotional honesty
resides in the face. Their true love is written in their eyes
and the expression of their mouths.

16. Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
• Another rhetorical question about these hearts, using
a conceit (an extended metaphor) to compare them to
two separated hemispheres.
• These heart-hemispheres are perfectly designed and
perfectly matched. With no cold wintry north, these
hearts are full of warm southern love; and with no
west, where the sun sets every day, bringing
darkness to the world, they hold nothing but
constancy and light.

17. • Here, "declining west" or sunset slyly brings the
poem back to its title, emphasizing that this is
about waking up to true love and starting a new
day.
• So, if love = wholeness, it makes sense that
these lovers compare themselves to halves or
hemispheres. In their union of love, they
recognize that they're
making themselves whole.

18. 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.
• The triplet begins with an observation that seems a bit out
of context.
In medieval theories of medicine, death was thought to
be the result of imbalances in the body's elements.
• However, the speaker here, concludes that if their
feelings for each other are the same or really similar,
then their love is so healthy that it will never weaken
or die.

19. • By comparing their love to a human body, the speaker
argues that their passion is not just strong and lusty; it's
also well-balanced and in proportion.
• The concept behind the fifth line here, is that the earthly
sphere is composed of heterogeneous substances which
are unstable, ever-changing, and therefore mortal. The
heavenly sphere is formed of homogeneous spiritual
substance, which is pure and eternal.
• Sensual love is earthly and subject to change and decay,
whereas the love enjoyed by the speaker and his beloved
is “equal,” a state of oneness, a pure and changeless
union.

20. THINGS TO REMEMBER
• Donne is considered an innovator in the area of love poetry. The
Renaissance style relied heavily upon convention: the predictable
nature of the love affair, the idealized qualities and appearance of
the woman, the subservient role of the poet, and the courtly
language in which he addressed the woman.
• Donne broke all these conventions. He shocked readers of his
century and the next with his direct, dramatic style, his colloquial
language, his open approach to physical aspects of love, and his
use of the broken rhythms of real speech.
• He was also criticized for perplexing the women in his poems
(traditionally addressed in terms of uncomplicated emotion) with
complex metaphysical matters.

21. • Donne begins “The Good-Morrow” with a typically
dramatic opening—no less than three insistent
questions to the woman, in the style of everyday
speech.
The entire poem has the air of being part of an
intimate conversation which keeps one always
conscious of the immediate presence of the
woman.
• The language and imagery of the poem, however,
are deliberately exaggerated, with a strong
element of paradox.

22. METAPHYSICAL CONCEIT
• Extended metaphor
• Two vastly different images combined
• Dive into greater depths of comparison
The metaphysical conceit is the bread and
butter of metaphysical poetry, which was
popular during the seventeenth century.

23. • During the 17th century, the metaphysical poets such as John
Donne, Andrew Marvell, John Cleveland, and Abraham Cowley
used a literary device known as the metaphysical conceit.
A metaphysical conceit is a complex, and often lofty literary
device that makes a far-stretched comparison between a
spiritual aspect of a person and a physical thing in the world.
Quite simply, a metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor,
which can sometimes last through the entire poem. A
metaphysical conceit works to connect the reader's sensory
perceptions to abstract ideas. Although the conceit slowly went
away after the 17th century, due to being perceived as artifice,
some later poets like Emily Dickinson used it. Let's take a look at
some metaphysical conceit examples from a few famous poems.

24. JOHN DONNE
is considered the pioneer of metaphysical poetry,
and he made an extensive use of the metaphysical
conceits in his poetry.