Psychoanalytical Criticism- Jacques Lacan

 

Jacques Lacan

Download

Psychoanalytical Criticism- Jacques Lacan

Following our research on Freudian basics, we now turn to a thinker who at the same time revolutionized and shocked the world of psychoanalysis: the French master, Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). Where Freud delved into the hidden chambers of the mind, Lacan insisted that the key to these chambers was not buried deep within, but was in fact all around us—woven into the web of language itself.

This Newsletter Psychoanalytical Criticism- Jacques Lacan delves into Lacan’s complex and inspiringly disruptive ideas. We will unpack his central claim—that the unconscious is structured like a language—and explore its deep implications for literature, identity, and the very notion of selfhood. Our investigation will focus on the intricate interplay between writing and the formation of identity, scrutinising how social, medical, and historical constructions of insanity are not just reflected in, but are produced by, the language we use to describe ourselves and our world.

Introduction:

To understand Lacan is to understand a fundamental shift. While Freud used language as a tool to access the unconscious (through free association, dream interpretation), Lacan argued that language is the very structure of the unconscious itself. For Lacan, we do not use language; we inhabit it. Our desires, our fears, and our very sense of self are constituted within its networks and constraints.

This perspective makes Lacanian theory exceptionally powerful for literary studies. If the unconscious and literature both operate under the same linguistic rules, then a literary text becomes a privileged object for analysis—not as a symptom of an author’s neurosis, but as a direct manifestation of the unconscious processes of language.

Key Concepts: A Lexicon for the Modern Analyst

Navigating Lacan requires a new vocabulary. Here are the essential terms, decoded.

• The Unconscious is Structured Like a Language

Ø  This is Lacan’s most famous and foundational axiom. He rejected the idea of the unconscious as a seething, chaotic cauldron of primal urges. Instead, he proposed it is orderly, logical, and follows the rules of linguistic systems. We can analyse dreams, slips of the tongue, and literary texts using the same tools we use to analyse poetry or prose—specifically, the mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy.

• Signifier and Signified

Ø  Lacan draws from linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. A signifier is the sound-image or written word (e.g., the letters T-R-E-E). The signified is the mental concept it evokes (the idea of a tall, woody plant). For Saussure, the two were inseparable. Lacan, however, radically pried them apart. He argued the relationship between signifier and signified is never stable or guaranteed. The signified is perpetually slipping under the chain of signifiers. We never finally grasp meaning; we endlessly move from one signifier to another in a never-ending quest for a fullness of meaning that is always deferred.

• The Mirror Stage

Ø This is Lacan's theory of how the ego is formed. Between 6-18 months, an infant recognises its own reflection in a mirror (or similar reflective surface, like the affirming gaze of a parent). This image is a misrecognition (méconnaissance)—it provides an illusion of coherence, mastery, and totality that the infant, who still experiences its body as uncoordinated and fragmented, does not truly feel. This idealised, external image becomes the core of the ego, which Lacan therefore saw as fundamentally built on a fantasy. The ego is not the seat of autonomy but a constructed entity, born from identification with an external image.

• The Three Orders: The Real, The Imaginary, The Symbolic

Ø  Lacan described human experience as structured by three intertwined registers:

§  The Real: Not everyday reality, but that which is beyond language, unrepresentable, and impossible to articulate. It is the traumatic, pre-linguistic stuff of experience, always outside symbolisation. We encounter it in moments of shock, trauma, or overwhelming jouissance.

§  The Imaginary: The realm of images, identification, and illusion. It is dominated by dyadic relationships (like mother-child) and is the seat of the ego. It is the order of misrecognition and deception, where the self feels whole and unified. It is associated with the maternal.

§  The Symbolic Order: The most crucial order for Lacan. This is the realm of language, law, culture, and social structures. It is the "big Other" that governs our lives with its rules, prohibitions, and norms. Entering the Symbolic Order through language is what socialises us but also introduces lack and separation from the immediate, dyadic world of the Imaginary. It is associated with the Name-of-the-Father, the symbolic law that breaks the primordial bond with the mother.

• Desire and Lack

Ø For Lacan, desire is not a biological drive towards a specific object (like hunger). It is a constant state of lack (manque). We are born into lack upon entering the Symbolic Order, which separates us from the (imagined) plenitude of the maternal body. We then spend our lives seeking objects (objets petit a) that we believe will fill this void. But these objects always fail. Desire is always the desire for something else, and it is this endless movement of desire, not its satisfaction, that defines the human condition. Literature is a profound record of this endless pursuit.

• Jouissance

Ø A term notoriously difficult to translate, often rendered as "enjoyment" but meaning something far more intense and paradoxical. It is a form of extreme pleasure that is so intense it tips over into pain. It is the forbidden enjoyment that exists beyond the pleasure principle, linked to the Real. Society, through the Symbolic Order, limits jouissance for its own stability. The pursuit of jouissance is often associated with self-destructive behaviour and forms of "madness" that defy social logic.

Writing the Fractured Self: Literature and Identity Formation

For Lacan, there is no essential, core self waiting to be expressed. The self is a fiction constructed in the Imaginary and structured by the Symbolic Order of language. Therefore, the act of writing is not an expression of a pre-formed identity but an attempt to constitute one through the signifier.

The author does not master language; language speaks through the author. The text, therefore, is riddled with the traces of the unconscious—not the author’s personal history per se, but the slips, gaps, and contradictions inherent in language itself. A Lacanian critic does not ask, "What does the author mean?" but rather, "How does the text function? Where does meaning break down? What is being repressed by the text’s narrative?"

The Discourse of Insanity: A Linguistic Construction

Lacan’s work forces us to question what we call "madness." If our sanity is predicated on our successful insertion into the Symbolic Order (accepting its laws, its language, its norms), then insanity can be seen as a different relationship to this order.

• Social & Historical Construction: What a society defines as "mad" is what falls outside its dominant symbolic framework. The hysteric’s symptoms, for instance, are a language of the body (corporalised speech) that emerges when direct speech is impossible within the constraints of their social (e.g., patriarchal) Symbolic Order.
• Medical Construction: Lacan was fiercely critical of a medical model that sought to quickly "cure" symptoms without listening to their truth. The symptom is a message from the unconscious; it is a formation of desire. To simply suppress it pharmacologically is to ignore the subject’s truth. The analyst’s role is to help the subject traverse the fantasy structuring their desire, not to impose a normative idea of "health."

Gender, Language, and the Madness of the Feminine

Lacan’s work on gender is among his most controversial and searched-for topics. He stated, "The Woman does not exist" (La femme n'existe pas). This is not a misogynistic dismissal but a radical claim about identity and the Symbolic Order.

He argued that while sexual difference is a fundamental symbolic opposition (having/being the phallus as a signifier of lack), the category "Woman" is not a fixed essence. It is an unattainable ideal, a fantasy constructed within a phallocentric Symbolic Order that defines woman as man’s negative other. Therefore, female identity is even more profoundly constituted by lack and otherness than male identity.

This has dire consequences. If a woman’s desire and jouissance have no adequate representation in the dominant Symbolic Order, her expression may be forced into the realm of the symptom. The "madness" of literary heroines—from Ophelia to Bertha Mason—can be read not as a biological flaw but as the only available language to express a desire that has no other sanctioned means of articulation. Their "hysteria" is a silent protest against a symbolic order that offers them no valid subject position. Writing, therefore, becomes a critical act of forging a new language, of finding a voice from within the gaps of the existing Symbolic Order.

Case Study: Lacan Reads Poe's "The Purloined Letter"

Lacan’s famous seminar on this story is a masterclass in his method. The plot involves a stolen letter whose contents are never revealed, yet it exerts immense power over all who possess it.

• The Letter as Signifier: For Lacan, the letter’s content is irrelevant. What matters is its position within a symbolic circuit. The letter is a pure signifier—its meaning is entirely determined by its place in a triadic structure of looks (the king who doesn’t see, the queen who tries to hide, the minister who sees her hiding).
• The Subject is Determined by the Signifier: Each character who possesses the letter (the Queen, the Minister, Dupin) has their identity and actions dictated by their position relative to this signifier. They do not control the letter; it controls them.
• The Unconscious is the Discourse of the Other: The letter represents the unconscious itself—its content is hidden, but its effects are visible everywhere in the behaviour it generates. We can never "open" the unconscious to see its secrets, just as we never learn the letter’s contents. We can only interpret its effects. This mirrors how we must read a text: not for a hidden meaning, but for how its signifiers structure its narrative and its characters.

Conclusion: 

Lacan provides a sophisticated toolkit for moving beyond simplistic psycho-biographical readings. He teaches us to see the literary text as a dynamic field where the structures of the human psyche—desire, lack, misrecognition, and the relentless pursuit of the unattainable—play out in the medium of language itself.

Further Reading 

• Lacan, J. Écrits (1966) - The key primary text.

• Lacan, J. The Seminar, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.

• Lacan mirror stage explained

• Lacan real symbolic imaginary

• Lacan desire and lack

• Lacan femme n'existe pas

• Lacan purloined letter summary

• Fink, B. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance (1995) - An excellent guide.

• Evans, D. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (1996) - Invaluable.

Download

William Blake - The Lamb , The Tyger

This Newsletter is dedicated to the profound and complex genius of William Blake (1757–1827). Blake was not merely a poet; he was a visionary artist, engraver, and printmaker whose work defied the conventional boundaries of his era. Operating largely outside the mainstream literary and artistic circles of late 18th and early 19th century London, Blake created a deeply symbolic and personal mythology, integrating text and image in a manner that was utterly unique. His philosophy was built on a fierce opposition to rigid institutional control, whether religious, political, or artistic, and a celebration of imaginative freedom. To understand Blake’s poetry, one must appreciate his methods: he invented a technique called illuminated printing, whereby he etched his poems and accompanying illustrations onto copper plates, printed them, and then hand-coloured each page. This process ensured that every copy was a unique work of art, where the visual and textual elements were inseparable and of equal importance. This newsletter will delve into two of his most famous and contrasting poems from his seminal collections, Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794): "The Lamb" and "The Tyger."

The Poem – "The Lamb"

Text of the Poem:

Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

Analysis of the Poem
Summary:

"The Lamb" is a poem from Songs of Innocence. It takes the form of a gentle, catechistic dialogue between a child and a lamb. The child poses two simple questions to the lamb: "Who made thee?" and "Dost thou know who made thee?" The poem then proceeds to answer these questions, describing the gifts bestowed upon the lamb by its creator: life, sustenance, a soft fleece, and a tender voice. The second stanza reveals the answer: the creator is God, who in the Christian tradition is embodied in the meek and mild form of Jesus Christ, the "Lamb of God." The poem concludes with a blessing, reinforcing a sense of benevolent, protective love that unites the child, the animal, and the divine.

Style and Form:

1. Form: The poem is comprised of two stanzas (groups of lines forming a metrical unit) of ten lines each.
2. Rhyme Scheme: It employs a simple and song-like AABB rhyme scheme (thee/thee, feed/mead, delight/bright, voice/rejoice). This nursery-rhyme quality reinforces the theme of childlike innocence.
3. Meter: The poem is written in trochaic meter (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, e.g., "Lit-tle Lamb"), which creates a gentle, rocking rhythm, reminiscent of a lullaby. This is often softened further by a catalectic final foot (omitting the final unstressed syllable), which gives the lines a tender, incomplete feel.
4. Diction: The language is simple, repetitive, and soft, using words like "softest," "tender," "meek," "mild," and "rejoice." The repeated questions and answers mimic the pattern of a child’s learning or a religious catechism.

Critical Appreciation and Literary Terms:

1. Symbolism: This is a literary device where a person, object, or event represents a larger idea. The lamb is a potent symbol of innocence, purity, vulnerability, and gentleness. It is also a direct allusion (a brief reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical or cultural significance) to Jesus Christ, referred to in the Bible as the "Lamb of God" who takes away the sins of the world.
2. Theme: The central theme (the central topic or idea explored in a text) is divine creation and innocence. The poem presents a world view that is secure, benevolent, and easily understandable. The creator is presented as a loving, knowable, and gentle figure.
3. Imagery: Blake uses imagery (language that appeals to the senses) that is pastoral and serene: the "stream," "mead" (meadow), and "vales" (valleys) create a peaceful, idyllic setting.
4. Speaker: The persona or speaker of the poem is a child, whose voice embodies the state of innocence—a state of trust, naivety, and unfiltered joy within Blake’s philosophical system.

The Poem – "The Tyger"

Text of the Poem:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Analysis of "The Tyger"

Summary:
"The Tyger," from Songs of Experience, is a stark contrast to "The Lamb." It is a series of awe-struck, fearful questions addressed to a tiger, a creature of immense power and beauty. The speaker is not a child but an experienced observer, bewildered by the paradox of creation. How could the same divine power that created the gentle lamb also forge this terrifying, fiery predator? The poem does not provide answers but instead explores the process of this fearsome creation through imagery of a blacksmith's forge (hammer, chain, furnace, anvil). It culminates in the central, unanswerable question: "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

Style and Form:

1. Form: The poem consists of six quatrains (stanzas of four lines each).
2. Rhyme Scheme: Like "The Lamb," it uses a regular AABB rhyme scheme, but the effect is utterly different. Here, the rhythm is pounding, forceful, and relentless, mirroring the beating of a hammer on an anvil.
3. Meter: The poem is primarily in trochaic tetrameter (four trochaic feet per line: Ty-ger! Ty-ger! burn-ing bright). This creates a powerful, marching rhythm that embodies the tiger's fierce energy.
4. Diction: The language is explosive and intense, filled with words evoking awe, fear, and industrial creation: "burning," "fearful," "dread," "dare," "hammer," "chain," "furnace," "anvil." The repetition of the opening stanza with the crucial change from "Could" to "Dare" intensifies the poem's terrifying wonder.

Critical Appreciation and Literary Terms:

1. The Sublime: This is a key concept in Romanticism. Unlike beauty, which is harmonious and pleasing, the sublime is the quality of immense, awe-inspiring power that evokes a mixture of terror, wonder, and astonishment. The tiger is the perfect embodiment of the sublime—its beauty is "fearful."
2. Symbolism: The tiger symbolises experience, energy, force, revolution, and even the darker, more terrifying aspects of the divine creative power. Some critics interpret it as a symbol of the violent energy of the French Revolution or of the sublime power of the artist's imagination.
3. Themes: The central theme is the nature of creation and the character of the Creator. The poem explores the dichotomy between good and evil, innocence and experience, and the terrifying, dualistic nature of God, who can be both a gentle shepherd and a mighty, inscrutable blacksmith.
4. Imagery: The dominant imagery is of fire ("burning bright," "fire of thine eyes," "furnace") and industrial creation ("hammer," "chain," "anvil," "furnace"). This forges a vision of God not as a pastoral shepherd but as a mighty, relentless artisan working in a cosmic smithy.
5. Allusion: The line "When the stars threw down their spears" is a possible allusion to the war in heaven between the angels led by Michael and those led by the rebellious Lucifer (Satan), as described in Milton's Paradise Lost. This reinforces the connection between the tiger and powerful, rebellious, or fallen forces.
6. Rhetorical Questions: The poem is built entirely on a series of rhetorical questions (questions asked for effect rather than to elicit an answer). Their function is to express overwhelming awe and to highlight the unanswerable mystery at the heart of existence.

Multiple Choice Questions-

1. What was the name of the innovative printing technique developed by William Blake?
a) Etching
b) Illuminated Printing
c) Lithography
d) Woodblock Printing

Ans- b) Illuminated Printing

2. From which of Blake's collections is the poem "The Lamb" taken?
a) Songs of Experience
b) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
c) Poetical Sketches
d) Songs of Innocence 

Ans- d) Songs of Innocence

3. In the poem "The Tyger," the speaker wonders in what "distant deeps or skies" the fire of the tiger's eyes burnt. This is most commonly interpreted as a reference to:
a) The sea and the clouds
b) Heaven and Hell
c) England and France
d) The past and the future

Ans- b) Heaven and Hell

4. What is the primary metre used in the poem "The Lamb"?
a) Iambic Pentameter
b) Trochaic Meter
c) Anapestic Meter
d) Free Verse

Ans-b) Trochaic Meter  

5. According to the biography, which of the following was NOT a contemporary thinker that William Blake associated with?
a) Mary Wollstonecraft
b) Thomas Paine
c) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
d) William Godwin

Ans- c) Samuel Taylor Coleridge

6. The central, unresolved question posed in "The Tyger" is:
a) "What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
b) "On what wings dare he aspire?"
c) "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"
d) "In what furnace was thy brain?"

Ans- c) "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?"

7. In "The Lamb," the speaker reveals that the creator is called by the lamb's name because:
a) The creator is also innocent and meek.
b) The creator is also a powerful animal.
c) The lamb is a symbol of the devil.
d) The creator lives in a pasture

Ans- a) The creator is also innocent and meek.

8. The biography mentions that Blake's artistic leanings were influenced early on by sketching in which location?
a) The Royal Academy of Arts
b) The British Museum
c) The London Zoo
d) Westminster Abbey

Ans- d) Westminster Abbey

9. Which of the following best describes the dominant imagery used in "The Tyger" to describe the act of creation?
a) Pastoral and agricultural (e.g., planting, shepherding)
b) Industrial and artisanal (e.g., blacksmith's forge)
c) Academic and scholarly (e.g., writing, reading)
d) Natural and organic (e.g., growth, evolution)

Ans- b) Industrial and artisanal (e.g., blacksmith's forge)

10. Blake's first book of poetry, funded by Harriet Matthew and John Flaxman, was titled:
a) Songs of Innocence
b) The Book of Urizen
c) Poetical Sketches
d) Jerusalem

Ans- c) Poetical Sketches

John Donne- The Good Morrow, The Sun Rising

Download

Introduction

Welcome to this exploration of the work of John Donne, a leading figure in English literature whose poetry continues to fascinate and challenge readers four centuries after it was written. Donne’s work marks a significant departure from the smooth, conventional lyricism of the Elizabethan era, introducing a new intellectual severity, emotional difficulty, and conversational proximity. This newsletter will focus on two of his most celebrated love poems, The Sun Rising and The Good Morrow, providing the poems themselves, a detailed analysis, and a discussion of their style and critical importance. We will pay specific attention to explaining the literary and technical terms crucial for appreciating Donne’s unique genius.

Key Literary Context: Metaphysical Poetry

1. Definition: The term "Metaphysical Poetry" is commonly applied to the work of a group of seventeenth-century poets, chief among them John Donne, followed by George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan. The label was initially coined by critics like John Dryden and later Samuel Johnson, who used it disparagingly to describe what they saw as these poets' excessive display of learning and their tendency to yoke disparate ideas together violently.
2. Characteristics: The hallmarks of this poetry include:
   1. The Conceit: This is the most defining feature. A conceit is an extended, elaborate, and often startling metaphor that draws a clever, surprising parallel between two apparently dissimilar things. It is a device of "wit" in the 17th-century sense, meaning intellectual acuity and the ability to perceive hidden similarities.
   2. Dramatic Voice and Colloquial Tone: The poems often begin abruptly (in medias res) and adopt a direct, conversational, and sometimes argumentative tone, unlike the more melodic and formal tone of his predecessors.
   3. Argumentative Structure: 
      The poems frequently resemble a structured argument or a logical disputation, where the speaker tries to persuade a listener (a lover, God, or even an abstract concept like the sun) of a point.
   4. Psychological Realism: Metaphysical poets delve into complex states of mind, exploring the intricacies of love, devotion, doubt, and desire with intellectual and emotional honesty.
   5. Themes: Love, both sacred and profane, religion, mortality, and the nature of reality are central concerns.

The Text

1. 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 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.

Source - Internet

Analysis

Stanza 1: The speaker begins with a conversational, wondering question about their existence before love. He uses several metaphors to describe this prior state:

1. "weaned till then?" and "sucked on country pleasures, childishly": He compares their past pleasures to the simple, instinctual sustenance of an infant, implying they were immature and unaware.
2. "the Seven Sleepers’ den": A reference to a Christian and Islamic legend of seven youths who slept in a cave for centuries to escape persecution. This conceit suggests their pre-love life was a state of unconscious dormancy.
3. The stanza establishes the central metaphor: life before love was a dream; life with love is being awake.

Stanza 2: The speaker joyfully greets this new state of consciousness ("good-morrow"). The love they share eliminates fear and jealousy ("watch not one another out of fear") and transforms their reality.

1. "makes one little room an everywhere": This is a key metaphysical conceit. The power of their love is such that the confines of their private room become as vast and significant as the entire world. Their internal, emotional world transcends physical geography.
2. He dismisses the age of exploration ("sea-discoverers," "maps"); their discovered world—each other—is superior to any new world found on a map. "Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one": This line captures the fusion of two individuals into a single, complete universe.

Stanza 3: The speaker develops another intricate conceit based on looking into each other's eyes.

1. "My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears": Their reflections in each other's eyes symbolize their mutual interdependence and the way they define each other's world.
2. "two better hemispheres": He compares their two souls to the two hemispheres of a perfect world map. Unlike the real world, their world has no coldness ("sharp north"—a metaphor for emotional distance) and no decay ("declining west"—a metaphor for sunset and death).
3. The final three lines present a logical, almost scientific argument for immortality, rooted in contemporary belief: if two elements are perfectly mixed, they become a new, stable compound. Similarly, if their two loves are perfectly united into one, that love cannot die because it is no longer composed of separate, mortal parts.

Summary
The Good Morrow is a love poem spoken by a lover to his beloved upon waking. It reflects on the life they led before they found each other, which the speaker now dismisses as a childish, unconscious sleep. Their true life, their "waking" existence, began only with their mutual love. The poem argues that their love has created a complete and perfect world of its own, superior to the physical worlds explored by navigators. It concludes with the idea that a love so perfectly balanced and united is immortal and cannot die.

The Text

2. The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

Source - Internet

Analysis

Stanza 1: The poem opens with a dramatic, insulting address to the sun, establishing its colloquial and argumentative tone.

a. "Busy old fool, unruly Sun": The sun is personified as a foolish, meddlesome old man. "Unruly" also ironically suggests the sun is like a misbehaving child.

b. The speaker questions the sun’s authority over lovers. "Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?" This rhetorical question challenges the idea that the natural world (and time itself) governs the private world of love.

c. He tells the sun to go bother those bound by time and duty: schoolchildren, apprentices, courtiers, and labourers ("country ants").

d. The final line makes the grand claim: "Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, / Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time." Love exists outside of time; temporal measurements are mere insignificant fragments ("rags").

Stanza 2: The speaker’s boasts become more extreme, employing hyperbole (exaggeration for effect).

a. He claims he could "eclipse and cloud [the sun’s beams] with a wink" but chooses not to, as he cannot bear to look away from his beloved. This is a conceit that places the power of the lover’s will above that of the sun.

b. He then suggests his lover’s eyes are so bright they could blind the sun itself.

c. He introduces a colonial conceit: "both th’ Indias of spice and mine" refers to the East Indies (source of spices) and the West Indies (source of gold mines), the most prized treasures of the nascent British Empire. The speaker claims these riches, and all the kings of the world, are now contained within his bed. The external world of commerce and power is subsumed into the microcosm of their love.

Stanza 3: The argument reaches its climax. The private world doesn’t just ignore the public world; it becomes it.

a. "She’s all states, and all princes, I": This is a central metaphysical conceit. The lovers embody the entire world of geopolitical power. He is every ruler, and she is every kingdom he rules. This metaphor has been critiqued for its potential misogyny, casting the female beloved as a passive territory to be possessed.

b. He declares everything else an imitation ("mimic") or a fake ("alchemy"—a false gold).

c. In a final, triumphant inversion of power, he pities the sun. Since their love contains the whole world, the sun’s job is now easy: it need only shine on their room to warm the entire globe. Their bed becomes the center of the Ptolemaic universe, with the sun revolving around it.

·   Summary

    The Sun Rising is an aubade—a poetic form about lovers separating at dawn. The speaker is in bed with his lover and angrily berates the rising sun for interrupting them. He commands the sun to bother other, less important people instead. The poem’s argument evolves through three stanzas: first, he claims the world of love is independent of the sun’s time; second, he boasts that his lover’s beauty surpasses the sun’s light and that all the world’s riches are contained within their bed; finally, he declares that their love is the entire world and that the sun’s duty is now simply to warm them, as they are the centre of this new universe.

Style

• Dramatic Openings: Both poems begin abruptly, pulling the reader directly into the speaker’s mental drama. "I wonder, by my troth..." and "Busy old fool, unruly Sun..." create an immediate sense of a mind in action.
• Use of the Conceit: Both poems rely on extended, intellectual conceits to make their arguments:
1. The Good Morrow uses the conceits of waking/sleeping, microcosm/macrocosm (the room as a world), and the perfect hemispheres.
2. The Sun Rising uses the conceits of eclipsing the sun, the bed containing the world's riches, and the lovers as the center of the universe.
• Argumentative Logic: The poems are structured as persuasive arguments. The speaker uses hyperbole, rhetorical questions, and logical (if fanciful) deductions to convince his audience of love's supreme power.
• Colloquial Diction: Donne uses language that feels spoken and direct ("by my troth," "saucy pedantic wretch"), which was a radical departure from the more formal and decorative diction of earlier Elizabethan sonneteers.

Critical Appreciation

• Unification of Sensibility: The poet T.S. Eliot praised Donne and the Metaphysicals for a "unification of sensibility"—the ability to "feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose." A thought was not just an idea; it was an experience. This is evident in both poems: the intellectual concept that love creates a new world is also a deeply felt emotional reality for the speakers.
• Tension rather than Resolution: However, a closer reading, especially of The Sun Rising, reveals a deep tension beneath the confident boasts. The speaker’s need to so vehemently assert his independence from the sun suggests an underlying awareness that he cannot truly escape time and the social world. The poem is not just a statement of a belief but a dramatic performance of a mind wrestling with that belief, trying to convince itself of its truth through the force of its own rhetoric. This psychological realism is key to Donne's modernity.
• Reflection of the Age: The poems are products of their time. The references to the "Indias," new worlds, and alchemy reflect the Renaissance spirit of exploration, scientific inquiry, and colonial ambition. Donne yokes these very public, worldly concerns with the most private of experiences—romantic love.
• Legacy: Donne’s tough, intellectual, and psychologically complex style fell out of favour after his death but was resurrected in the early 20th century by Modernist poets like T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats, who saw in him a precursor to their own artistic aims. His influence cemented his place as one of the most important and innovative poets in the English language.

In conclusion, The Good Morrow and The Sun Rising are masterful examples of Metaphysical poetry. They transcend simple love declarations to become complex, witty, and passionate explorations of the nature of reality, time, and the transformative power of human connection. They challenge the reader to think and feel simultaneously, offering a reading experience that is as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally resonant.