Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The Good-Morrow
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?
T’was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir’d, and got, t’was but a dreame of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking soules,

Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And makes one little roome, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,

And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.

Mohammad Jashim Uddin, Assistant Professor, Dept of English, NUB, [email protected], 01912766821
 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the poem about?

2. Analyze the meter of each line of poem.

3. Find out the tone of the poem.

4. What is a Rhyme Scheme? Find out the Rhyme Scheme of the poem.

5. What is the connection among the three stanzas?

6. What is a hyperbole? What hyperboles are used here?

7. What is a monologue? How do you prove the poem is a monologue?

8. Identify caesura and strophic pause in the poem.

9. Find out parallelism (chiasm, reduplication), Anaphora, alliteration,

rhetorical interrogative, exclamation, invocation, inversion, metonymy,
metaphor.

10.What is conceit? Which conceits are used in "The Good Morrow"?

11.What is a lyricism? In which way is "The Good Morrow" a lyric poem?

12.Analyze the poem from lexical perspective.

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The Poem is about:

This poem is a hyperbolic description of the mood of one newly in love who
rejoices that his passion is reciprocated; it dwells on the eternal nature of true love.
It is a monologue, dealing with time past, present, and future.

Stanza I treats of time past, as the speaker wonders what he and his lady did before
they loved each other. The era before their love was a useless one in which they
were scarcely awake, hardly "weaned" and "suck'd on country pleasures" like
children. The opening feeling of wonder thus gives way to reflection; the poet
questions if they slept their time away in the "Seven Sleepers' den". Past loves, he
continues, in a tone that rises again to a joyous wonder, were only foreshowing
dream of his lady.

Stanza II takes place in the present time of their love; their "waking souls" indicate
the beginning of their love was very much like birth. Love controls all other sights
so that they need not be jealous of one another their "one little roome" is
transformed by love into "an everywhere". Using images from world of
geographical discovery, he leaves the explorers their worlds, maps, etc. The lovers
have their world- "each hath one, and is one." Reciprocal love, both physical and
spiritual, thus makes them one, and the tone is one of celebration.

Stanza III shows us their oneness as a mirror image- one's face is reflected in the
other's eyes. Exploration maps, globes, etc. are drawn upon as the speaker asks
where they could find "two better hemispheres". The metaphor then shifts to one of
the death as the lover says that whatever dies was not equally mixed, and he adds
"If our two loves be one, or thou and I/Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none
can die." The ending is one of firm affirmation.

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Metrical Scheme:

U _ U/ UU _ /_ _ U _ 10A
_ / U U _ / = U U _ U _/ 10B
U _ U _U _ U/ _ U U / 10A
U _ U _ UU _ U _ U _/ 11B
_ _ / U _ / = _ U _ U _/ 10 C
U_U_U_U_U_/ 10C
U _ U _ / U _ // _ U U _ U _// 12C
II

U _ _ _ U U UU _ U _/ 11D
U_U_U_U_U_/ 10E
U___U_U_U_/ 10D
U_U_U_U_U_/ 10 E
_ _ U _ UU = _ U _/ 11F
_ _ U _ U / _ U _ U _/ 10F
_ U U _ _ _ // _ U _ U _ _ // 12F
III

U _ U U =/ _ U _ U _ / 11G
U___UUU_U_/ 10H
_UU___U_U_/ 10G
U U _ _ / U U U _ U _/ 10H
U _ U _ / _ U UU _ U U / 10I
UU_UU_/U_U_ 10I
_ U U _ U _ U _ U// _ __ // 12I

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Note: Here '/' is used to mark internal pauses and verse pauses; '//' to mark caesura
and strophic pause. Donne adds a 12-syllable line at the end which gives a nice and
nearly imperceptible variety to the scheme and rounds off the stanza.

Lines 9 and 11 have no real metrical regularity, unless we pronounce "fear" (line 9)
as a monosyllable and "discoverers" (line 11) in the relaxed form, not suitable to
poetic style. But then syllabic regularity is not essential in English Verse, which is
mainly accentual; foreign schemes must adapt themselves to the characteristics of
the English language. Some of the stresses (marked by =) would be anomalous in
an Italian or Spanish decasyllable.

Caesura:

A break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated by the natural rhythm of the language
and / or enforced by punctuation. A line may have more than one caesura or none
at all. If near the beginning of the line, it is called the initial caesura; near the
middle, middle; near the end, terminal. The commonest is the middle. (J. A
Cuddon:105)

When a strong phrasal pause falls within a line, it is called a caesura-indicated in

the quoted passage by the conventional symbol //. The management of these
internal pauses is important for giving variety and for providing expressive
emphases in the long pentameter line. (M H Abrams: 163)

Example:

With him ther was his sone, // a young Squier

A lovyere // and a lusty bacheler,
With lokkes crulle // as they were leyd in presse.
(Prologue to the Canterbury Tales)

That is no country for old men. // The young

In one another's arms, // birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - // at their song,
The salmon -falls, // the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, fish, or fowl, // commend all summer long

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Whatever is begotten, // born, // and dies.

(Sailing to Byzantium)

Strophic pause:

Anaphora: A rhetorical device involving the repetition of a word or group of

words in successive clauses. It is often used in ballad and song, in oratory and
sermon, but it is common in many literary forms. (J A Cuddon: 37)

Epanadiplosis: A figure of speech in which a word or a phrase is repeated at the

beginning and middle, or at the middle and end of a sentence. (J A Cuddon: )

Parallelism: It consists of phrases or sentences of similar construction and

meaning placed side by side, balancing each other. (J A Cuddon: ) "Parallelism,
which suggests a connection of meaning through an echo of form, does not have to
be grammatical parallelism. It may be a sound parallelism: as in the rhyme,
rhythm, and other sound effect of verse. One might even extend the idea and talk
of semantic parallelism where two sentences are linked because they mean the
same thing." (Guy Cook: 15; Discourse: Oxford University Press: 2001)

Chiasm: A reversal of grammatical structure in successive phrases or clauses. (J A

Cuddon: 128) As in this example from Dr. Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes:

By the day the frolic, and the dance by night

Rhetoric Questions: A question not expecting an answer, or one to which the

answer is more or less self-evident. It is used primarily for stylistic effect, and is a
very common device in public speaking- especially when the speaker is trying to
work up the emotional temperature. (J A Cuddon: 749)

For example:

Are we going to tolerate this intrusion upon our freedom? Are we going to accept
these restrictions? Are we to be intimated by time serving bureaucrats?

Exclamation:

Inversion: In rhetoric the turning of an argument against an opponent. In grammar

the reversal of the normal word orders of a sentence. (J A Cuddon: 426)

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Invocation: An appeal or request for help (for instance; for inspiration) addressed
to a muse or deity. In epic, it is a literary convention. It usually comes at or near
the beginning of a poem. (J A Cuddon: 427)

Metonymy: A figure of speech in which the name of an attribute or a thing is

substituted for the thing itself. (J A Cuddon: 510)

Conceit: By 1600c the term was still being used as a synonym for 'thought', and as
roughly equivalent to 'concept', 'idea', and conception'. It might also then denote a
fanciful supposition, an ingenious act of deception or a witty or cleaver remark or
idea. As a literary term this word has come to denote a fairly elaborate figurative
device of a fanciful kind which often incorporates metaphor, simile, hyperbole or
oxymoron and which is intended to surprise and delight by its wit and ingenuity. (J
A Cuddon: 165)

Conceit originally means a concept or image. Conceit is an elaborate figure of

speech comparing two highly dissimilar things. The comparison may be starting
far-fetched, fanciful or highly intellectual. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but
it usually forms the framework of an entire poem. In English there are two types of
conceits:

The Petrarchan conceit is a type of figure used in love poems that had been novel
and effective in the Italian poet Petrarch. Herein the subject of the poem is
compared to some object, rose, a ship, and a garden etc.

The Metaphysical Conceit of the 17th century, characteristic of Donne and other
Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, is a comparison often complex, startling,
and highly intellectual and dissimilar.

Function of Conceit: a. As a conceit makes unusual and unlikely comparisons

between two vastly different things, it allows readers to look at things in a new
way.

b. Conceits surprise and shock the readers by making farfetched comparisons.

Hence, conceit is used as a tool in literature to develop interests in readers.
(NTRCA: 141-142)

Lyric:

Lyric is a type of poetry marked by emotion, melody, imagination, and a unified

effect.

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Originally, lyric poetry was sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. Today, the term
encompasses poetry in which the poet expresses personal thoughts and feelings, as
opposed to epic or dramatic poetry, which describes external circumstances and
events. The lyric is a broad type, and subsumes a good variety of types of poetry
like ode, elegy, ballad and sonnet. A strict definition of lyric is not possible.
However, its distinguishing characteristics are emotion, subjectivity,
melodiousness, imagination, description, and meditation. (NTRCA: 117)

The word 'lyric' is closely associated with the word 'lyre', a kind a musical
instrument. In ancient Greece some poems were sung in accompany with the lyre.
Such a poem came to be known as lyric. So, the main characteristic of the lyric is
its musical stains inbuilt in its texture. Its music or lyricism is achieved by the use
of alliteration, assonance, rhythm, rhyme, meters, and lucid diction. It is subjective
in nature and capable of sustaining powerful emotion. Traditionally, the subjects of
the lyric, sense of loss or nostalgia, heroism, death, emotional crisis, and the like. It
is subdivided in several genres. Among them, the main are: the sonnet, ode, elegy,
and dramatic monologue.

Ornamentation:

We are going to examine in the first place those figures of speech that contribute to
enhance musicality, not sense; those that could be appreciated on hearing the poem
even by a person with no knowledge of English. Of course, the main of these are
the metrical scheme and the rhyme, but these are taken almost for granted in a
poem of the seventeenth century, and deserve a separate section.

Alliteration: It is a device frequently used by Donne. There are several instance in

our poem.

Line 2: Were we not wean'd till then?

Line 4: Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?

Here alliteration has an onomatopoeic character; alliteration in -s appears in two

words related to sleep, "snorted" and "sleepers", helping thus to underline the
sense.

Anaphora: Anaphora in lines 12, 13, and 14 : Let sea-discoverers. . . Let maps. . .
Let us. . .

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Epanadiplosis: Epanadiplosis is in line 1 (though perhaps a chance one):

"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I"

Parallelism: Parallelism of construction on two occasions;

Line 15: My face in thine eye, thine in mine. . .

My face in thine eye , thine in mine

Possessive+ Preposition Possessive+ Possessive Preposition Possessive
Noun Noun pronoun pronoun

Line 18: Without sharp north, without declining west

Without sharp north , without declining west

Preposition Adjective noun Preposition Adjective noun

Here both parallelisms are strongly emphasized by the pause in the middle of the
line. They appear in association with other figures such as:-

Chiasm:
Line 15: My face in thine eye, thine in mine. . .

My face in thine eye , thine in mine

1st Person Preposition 2nd Person 2nd Person Preposition 1st Person

Possessive Possessive Possessive Possessive

Reduplication:

Line 10: For love all love of other sights controls

Line 13: Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The "world" or "worlds" is also present in lines 12 and 14, but the effect is not so
conspicuous.

Line 14: Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one

Line 15: My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears

(1) (2)

It is of no consequence that (1) is an adjective while (2) is a pronoun; the effect is

the same as far as the ear is connected.

Line 18: Without sharp north, without declining west

Line 21: Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die

Pro Aux Verb, Pro Aux Verb

Now for the figures of speech which add to the sense: it is in these that Donne's
imagination ran more freely.

Rhetorical interrogative: The first four lines are a series of rhetoric

interrogatives:

. . . , what thou, and I

Did, till we lov’d? Were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?

Exclamation:

Line 1: . . . by my troth,. . .

Invocation:

In line 8, the poet addresses himself to his soul and his lover's, and whishes them a
"good-morrow". In fact, the whole of the poem is a sort of invocation; the poet is
speaking to his lady, who doesn't intervene.

Metonymy:

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

Line 6: If any ever beauty I did see

Beauty= beautiful woman. I fact, this is everyday speech. The same occurs in lines
8 (souls= minds, people) and 16 (heart= mind, especially if in love). A far more
interesting metonymy is developed in line 14.

Line 14: Let us possess one world; each hath one, and is one

So, each lover is a world for the other. If I consider this a metonymy rather than a
metaphor, it is because of Donne's cultural background. At that time it was widely
held - it was the traditional belief- that man was a "microcosm": everything was
ordered in the "macrocosm" or universe just as it was in man; fluids governed the
body just as elements governed the macrocosm; man's destiny was already fixed in
the stars. Knowledge of the world was knowledge of man, and vice-versa. So, it
was not difficult for a 17th-century man to think that a person can assume the
proportions of a whole world. Love makes the love's attention focus on a part of
that great whole. The part is named with the name of the whole.

Metaphor:

Line 2 & 3: "Were we not wean'd till then?", "But suck'd on country pleasures,
childishly?" are the implicit metaphor. The state of the lovers prior to their falling
in love with each other is identified with childhood. The explicit metaphor would
be "we were babies before we loved".

There is another implicit metaphor in line 4. It runs much in the same way as the
other: "Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?" This time, the previous state of
both lovers is identified with sleep. Explicitly: "We were asleep before we loved".

Line 5: But this, all pleasure fancies be.

Line 6-7: . . . any beauty I did see. . . was but a dream of thee.

This metaphor is the direct consequence of the one in line 4: if the lover was
asleep, it is altogether fitting that anything he saw should be a dream. It is easy to
see how these metaphors enhance the contents of the poem.

Transformed:

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The poem is a moving one: the emotion it carries can be seen even in the language,
which is overtly emphatical; there are three instances of affirmative clauses with
'do" in only 21 lines (lines 6, 16, 21). Even the adverb "everywhere" (line 11) is
turned into a noun to make the expression stronger. The impression of totality, of
closeness and of rejection of the outer world the poem conveys finds here its
perfect expression.

Conceit: The use of conceits had been a tradition among the metaphysical poets.
The poem consists of few conceits. They are:

a) Line 2: Were we not wean’d till then?

Here the speaker compares the unaware lovers with the breast-feeding babies.
Wean literally means stopping a child from feeding on its mother's breast. Here it
suggests the innocent age of the lovers.

b) Line 3: But suck’d on country pleasures, childishly?

Here the speaker compares the unaware lovers with the innocent country babies
who wish to enjoy the country side's beauty where there is no complexity. The
speaker expresses his surprise at the realization that they had already been in love
before they became conscious of it.

c) Line 4: Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?

The comparison between the two unconscious lovers and the "Seven Sleepers"
who slept for two hundred years and after that they remain unchanged. The
unawareness of the lovers has been compared here with the sub consciousness state
of the seven brothers who slept for two hundred years. These brothers were
Christian in Ephesus, which was ruled by Decius, a non-Christian Emperor. The
Emperor declared death sentence to those seven brothers in 151AD. To save
themselves, the seven brothers escaped and hid in a cave. The entrance of the cave
was blocked up. The seven brothers slept there for about two hundred years. When
they came out, during the reign of younger Theodosius, they were still young. This
is a conceit in which the unaware lovers have been compared to the sleeping
brothers. It displays Donne's interest in ancient learning. Here the conceit has been
used very effectively to suggest that the lovers did not know that they were already
in love.

d) Line 12-14: Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The comparison between the two lovers' micro-world with the real world and the
lovers do not bother the impact of the larger world on their feelings. Their small
room gives them the pleasure of the whole world. The speaker very confidently
argues that their love is complete in itself. It is as good as the whole world.
Therefore, they look for nothing else. The sea discoverers may try to find out new
countries or islands. The cartographers may add new land and newer places in their
maps. But their world is complete in itself. They do not need any other thing in
their world. His beloved herself is a world and he himself is another world.
Further, their two worlds constitute a single world which is again complete it itself.
In these lines the individual identify of the lovers has been accepted. They also
suggest the perfection of the union of the lovers. This comparison between the two
distinct worlds with two lovers is an example of conceit.
e) Line 16-18: And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
The comparison between the lovers and the two hemispheres is another conceit. The
speaker claims that he and his beloved are like two separate hemispheres. He admits their
individual identity. Again, he demands that their union is everlasting as the union of the
hemispheres, which constitute the world. The speaker further demands that their world
has no defect as found in the geographical world. In the real world there are freezing cold
areas as well as the setting sun. But in their world of love, the temperature remains
always the same. This is an example of conceit. The speaker's immense satisfaction and
strong confidence have been suggested in these lines.

Visual Images:

Here the poet uses some visual images which make the poem more vivid and they catch
the attraction of the readers. The visual images are:

"Were we no wean'd till then?", "But suck'd on country pleasures, . . ?", "new worlds",
"Maps", "My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears", "two better hemispheres",
"Declining west", etc.

All these images have been used to suggest the unique nature of the love in the poem.
The images, no doubt, reveal the poet's capacity of making scholarly images.

In addition to:

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 Practical Criticism/ "The Good Morrow"

The poem is free from bitterness, grief and cynicism. There is neither disappointment nor
disgust. A note of contentment runs through the poem. In the beginning the tone is of
surprise, then it shifts to contentment, and finally, to spirituality.

Monologue:

The poem resembles the form of a dramatic monologue though it is not a dramatic
monologue. Its abrupt beginning single speaker and silent listener conform to the
tradition of the dramatic monologue. But it does not have the psychological tension that a
dramatic monologue of Robert Browning has. Moreover, its theme has been developed
through passionate arguments, and here it differs from a dramatic monologue.

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