THE GOOD MORROW
BY JOHN DONNE'S
Subject: Literature-in-English
Theme: Poetry
Topic: The Good Morrow by John Donne
Sub Topic:
Date: dd/mm/yyyy
Class: S.S 2
Average Age: 15 years and above
Duration: 35 Minutes
No of Learners: 40
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Explain the Background of the Poet
John Donne was born into a family of Roman Catholics on the 22nd, January 1957. The period of his birth was a time when Catholics were faced with persecution in England. His father from Wales, and an ironmonger (one who sells equipment and tools for use in homes and gardens) and his mother Elizabeth Heywood from a family that is deeply into religion with relatives as reverends, priests and martyrs. His brother was sent to prison where he died for Sheltering a recusant.For refusing to deny his faith, he also had a share of the persecution as his certificates from the college and university were withheld. At the age of twenty-five, he converted to Anglicanism and took to writing Poetry and anti-Catholic tracts.
He fell in love with and secretly married Anne Moore. Although their marriage was one of love, John Donne encountered financial challenges. His wife happened to be his source of inspiration in his live poems until her death. Her death eventually affected the content of his poem as he took to focusing more on mortality, theology and sublime in his poetry. At age fifty nine as a result of his declining health, he died in the 31st March 1631.
2. Explain the Background of the Poem
The Good Morrow is one of John Donne’s first poems, Given that it was written while he was still a student at Lincoln’s Inn (a thriving society of barrister) where he occupied himself studying history, theology, and poetry. That was a period he also started writing Poetry.The poem was written at a time when England was undergoing Literary, political, social and intellectual transformation under the rule of Queen Elizabeth 1. There was relative peace and the springing up of a prosperous middle class in England, increased trade, evolution of the arts and literature, increased wealth, exploration to the Americas, increased sea travels and this brought about a delightful atmosphere that provided calmness of mind for the people.
As such, Jon Donne’s experiences as an active observer of the different events shaping England and the whole of Europe served as the creative idea for his poem.
3. Recite the poem
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.
John Donne
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.
John Donne
4. Explain the setting of the poem
The physical place is England and the time setting of the poem is the sixteenth and seventeenth century which saw England at it’s peak as the military and political powerhouse. It was a period that Englandsuffered Sociopolitical and religious crisis, faced natural and unnatural disasters as well as an era that saw England undergo various transformation under the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1.
The dominant theme in the poetry of that era was the theme of Love—Unreciprocated love.
Thus, in this Poetry of John Donne’s, there is the idea of “Carpe diem” to make the most of the, to seize the day, and only trusting in the future as little as possible. What this means is that because there were various happenings in England and too many people were dying, it was important for those who were alive, to “seize the day, and enjoy every moment as it comes.
What is the Subject Matter of the Poem?
The GOOD MORROW discusses different ideas just like any typical metaphysical poem. It is a love poem which explores the joys of love that is total and complete6. Explain the Analysis of the poem
Though it is quite clearly a love poem, “The Good-Morrow” should strike us as a somewhat odd sort of love poem. Compare it, for example, to two of the most famous examples of love poetry, also from the 17th century, Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (the latter of which contains two of the best-known lines of poetry in English: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate”).These two poems represent, together, perhaps the two predominant “kinds” of love poem in the English tradition: Marvell’s is rhetorical, an attempt (in this case somewhat ironic) to persuade the speaker’s love (to return that love, to marry, etc.); Shakespeare’s takes the form of a paean, a celebration of the beauty and other virtues of his speaker’s lover (a genre Donne parodies brilliantly in his poem “The Anagram”).
In “The Good-Morrow,” however, we find not a word describing the poem’s addressee, nor even much of any of the emotional language associated with romance. And though its opening lines are framed as a question addressed to the speaker’s lover, what follows more closely resembles a quasi-philosophical exploration of the nature of love itself than a passionate declaration of it. In fact, the poem ends precisely where the actual direct encounter with the speaker’s lover seems to begin, as the first line of the final stanza—“My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears”—evoke the image of his lover waking up and opening her eyes.
In this way, the poem’s structure mirrors one of its most significant arguments about love: that is, its relation to the concept of unity, of two becoming one, or “thou and I” being subsumed by “our love.” The “one world” of the speaker and his lover—which she, as the other “hemisphere,” completes—coincides with the completion of the poem. And thus the poem’s end is simultaneously a beginning, in the sense captured by its title, “The Good-Morrow.”
Thus Donne offers a vision of love as a perpetual “waking” (as in “our waking souls”): a “good-morrow” both in the sense of the beginning of something new—the discovery not of a “new world” but a world made new—and that of a greeting, as though “meeting” was a state of being rather than a single event. He imagines the world as created by and in love as without the pointed
directedness of “sharp north” (the direction of the compass, marking our position in space) or “declining west” (the direction of the sunset, marking the passage of time). This world exists in the third term created between “thou and I,”—that is, love, which expresses the unity of the "thou" and the "I." And so we can take Donne’s final line as a way of stating, in a form also common in Shakespeare, that so long as this trinity (thou+I→love) remains intact, the immortality of love guarantees the immortality of the lovers.
7. Explain the theme of the poem
John Donne’s poem has a number of fundamental ideas/messages/that cuts across the poem which includes:1. The enduring power of true love: According to the idea in theme, “true love never dies” as expressed in the poem. True love often stands the test of time while other kinds of love may be temporary. The poetic persona in the third stanza says “my face in thine, thine in mine appears/ and true plain eyes do in the faces rest. Their love for each other shows in their eyes. Thus, what they feel for each other is not just in hearts but also in their souls and it is their eyes that reflects this.
Again, the poetic persona from his knowledge of the universe refers to himself and his loved one as “two hemispheres” meaning that their love has led to a complete union of two souls and in turn, it will never die. It will never die because their love is not a mere union of bodies, it is a union of souls. Thus it is perfect and spiritual.
2. Growth and Maturity: The poetic persona at the beginning of the poem compared the life of him and his lover to that of childhood and innocence before they met and began a romantic relationship. He mentions words like child, weaned, sucked on country’s pleasure. And by the second and third stanza, him and his loved one have moved from the realm of innocence that childhood represents to a phase of experience that marks adulthood. As such there is a sudden dramatic movement in the poem from childishness to maturity and “childhood’ to adulthood”, from “pleasures and fancies” to “true love”, from dream to reality, and from “sleep to awakening”.
By the end of the poem, all these movement and growth helps the poetic persona and his lover to be lifted from ignorance to awareness.
3. Life’s emptiness without true love: This theme talks about the poetic persona’s reflection on the barrenness of his life before he met his lover. As seen in the first stanza “I wonder by my troth what thou and I/Did I’ll we loved. We’re we not weaned”… According to him, all those pleasures that they both enjoyed before they met, he considers them all as unimportant when compared to the beautiful moments they now share together in their union. Further our speaker implies or suggests that the lives himself and his loved one lived before meeting was dull and uninteresting and can be compared to the Seven sleepers of Ephesus (they are a group of youths who took refuge in a cave to escape religious persecution and came out two hundred years later). Thus even they were alive, they only simply existed and were not living!
Again, the idea presented in the line “if ever any beauty I did see/ which I desired and got, ‘Twas but a dream of thee” implies that despite having seen other beautiful woman, none of such beauties can be compared to that of his loved one. 4. The beauty and strength of love: To different people, the concept of “love” means different things. For some while love is wicked, it is to others it is beautiful.. Intoxicating to some, real and clear to others. But regarding what love is in the case of this poem, love is pure and eternal, an experience that is extremely delicate and blissful. It is a type of love which when the poetic persona and his lover enters, it envelops them that nothing else outside their romantic universe matters and Stanza one shows us how the poetic persona wonders aloud what he and his loved one had been doing before they love. He compares the past lives of himself and his lover to an “act of sleeping”; in other words an unproductive life. The poetic persona concludes eventually towards the end of the poem that love is more powerful than death as he likens it to immortality, and resurrection. 4. The futility and vanity of life: Haven emphasized the power of true love, this same poem ironically also outlines the vanity of life. According to our poetic persona, any moment a person spends outside love is a waste of time and resources as seen in line 10-13; thus happiness and joy is a major part of his relationship with his lover. He believes that discovering new parts of the world is a waste of time that offers nothing when compared to the bliss he the (poetic persona) has found himself. To him, sea discoverers and explorers can go out to sea to discover all they want, but in the little world where he exists with his loved one, he finds so much happiness.
6. Explain the structure the poem
the poem contains 21 lines in 3 stanzas of 7 lines each. Each of the first 6 lines in each stanza consists of 10 syllables, while the last line of each stanza contains 12 syllables. The rhyming scheme for each is ababccc.7. Explain the Styles and Symbol (Poetic devices) in the poem
Language
The following are the techniques/ways through which the writer presents his work.(a) Diction: Generally, at the beginning of the poem, the words used are mild, soft and filled with hyperbole but still considered normal and understandable to the reader. By the second stanza, the words become a bit complex with the use of philosophical words like: “worlds on worlds”, “all other sights controls”, “waking souls” etc.; the third stanza, it becomes even more hard with the fusion of spiritual and physical meaning of words in the poem.
The words used in the poem represents the time setting of the poem which is the seventeenth century; words like ‘twas, troth, thine, thou. He also made use of words that gave a broader meaning of his metaphors; metaphors like: sea discoverers (travel and explorers), (child care), declining west (astronomy/physical universe), sleepers den (history), etc.
(b) Language: The poet adopts the style of conversation in the poem. There’s a speaker addressing his lover who happens to be the listener that doesn’t seem to respond; thus making it a dramatic monologue (a one-sided conversation). However because of the poet’s conversational approach, the reader is made to feel that he or she is the one being addressed. It should be noted that there’s no reference to a particular gender in the poem so the speaker may be a woman while the listener, a man; or Vice versa. The use of Caesura in the poem (a pause or interruption in the poem) further strengthens the conversational approach.
Figures of Speech
1. Hyperbole: This is a deliberate exaggeration used in a statement. It can also be referred to as an overstatement. The poet makes use of this device to emphasize strongly the unique type of true love that exists between the poetic persona and his lover. Lines 1-2 captures this. Afterwards, he begins the process of analyzing the love him and his loved one share in exaggerated terms. His wondering aloud what they did with their lives comparing their past with their present and past lives and concluding that the present is more fulfilling and productive. He also goes ahead to emphasize on the beauty of his loved one as seen in the first stanza, “if ever any beauty I did see/which I desired, ‘twas but a dream of thee”.2. Imagery: There are a number of words used in the poem that creates mental pictures to the readers. The poet through his choice of words wants the readers to visualize the images in the poem for them to see a reflection of themselves in the poem.
Some of the lines in the poem that portrays imagery are:
“my face in thine eye,
thou in mine appears” (Line 15),
“if ever any beauty I did see” (Line 6),
“…but a dream of the” (Line7) etc.
3. Metaphor: the poet makes use of lots of metaphors in the poem, e.g:
“weaned”
“seven sleepers”
“good-morrow”
“sharp north ... declining west”
"Hemisphere”
4. Allusion: the poet makes use of historical allusion of the seven sleepers.
5. Rhetorical questions: e.g:
“... what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Line 1-2
“... were we not weaned till then?” Line 2
“Or we snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?” Line 4.
6. Alliteration: When two or more words in close proximity begin with the same consonant; “were we not weaned” line 2. “Snorted we in the seven steeper’s” line 4. “Which watch not” line 9. ASSONANCE; when two or more words in a line have the same vowel sounds. “Sucked on country” line 3. “Seven steeper’s den..” line 4. “all love of other…” line 10. “tine in mine…” line 15.
7. Caesura: A pause in a line caused by punctuation, where the reader has to pause there are several in the poem, typified in line 14, where there are two.
8. Anaphora: lines 12-14, this involves the repetition of a word or expression at the beginning of succeeding phrases, clauses, sentences or verses examples;
line 12- let sea-discoverers to new work/s have gone,
line 13- let map to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
line 14- let us posses one world, each hath one, and is one.
9. Epanalipses: In the very first line the poet use the literary device, epanalipses where the poet repeats the first word at the end of the verse also, line 1, “I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I”.
Rationale:
John Donne was a Renaissance poet whose life and work reflect the complex religious, political, and intellectual landscape of his time. His metaphysical poetry remains a significant part of the English literary canon, and his exploration of themes such as love, spirituality, and mortality continues to resonate with readers today.Prerequisite/ Previous knowledge:
Storyings, songs, history etc.Learning Resources:
Flash cards, an audio video youtube examples, Available useful objects.Reference Materials:
1. Exam focus on Literature in English by J.O.J Nwachukwu et’al.2. Standard literature in English vol.4 by Tony Duru
3. The poem “Good morrow“ by John Donne
4. Internet sources
Lesson Development:
STAGE |
TEACHER'S ACTIVITY |
LEARNER'S ACTIVITY |
LEARNING POINTS |
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| STEP 1: PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE full class session |
The teacher begins the day's lesson by asking questions based on previous knowledge. Explain the Content Analysis of the poem “The Grieved Lands” by Agostinho Neto The teacher recite the poem and remainded the students that, “The Grieved land is a protest poem which exposes the condition of the African society in the wake of colonialism slavery and slave trade, which took place between 17th and 18th centuries. The persona is therefore grieved or sad over man’s inhumanity to man as a result of unhealthy human trade. He also sees this act as a result of African’s backwardness. The Atlantic Slave Trade or Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade involved the transportation of African people by Slave traders (westerners) mainly to America. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from central and western Africa, sold by other West African Chiefs to European slave traders. The poet is in deep pain when he remembers what Africans passed through in the hands of slave masters. His pain re-echoes throughout the stanzas of the poem. “The Grieved lands” in the poem is the African countries, especially the countries that experienced colonialism slavery and slave trade. THE GRIEVED LANDS OF AFRICA The grieved lands of Africa In the tearful woes of ancient and modern slave In the degrading sweat of impure dance Of other seas Grieved The grieved lands of Africa In the infamous sensation Of the stunning perfume of the Flower Crushed in the forest By the wickedness of iron and fire The grieved lands The grieved lands of Africa In the dream soon undone in jinglings of jailer's keys And in the stifled laughter and victorious voice of laments And in the unconscious brilliance of hidden sensations Of the grieved lands of Africa Alive In themselves and with us alive They bubble up in dreams Decked with dances by baobabs over balances By the antelope In the perpetual alliance of everything that lives They shout out the sound of life Shout it Even the corpses thrown up by the Atlantic In putrid offering of incoherence And death and in the clearness Of rivers They live The grieved lands of Africa In the harmonious sound of consciences Contained in the honest blood of men In the strong desire of men In the sincerity In the pure and simple rightness of the stars’ Existence They live The grieved lands of Africa Because we are living And are imperishable particles Of the grieved lands of Africa. Agostinho Neto |
The students respond to the questions based on previous knowledge.Content Analysis of “The Grieved Lands” by Agostinho Neto1. In stanza one, line 1-5 the persona reveals the historical background of the situation of African Society in ancient time and modern life. He reminds us that the predicament of the black man can be traced to time of old (antiquity) when he was enslaved, that is the era of slavery and slave trade, not by any inmate faults of his, but apparently because of the greedy Europeans who have chosen to enslave African continent in order to use them for cheap labors, and in a bit to build and transform their own continent. “In the tearful woes of ancient and modern slave” reveals the persona’s inner pain which is endless. He is not only lamenting bitterly over how Africans were treated as sub-humans a long time ago, but also grieves that such act still continues which is called modern slavery in recent times. “Degrading sweat of impure dance” refers to the nature of maltreatment meted on African countries involved.2. The second stanza, lines 6-12, unveils the heinous crime committed by the Europeans on African and how they (westerners) put an end to the African peaceful and communal society, “Stunning perfumes of the flower”. African’s workable and interesting society, is soon “crushed” in the forest” in the unknown plantation farm where Africans were taken to “Forest” also refers to Africa continent while the “wickedness of iron and fire that commits this devastating act of destruction symbolizes the western colonizers. This implies that Africans are not only forced into slavery but also were beaten, maltreated using distant weapons to subdue them to their slave masters. “Iron and fire” here illuminates the images of anguish and pain as some of the stubborn slaves lost their lives in the struggle for emancipation (freedom). 3. In stanza three, line 13-20, the persona further reveals the goriest maltreatment carried out on enslaved Africans whose dreams of good life will be “undone”, never manifest, because they are always under lock and keys to stop them from escaping from the captor’s camp. The unconscious brilliance of hidden sensations refers to their inability to escape as any such attempt is impossible because of the “jingling of “gaoler’s (slave master’s) keys”. It is downgrading and painful that the slave master is the one to determine when his slave will eat because their lips have been padlocked and their legs chained. Their voices of complaint cannot be heard by anyone as their laughter has also been stifled by their slave drivers. 4. In stanza four, lines 21-26, the poet claims that the slave masters are excited about their activity of slave trade; even the captured slaves are still yearning for life too. “They bubble up in dreams” of developing their continent with the sweat of African slaves “in the perpetual alliance of everything that lives”. This means that when European slave masters) came to Africa, they only captured able bodied men, who were capable of working in their plantation farms. 5. In stanza five, lines 27-32, the persona projects the height of man’s inhumanity to man, as some of the Africans they captured lost their lives in the middle of the high seas “They shout the sound of life! Even the corpses thrown up by the Atlantic”. This implies that the tendency for some of them to die of exhaustion of the journey, hunger, protestation, suffocation is very high. Some of the slaves who die were thrown out of the boats. “In putrid offering of inconvenience”, meaning the rest of them are amazed to witness the unpleasant experience of human beings as the Atlantic Ocean clearly vomits their corpses for all to see. Hence “And death and the cleanness/of rivers”. This stanza suggests the punishment meted out to the African slaves who were beaten, starved or killed, and consequently were emptied into the ocean, their final resting place. 6. In stanza six, lines 33-45, the poetic persona reiterates the black man’s innate will and desire to conquer all odds and survive any situation. Africans are known to possess the spirit of determination and resilience, and that is why they are able to weather the storm of slavery and slave trade. The African countries try to live “in the harmonies sound of consciences/contained in the honest blood of men/in the desire of men/in the sincerity”. This also refers to African slaves’ ability to survive in the camps of their captors and return to their various countries after so many years to develop it with their wealth of toil and experience. They allowed themselves to be used and exploited “in the pure and simple rightness” of the “stars” existence” to buy back their freedom. 7. The last stanza further re-enforces the Africans’ strong-will to survive in situations against all odds. The returning slaves have sworn to live because they are still living; they still have life and because of their strong desire to live. The persona calls them “imperishable particles”. Also, the significance of the title of the poem “Grieved lands” alludes to the oppressed people of Africa who have witnessed or seen their lives, their assets their culture and their humanity vanished or destroyed on the altar of western colonialism and slave trade. This is the key problem that African continent has been battling with and lamenting about. |
Reversing previous lesson |
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| STEP 2: INTRODUCTION full class session Identification of prior ideas. |
The teacher review/introduce what they are going to study today, A poem "The Good-Morrow" by John Donne. John Donne’s short poem “The Good-Morrow” is framed as an address to the poet-speaker’s lover. Presumably, as the title and tone imply, their love/relationship is somewhat new; the poem is spoken from the perspective of one who is falling, or has just fallen, in love. In form, it mirrors poems whose context is an absent lover, to whom one is writing or simply thinking about. Its title, however, and certain elements of the poem itself, suggest that the imagined occasion of the poem is the speaker’s waking up next to his love. But the text of “The Good-Morrow” itself is concerned primarily with “waking up” in a broader, abstract, even spiritual sense, and it proceeds rather schematically. The speaker first reflects, from an obvious distance, on the state he and his lover lived in before they found one another, which he compares variously to a kind of extended childhood, to “slumber,” and to a kind of dream. Next, in the second stanza, he offers a vivid, though abstract, description of the experience of their love, and how that love shapes his experience of the world. The final stanza of the poem returns from the world to consider the pair of lovers themselves, and finds in the harmony, the unity, of their love for one another evidence of that love’s immortality. |
The students listen attentively to the teacher. | Introducing the topic for discussion to arouse their interests and refresh their memories. |
| STEP 3: DEVELOPMENT Group Work |
The teacher guides the learners to form four groups and asks them to choose their leaders and secretaries. | Learners choose their group leaders and secretaries. | Inculcating leadership skills, competitive spirit, cooperation, teamwork and a sense of responsibility among learners. |
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| STEP 4: EXPLORATION Mode: Individual |
The teacher presents to the class the instructional resources and guides the students to explain the background setting of the poet and poem. | The students explain the background setting of the poet and poem. (a) THE POET BACKGROUND: The poet John Donne was named after his father John Donne. He was born on 22nd January, 1572 to a wealthy ironmonger. After the death of his father his mother remarried to a wealthier man that gave them a new home, his family used the father’s money to hired a private tutor who trained him in grammar. He studied history, poetry, theology and language. His early poetry includes “Good Morrow” and other collection of songs and sonnet published in 1963. He got married to ANNE MORE, a niece to his benefactor Thomas Egerton. She died in 1617 and John Donne died on march 31, 1631 buried in London. (b) THE POEM BACKGROUND SETTING: The poem was written by John Donne in 1590s. the poem talks about two lovers who are deeply in love and was realized after they spent a night together in their apartment. The speaker described love as a profound experience that is like religious epihamy, the poem claims that erotic love can produce the same effects that religion has. Through love, the soul awakens and the speaker abandons his outside world. In love he founds immortality. The poem suggest that all love even love outside marriage might have this transformative, and enlightening effects. Secondly, the romantic love can mirror the joys and revelations of religious devotion. |
The background Settings of the poet and poem. |
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| STEP 5: DISCUSSION Mode: Group |
The teacher recite the poem and explain the setting of the poem to the students. The teacher thereafther, guides the students to Analysis the poem stanza by stanza.
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. John Donne The setting of the poem. The Good Morrow is geographycally set in England during the period of Elizabethan Era. The poem is a metaphysical poem that talks about emotional, physical and environmental. around 16th and 17th Centuries. |
The Students Analysis the poem stanza by stanza. Stanza 1 The poem addresses the liver as the awaken after having the spent the night together and wondered whether they were merely babies still being nursed by their mothers and were childish since they were not compleyely aware of themselves at the time.The speaker reflects that those parts of their lives could be as worthless as the ones spent in slumber by the seven sleepers of Ephesus.The speaker compares their true love with the past pleasures which he sees as mere fancies,And asserts that he had only dreamt of the true beauty whom he has got now. Stanza 2 The second stanza is structured in a similar way in which the first four lines[8-11]introduce the reader to another aspect of the relationship. In line 8, he describes how now, in their “good morrow” they will live in happiness together. In line 9, there will be no need to watch… one another out of fear. Their relationship is perfect. In line 10-11, the speaker is proving that any temptation outside is worthless. His eyes are controlled by love, therefore everything he sees is transformed by his adoration. He speaks of small room that contains everything on earth. There is no reason for him to leave the bed room he share with his lover. Line 12-14 makes use of anaphora with the repetition of the starting word, ‘let’. The speaker is telling his lover that now that he has this relationship, the rest of the world means nothing. The explorers can go out and claim anything and everything they want to. He will be happy to “posses one world” in which they have one another. Stanza 3 stanza three, in lines 15-16, the speaker is looking into his lover’s eyes. There, he can see his own face and he knows her face appears in his eyes as well. Their heart felt connection is evident within their faces. In lines 17-18, the poet makes use of conceit; in this case, he is comparing their faces to two hemispheres. Unlike the hemisphere of the actual world, their facial hemisphere is perfect. There are no two better in the universe. There is no sharp north or declining west. The speaker sees himself and his lover as soul mates they are the others missing half. Line 19-21; speak on how a lack of balance can cause death. This is likely a reference to the medieval science of humors in which ones health was determined by an equal mix of blood, bile and so on. He uses this metaphor to make clear that their love is balanced physically and emotionally. Their perfect balance is accomplished due simply to the presence of the other. It is the combination of their emotions that keeps them together. |
Analysis of the poem stanza by stanza |
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| STEP 6: APPLICATION Mode: Group |
The Teacher guides the students to explain the narrative techniques use in the poem. | The Students explain the narrative techniques use in the poem. 1. Style: the style of the poet is conversational, and it is an example of a dramatic monologue. In poetry, a dramatic monologue is a one- sided conversation deflowered by a poetic persona. The speaker addresses his love. Although the poetic persona is deemed to be a man, it could also very well be a woman. It is good to observe that the speaker does not make use of any gender- related personal pronouns throughout the poem. 2. Diction: the words used rhyme with the time setting of the poem, which is the seventeenth century. Words like “troth”, “thon”, “thine” and “twas”. 3. Metaphor: The whole poem is built around one extended metaphor. It is a comparison of the new experience of waking up from one long deep sleep of nothingness. The use of the expression. “waking soul” in line 8 of stanza two, could also be an extension of the metaphor of being weaned in stanza one. As a result of the love that they now share, they have just awakened to reality and the world around them. The poet uses the title “the good morrow” metaphorically. He is in no way referring to any bright sunny morning. Rather just like a new morning, the relationship to him, has ushered in the beginning of a fresh and a most substantive period in the lives of the lovers. |
Narrative Techniques (Language and style) of the poem |
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| The Teacher guides students to list and explain the theme of the poem. | The students list and explain the theme of the poem. 1. Theme of love: this is one of the main themes of the poem. This theme makes it clear that when there is deep and true love, every other things seem not important. Even, the pain previously experienced will easily be forgotten. Years will look like minutes, there will be contentment and all environment will be conducive. The good morrow is a celebration of love, which are presents as an intense and unparalled pleasure. Indeed, love is so powerful that the speaker describes it as an awakening of the soul[line 8]. The good morrow separate the lives of the lovers into two parts: before they found each other [stanza one] and after [stanza two and three]. Furthermore, the lover’s devotion to each other wins them immortality: “none can die”, the speaker announces in the poems final line. 2. Theme of the emptiness of life without true love: this theme explains the poem’s persona’s view about love. According to him, it is as if they had been “sleeping” like the seven sleepers of Ephesus without any meaning till they meet each other. It is only when they meet and fall in love that life become meaningful and worth living, e.g: “... Were we not weaned till then?” Line 2 “Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den?” Line 4 “If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got twas but a dream of thee”. Line 6-7. The emptiness of life without true love is one of the thematic preoccupations of the poem. The poetic persona reflects on the barrenness of his life before he met his lover. He presents this idea in the first stanza where he wonders aloud, “I wonder, by my troth, what thou and i/did, till then?/ but sucked on country pleasures childishly? In these lines, the poetic persona considers all the pleasures that both he and his beloved enjoyed before they met as insignificant indulgences that do not compare to the thrill they now experience as a result of their affection for each other. 3. Theme of exploration and adventure: the good morrow was written during the age of discovery, the period of intense European sea exploration lasting roughly from fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. This context informs the poems second and third stanzas, with their focus on “sea discoverers”. [line 12] “new worlds”[line 12], “maps”,[line 13] and “hemispheres”[line 17]. Indeed, the speaker finds love so pleasurable that he/she proposes to withdraw from the world in order to dedicate him/her entirely to that love. Instead of seeking love adventure, the speaker proposes that the lovers in line 11 “make one little room an everywhere”. |
Being able to list and explain the theme of the poem. | |
| STEP 7: EVALUATION Mode: Entire Class |
The teacher asks the students the following questions: 1. What is the main theme of the poem good-morrow? 2. What is the tone of John Donne's poem The Good-Morrow? 3. How does Donne describe love? 4.What is the setting of the poem Good morrow? 5. Is The Good Morrow a dramatic monologue? 6. What is the meaning "of" and "now" good morrow to our waking souls? |
The students expected answers 1. The central theme in The Good-morrow is the nature and completeness of the lovers' world. Donne takes the everyday idea that lovers live in a world of their own with little sense of reality, and turns it right round, so that it is the outside world that is unreal. 2. The tone is light, informal, and highly intimate, with imagery drawn from religion (Donne was a great preacher), science, and, most interestingly, cartography. 3. In the “Valediction,” Donne describes a spiritual love, “Inter-assured of the mind,” which does not miss “eyes, lips, and hands” because it is based on higher and more refined feelings than sensation. 4. The setting of this monologue is an early morning. This may remind you of The Sun Rising, another poem by the same poet. This is a poem about a love relationship between two people. The speaker is one of this pair and he reflects on the nature of their love. 5. The poem is a dramatic monologue in form though it differs from a formal dramatic monologue . Its abrupt beginning, single speaker and silent listener conform to the tradition of the dramatic monologue. 6. In the second stanza, Donne bids good morning, or good day (hence 'The Good-Morrow') to his and his lover's souls, now waking from their 'dream' and experiencing real love. They look at each other, but not through fear or jealousy, but because they like to look at each other. |
Asking the learners questions to assess the achievement of the set objectives. |
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| ASSIGNMENT | The teacher gives learners take home. 1. Discuss the poet’s attitude towards love in “Good morrow” 2. Attempt a metaphorical and symbolical interpretation of the poem. 3. Discuss any three (3) major poetic devices used in the poem. 4. Comments on the language of the poem. 7. Give a detailed account of the poem and comment on the appropriateness of its title 10. Identify and discuss the two major themes of the poem. |
The learners copy the assignment | Better understanding of the Poem. |
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| CONCLUSION | The teachers wrap up from the learners' contribution. The subject matter of the poem is LOVE, which is seen as an intense absolute experience,which isolates the lovers from reality but gives them a different kind of awareness.The poem explores two main metaphors,a couple of lovers waking into a new life and a new world created by their love.The lover’s thought move from discussing sensual love to a spiritual love as he realizes that with with spiritual love,they are liberated from fear and the need to seek adventure. |
The students listen to the teacher and copy down notes. | Consolidating and harmonizing scientific concepts. |