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Compare And Contrast Astrophil And John Donne

Decent Essays

Sama El Feky
900121886
Professor Justin Kolb
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Paper 1
How do Sir Philip Sidney and John Donne interpret love differently?

Both are incredible poets that certainly stand out in their own way, Sir Philip Sidney and John Donne have made literature history through fully baring their souls to the world in simple lyrics. Sidney’ Astrophil and Stella and Donne’s Songs and Sonnets are both mainly concerned with love. While Sidney and Donne though have similar concepts, their approaches are completely distinctive.
On one hand, Sydney’s interoperation of love is usually either sad or downright depressing as he at some point describes it as a captivated, weak and pitiful slavery. Sidney mimics his relationship with …show more content…

In The Sun Rising, however, Donne is very annoyed by the sun. He blames nature, seasons and lovers that leave him. Donne is mentally and emotionally stable here though, as he is literally telling the sun to go away because he is enjoying his bedtime with his lover. He’s asking the sun…Don’t you have better things to do? It’s like he finally got what he wanted and he does not want it to end, ever. In his familiar sarcastic tone, Donne makes readers understand that he is simply against time. Like The Flea, this poem is supposedly placed in an ulterior world rather than the real one in Donne’s mind and according to the poet, his world is much more superior and powerful than the other world. There is apparently much more to the world than known and he seems to think he has something than others don’t. His lover? Donne perceives her as his treasure, his indian spices. She is his world, or rather together, they are the world. Donne wants to keep looking at her and not miss any moment. He’s saying he could close his eyes to block the sun but then he would lose the chance to look at his lover, the sight of her, so he refuses to shut his eyes. He’s saying her eyes are brighter than the sun itself. He irrationally indicates all nations and royalties are metaphors or reflections of them and not the other way around. Donne is saying he’s the ruler, as he has all the treasure, his lover. He initially wanted the sun to leave, to go shin somewhere else and let them be. Donne contradicts himself when he then says that he and his lover, actually own the sun in their world and that the one shining on them now is just a replica. If the sun is under his control…can’t he just make it go away? That’s why Donne is at times confusing and hypocritical; he changes his arguments way too often. Donne calls the sun old man because it’s apparently tired so it should rest

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