2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

The Good Morrow

Unlike the sexual nature of ‘The Flea’, ‘The Good-Morrow’ is John Donne’s exaggerated love poem addressing the woman of his affection as they wake from spending the night together. This twenty-one-line poem starts with the narrator’s hyperbole that their lives only began once they were in love, before, only indulging in ‘childish country pleasures’, an example of carnal pleasures, thereby framing the progress of this poem from carnal sex to mature, respectful love. Continuing throughout the poem, are further exclamations of love, such as their lack of need for jealousy or the abandonment of the external world for each other. Within this poem Donne also makes a reference to the Elizabethan concept of microcosm and macrocosm: the view that every man and woman is a miniature universe, yet, this repetition draws a comparison to the previous poem, ‘The Flea’. ‘The Good-Morrow’ is opposite to ‘The Flea’ in the simple setting of addressing the growth of pure love rather than lust (sex). Despite this, when reading into ‘The Good-Morrow’ Donne seems to criticise this side of love as well almost mocking the concept that love as such could exist, whether through the poet’s jealousy or genuine disbelief. The representation of gender here is very one-sided, unlike in ‘The Flea’ where there is some voiceless intimation of the woman’s emotions throughout the argument. The male narrator of ‘The Good-Morrow’ takes a very dominant and assuming role over the woman, allowing for no female voice to confirm that this love is indeed two sided, and overall representing sexual love as a comforting normality rather than the shame associated with promiscuity in ‘The Flea’ .

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