18 pages 36 minutes read

John Donne

The Sun Rising

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1633

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Donne’s contemporary—they were born in the same year—poet and playwright Ben Jonson famously commented, “Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging.” Jonson meant Donne did not observe a consistent meter, and he was correct. Donne was an original poet who did not feel the need to follow traditional forms but instead liked to create his own. This can be seen in “The Sun Rising,” although the poem does have a metrical pattern consistent through all three stanzas.

The lines vary in length from dimeter (two poetic feet) to tetrameter (four poetic feet) and pentameter (five poetic feet). Each stanza exhibits the same pattern. Line 1 is a tetrameter; Line 2 is a dimeter, Lines 3 and 4 are pentameters; Lines 5 and 6 are tetrameters, and Lines 7-10 are pentameters.

In Line 1, the tetrameter, Donne grabs the reader’s attention with an explosive beginning: “Busy,” which is a trochaic foot, the emphasis being placed on the first syllable. This is followed by a spondee (“old fool”), a foot in which both syllables are stressed. The line more conventionally closes with two iambs (an iamb is a poetic foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).

Related Titles

By John Donne

Study Guide

logo

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

John Donne

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

John Donne

Study Guide

logo

Break of Day

John Donne

Break of Day

John Donne

Study Guide

logo

Death Be Not Proud

John Donne

Death Be Not Proud

John Donne

Study Guide

logo

Meditation 17

John Donne

Meditation 17

John Donne

Study Guide

logo

No Man Is an Island

John Donne

No Man Is an Island

John Donne