In many of the metaphysical poems of John Donne's literary canon, the poet takes on a voice that, as John Carey describes "... communicates itself through the dictatorial attitudes that [he] adopts, through the relentless argumentation of his ways, and through the manipulation and violent combination of the objects of the world perceived in his images." Carey characterizes this tone as evidence of Donne's fascination with power as a central medium for thought-based expression. In "The Sun Rising" and "Death Be Not Proud" ("Holy Sonnet , and religious principles and values ​​to which most individuals have adhered throughout the history of human civilization. Specifically, Donne resists the idea that the sun is the most powerful and central entity in our cosmological structure, and that death is "mighty and terrible" ("Sacred Sonnet X") and therefore of grave importance to understanding purpose of life. He does so by personifying "the sun" and "death," subjugating each to human status and, thus, undermining the reader's faith in each entity's inherent power. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay. However, it is not only Donne's use of seemingly outlandish, exaggerated, and highly contested claims that gives his poetic works its inherent notoriety. Rather, as Clements argues in his critical analysis, Donne's unique ability to successfully employ assertive and manipulative arguments, and to reverse commonly held conceptions, makes his apparently ridiculous claims "not just figuratively, but literally true", to quote Sir Thomas Brown (239) . Donne's technique is one of the most tangible elements that has led many critics to conclude that Donne's tone manifests an obsession with power. Furthermore, quoting Brian Vickers, Clements points out that "[Donne's] hyperbole 'asserts the incredible to arrive at the credible'" (239). It is precisely this "rhetoric of hyperbole" (239), which, in concert with Donne's aggressive thought-based persuasiveness, qualifies the feeling and true essence of his poetry. It adds layers of emotional complexity to the otherwise straightforward rationalizations of the poet's somewhat simplistic, if occasionally controversial, lyrical verse. In “The Sun Rising,” Donne uses assertive arguments, hyperbolic imagery, and a persuasive tone to elevate his lovers' status to that of the divine. At the same time, it strives to downplay and/or question any claims of substantial importance to which the sun is typically attributed. In the first stanza, Donne resorts to insults, criticizing the sun as "busy", "old", "silly[ish]", "undisciplined", "impertinent", and "pedantic". Therefore, he attempts to characterize the rising sun, which invites him and his lover to bed, "through the windows and through the curtains", as mean and irritating. He argues that true love (like the one he shares with his lover) contrasts with the pseudo-love of "seasonal" lovers and of the sun itself, which rises and sets according to certain systematic constraints "...all the same, no the season does not knows the climate, / nor the hours, the days, the months, which are the rags of time" ("The Rising Sun"). Therefore, while most entities under (and including) the sun are subject to physical, geographic, spatial, temporal, quantitative, and/or practical limitations, he asserts that true love is otherworldly in these aspects. It is incomprehensible, immeasurable, unlimited and boundless, even inrelation to the enormity and strength of the sun, which no longer appears so impressive when juxtaposed with the power of love. In the second verse, Donne questions the power of the sun's rays, claiming that "I could eclipse them and dim them with wink / But that I wouldn't lose her sight so long;" ("The Rising Sun"). Thus, he could easily escape the sun's rays by closing his eyes, but so simply to see his lover in every waking moment, he chooses not to. Furthermore, Donne asks the sun: Look, and tomorrow late, tell me whether both Indias of spices and mine are where you left them, or lie here with me Ask those species you saw. yesterday, and you will hear, they all lay here in one bed ("The Sun Rising"). If her lovers' eyes have not blinded the sun by tomorrow, a reversal of the natural threat of the sun's harmful properties, Donne asks the sun to look to the East Indies, the source of spices, and to the West Indies, the source of metals precious. She also asks him to see the kings he shone on yesterday. Donne claims that all these can be found nowhere else than in bed with his lover: in the third stanza he writes that "She is all states, and I all princes, / Nothing else is" ("The sun that arises"). Clements provides some insight into the meaning and power of these bold statements as he explains that Donne's love is "infinitely delightful...infinitely high...infinitely great in all extremes" (239) and has the effect on the poet to arrive at a provincial mentality, which actually works "...to despatialise the world, reduce the macrocosm to the microcosm, the latter redeemed being of greater value and significance than the fallen macrocosm" (239). These claims are further exemplified by Donne's statement in the final stanza that "You, sun, are half as happy as we are" ("The Sun Rising"), thus establishing a simple proportional relationship between him and his lover and the sun personified. The comparison quantifies the inconceivable amount of love and contentment the couple possesses as twice that of the sun. Having said all this, Donne's final statement is even more provocative. He states that "To warm the world, it is necessary to warm ourselves. / You shine here for us, and you are everywhere; / This bed is your center, these walls are your sphere" ("The Rising Sun"). Therefore, Donne assertively and logically (if somewhat crudely) argues that the sun is no longer the most sublime element within the cosmos, but rather takes on a secondary role to the bedroom in which Donne and her lover consummate their feelings for each other. His bedroom, not the sun, is the most illustrious and important place in the natural or civilized world. This poem, which is constructed in three ten-line stanzas, maintains the strict ABBACDCDEE rhyme scheme of two rhyming quatrains as inverted rhyme schemes followed by a section-ending rhyming couplet in the first two stanzas. In the third stanza, this same rhyme scheme is repeated, but is observed much more loosely, allowing less discrete rhymes (i.e. I to alchemy, it's to this, everywhere to the sphere, etc.) to persist. Perhaps, through this freeing of the schematic constraints of lyrical rhyme in concert with his concluding argument, Donne is both literally and symbolically deconstructing readers' preconceived assumptions regarding the hegemony of the sun in relation to everything else. It is precisely these linguistic, syntactic, grammatical, rhythmic, and image-based considerations that I hope to have highlighted, that grant "The Sun Rising" a distinct claim to inclusion within the realm of Donne's archetypically power-obsessed metaphysical canon. in "Death Be Not Proud" ("Holy Sonnet X"), the most famous and deeply examined pieceof Donne, the poet takes on a controversial ideology at odds with traditional doctrine. In the short span of a standard sixteen-line sonnet with a regular Petrarchan rhyme scheme ABBACDCDEE and an iambic pentametric metrical construction, Donne forcefully asserts his belief that death is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of the soul's existence through arguments carefully constructed, hyperbolic imagery, and his signature persuasive tone noted metaphysical lyric verses infused with power. “Holy Sonnet X” begins with the poet playfully and knowingly mocking the central object of the examination. The poem opens with "Death be not proud, though some have called you / Mighty and terrible, for you are not so," telling death personified that he should show no arrogance in his ability to instill awe and terror. Donne's argument moves logically to reasons for the relative insignificance of death, as he argues that "For those you think to overthrow / Die not, poor death, nor can you kill me ("Holy Sonnet X"), suggesting that one's soul it cannot be ended simply with the act of dying, but on the contrary, after the body dies, the soul assumes a different and, in many cases, elevated state. The poet then states: From rest and sleep, which are only your images, more pleasure then from you much more must flow, And soon our best men go with you, Rest of their bones and surrender of the soul ("Sacred Sonnet X) Here, Women compare the rest and sleep to small-scale imitations of death, which generally provide individuals with considerable comfort and solace. So, he implies, death must provide similar consolation. Furthermore, in an attempt to justify why good people die young, a microcosm of the existential dilemma of why bad things happen to good people, Donne clearly explains that the divine offers the good eternal relief from pain and allows them to achieve salvation with the gift of premature death. Donne refers to the spiritual salvation that comes with death as the "surrender of the soul." An ironic play on words, the phrase evokes images of childbirth, symbolizing the rebirth of the soul in harmony with its earthly death. Donne then proceeds to characterize the tragic situation of the person of death. , that "You are the slave of fate, of chance, of kings and desperate men, / And you dwell in poison, war and disease"; ("Holy Sonnet The poet thereafter asks rhetorically: "...poppy or charms can make us sleep as well [as death], / And better than. your blow; why then do you swell?" ("Sacred Sonnet Finally, in a concluding couplet that parallels the final line of “The Sun Rising,” in which Donne advises the rising sun to “Shine here for us, and you are everywhere; / This bed is your center, these walls are the your sphere,” the poet threatens the personified form of death by stating that “A short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And death there will be no more; death you will die” (“Holy Sonnet X). it is death that feels threatened by its own "blow". After all, once an individual's body falls subject to death, his soul will awaken for eternity in turn, ironically, dies. With the careful format, articulation and the.