Song Sweetest Love I Do Not Go

Question 1

Overview:

Answer 1

The poem has a sincere tone, supported by the simple conceits used and demotic language to describe the moment between two parting lovers. The speaker here uses a range of metaphors to convince the woman that his absence is temporary, much like the suns and that the woman’s grief also hurts him.

Question 2

Form:

Answer 2

• Song - likely to have been intended to be set to music for performance.
• May have adopted the lyrical form in order to convey harmony and consistency of his love.
• Regular stanza - enduring nature of their love.
• Dramatic monologue - allows for a deeply personal argument.

Question 3

Context:

Answer 3

• Likely to have been written for Anne Moore.
• Written in around 1611, just before Donne left her for a trip to France.

Question 4

“Sweetest love”

Answer 4

• Superlative flattering adjectives.
• Tries to provide reassurance to his lover.

Question 5

Simple lexis:

Answer 5

• Shows Donnes sincerity through the simplicity of Lagrange.

Question 6

“But since that I/ must die at last”.

Answer 6

• Speaker stating that because he will eventually die, the couple can use the departure as a mini practice death.
• Also may have a sexual allusion - feigned death- life expectancy.

Question 7

Sun imagery: “yesternight the sun went hence”/ “he hath no desire nor sense”

Answer 7

• Conceit of the sun - used to contrast the poetic voice’s fidelity.
• The sun also has been on a journey - further than the one of the poetic voice.
• Acts in contrast to the speakers fidelity.
• Sun hath no desire to return “no desire nor sense”.

Question 8

“Speedier journeys, since I take/ more wings and spurs than he”.

Answer 8

• Mythically allusions to mythical forms of speed to convey the urgency of the poetic voices return.
• Links him to the Roman god mercury.

Question 8

“And we join to it our strength/ and we teach ir art and length”.

Answer 8

• Donne employs parallelsim to convey the multure of ways in which we harm ourselves by psychologically devoting our energies to bad lack.
• Poetic voice is suggesting that his beloved considering the bad things that could happen, is making the situation worse.

Question 9

“When though sight, thous sigh’st not wind./ but sighs my soul away”.

Answer 9

• Poetic voice rejects the convention Petrarchan image of the lover’s sigh being so intense that it is a metaphorical wind that could harm it at sea.
• Instead it is hurting him emotionally.
• eleizabeathans believed that the soul was connected to the body through a form of invisible vapour - Donne exploits this by suggesting that women by signing expels this vapour, making the should gradually depart the body.
• Sibilance - representing the “sighing”

Question 10

“that we are but turnd aside to sleep”.

Answer 10

• Final image that the speaker leaves us is with is a comforting one.
• Image provides a sense of proximity and minimal separation - image of comfort.
• Given that the speaker has already foregrounded that they are one, the couple can not be parted.