The Good Morrow

Question 1

What is the structure of The Good Morrow?

Answer 1

• Rhyme scheme is quatrain and then a triplet (ABABCCC)
• Uniform structure (3 stanzas, 7 lines) - symbolises the unity shown in the poem.
• Enjambment
• Second stanza starts with a coordinating junction

Question 2

What is the structure of The Good Morrow?

Answer 2

• Rhyme scheme is quatrain and then a triplet (ABABCCC)
• Uniform structure (3 stanzas, 7 lines) - symbolises the unity shown in the poem.
• Enjambment
• Second stanza starts with a coordinating junction

Question 3

Important aspects of The Good Morrow?

Answer 3

• Personal pronouns (‘I’, ‘my’ ‘we’)
• Sibilance (‘seven sleepers’)
• Symantic field of childhood innocence (‘weaned’, ‘childishly’, ‘sucked’, ‘snorted’)
• Sexual connotations (‘sucked on country pleasures’)
• Pleasure as a shadow of true love
• Anti-petrarchan
• Repitition (‘one’, ‘one’, ‘one’)

Question 4

What is the conceit of the Good Morrow?

Answer 4

Between discovery and love.
True love is an act of discovery.
Link to the exploration of the new world in metaphysical poets time.
Lovers are like a whole world - two sides of the globe linked together.

Question 5

What is anti-petrarchan?

Answer 5

• Elizabethan period, the period before the 1700s poets
• Love was all about the hunt/pursuit
• The pleasures from love weren’t explored but instead the frustration from someone who was in unrequited love.
• True love of wanting and not getting
• First stanza of a good Morrow explores this.

Question 6

What is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (The Good Morrow)?

Answer 6

• Shadows of reality, once out of the Cave, sees ‘actual’ reality and realised that he was imagining and that his past ‘reality’ was fake.
• In The Good Morrow > what was before he was fake but with her is the reality.

Question 7

What are the ‘Seven Sleepers’ (The Good Morrow)?

Answer 7

• Waking up to a new found Christianity
• waking up to a better life > God
• The Good Morrow > comparing the love for his mistress to the greatest love for God.

Question 8

What poems can be compared to The Good Morrow?

Answer 8

The Sun Rising:
- Love
- Exploration

The Flea:
- Unity

Question 9

Themes in The Good Morrow?

Answer 9

• Love and relationships
• Exploration and Discovery
• Spirituality
• Innocence vs. Knowledge
• Unity