NOCTURNAL

NOCTURNAL

1. The poem begins with a religious day celebrated on the shortest day of the year ,thus uniting the turning tropes of nature and religion. The festival of St Lucy is a celebrated on 13th December which is the day of winter solstices, according to the of old Julian calendar.

   • An almost religious tone in his resolution to "prepare towards her, and let me call/ This hour her Vigil, and her Eve"

2. He has been changed into something that comprises absence, darkness, death and emptiness. In comparison even plants and trees ,rocks and stones have life . According to the prevailing notions of The Great Chain Of Being, all things on earth are arranged in hierarchical series .

   • The poet calls day, ‘the years midnight ‘because the sun’s light does not stay more than seven hours. Sun is the source of all life, and when the sun itself is exhausted can ‘spent’ the entire world –both elemental and vegetative appear to be dead. The earth seems to have sipped all vitality from all living beings .
     • Daughter called Lucy. Nocturnal meaning night. st Lucy’s day is the shortest day of the year, winter solstice - The years midnight. He ruined me - the grave and morbidity. Epitaph – compares him to a message on a tomb or a tomb itself. Compression of time – upon means before.

3. The form of the poem reflects the plodding, methodical movement of the poet's mind as he meditates. Each of the five stanzas is nine lines long and identically arranged on the page so that visual emphasis falls on the three shorter lines "buried" within each stanza. The meter of the poem is hard to define because it is uneven. Donne alters it a lot for emphasis and writes in almost nothing but monosyllables, all of which get accented. One possible effect of this choice would be to produce an angry tone; but the poet doesn't seem to be angry. The lines move with a power that arises from meaning more than emotion. Perhaps the best way to describe the tone of the poem is "resigned," the movement as "inexorable." Donne, the world, the lovers of the last stanza, and the reader are all being moved along inexorably by forces which no one can control. This even rhythm is underscored by the regular rhyme scheme, (abbacccdd), which is carried through each stanza.

   • T.S Eliot pointed out in the famous essays “The Metaphysical Poets” - ” In Donne there is a direct sensuous apprehension of thought or a recreation of thought into feeling.”
     • images from diverse fields of education, an experience especially nature and religion –in order to express an emotion which world other wise have appeared either a cynic or a celebrant of love
       • Donne calls his poem a "nocturnal," a reflective, somber meditation, and the subject is the alchemy of love, how the speaker has been transformed by love.
         • St Lucy’s day is a day of religious festivity, but also a day on which Lucy, which denotes the sun, seems to be in sorrow. In Latin the word Lucent denotes light and since it is the sun which gives life, it is often affectionately addressed as ‘Lucy’.
           • The movement of the poem and transit of the poet’s mind is from nature to religion, from sensuality to spirituality ,from the temporal to the external.
     • a poem which expresses the nadir of suffering. The death of beloved leads the poet to lose his attraction for nature and natural life and transcend this life for images from geography and astronomy; nature and religion serve to intensify the emotional expressions.

4. Paradox – of all, that’s nothing – ambiguous. Excess hyperbole. Biblical language. Scarce seven hours – short life and labour. Quintessence – world born out of nothing. By loves limbeck – remembrance. Souls, carcasses – sibilance – creation of paradox. Alliteration – being positive. Caesura, death, pause, emphasis, nothing. Is. – to be living, to be alive. Dull lean born again, conceit, alchemy. Love is an alchemist.

   • The death of his wife Anne More in childbirth. Average life expectancy was 40 years, Donne fathered 12 children only eight of whom survived. When his wife dies he was traumatized and suffered from depression. He doubted his masculinity - Rather feel no emotion

5. For I am every dead thing – projection, universalising his feelings like hamlet – personal conflict, life shrunk and fallen apart. ‘New alchemy’ – taking a lower thing and making it higher - like Rumpelstiltskin - Alchemy here is the opposite – conceit. Goat and sun – sun times and seasons. To fetch new lust – different use from Shakespeare. This hour her vigil and her eve – dedication, remembrance - Adam and Eve - Biblical. The elixir grown – science and magic. Oft a flood – biblical imagery - Noah’s ark. If I were any beast – the great chain of being. Memento mori – he is suicidal, due to her death.

6. this day may metaphorically represent the speaker’s short time with his lover, and thereby, establishing the metaphorical connection between the sun and the speaker’s lover.

   • Night symbolizes darkness and death, enhancing the metaphorical connection between this day's death with the lover’s death. This longer night gives the speaker more time to reflect upon death and wallow in his anguish.

7. "Alchemy" usually denotes a chemical transformation from metal to gold, but "new" changes the word's meaning. Instead of describing an improvement of metal, this "new alchemy" describes a harmful transformation of the speaker. Moreover, "art," in the phrase "For his art did express" (line14) has a positive connotation, which it transfers to "love" because it is love's "art," showing the speaker's conflicting attitudes towards love, and thereby, communicating his anguish. During the Renaissance, "express" meant to squeeze out, so love's "art" squeezed something from "every dead thing/ In whom Love wrought new alchemy," or the speaker, substantiating his feelings of emptiness

8. Many people believe love, in its purest form, can conquer death. Although it is possible those who share spiritual love may meet again in the afterlife, the intense emotional pain someone feels after the loss of a loved is extremely difficult to cope with while still on earth. Overall, setting and literary devices in "A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day," convey the speaker's anguish upon his lover's death, while allusions to Donne's other poetry suggest Donne wrote this poem upon Anne's death. As Achsah Guibbory states, this poem may have conveyed Donne's fear that he may end up with nothing, because of his desire for "More"

9. Keywords from the poem: scarce seven hours, The sun is spent, The world's whole sap is sunk, life is shrunk, Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh, Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph, For I am every dead thing, In whom Love wrought new alchemy, A quintessence even from nothingness, I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not., All others, from all things, draw all that's good,, Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood, Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses, Of the first nothing the elixir grown; If I were any beast, for whose sake the lesser sun At this time to the Goat is run, To fetch new lust, and give it you, Enjoy your summer all, This hour her vigil, and her eve, Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.