"A Lecture Upon The Shadow"
Submitted by on January 1, 1998
Category: Book Reports
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"A Lecture Upon the Shadow":
The faults of a metaphor
Liana R. Prieto (March 1998)
"A Lecture upon the Shadow" seems to be a poem signaling the inevitable decline of love, but it is not. John Donne metaphorically equates the rising and setting of the sun with a love affair. The metaphor says that love grows, reaches a peak, and then quickly declines, as does the sun in its daily course. The metaphor applies if the poem were meant to be a subtle way for the narrator to inform his lover of his pessimistic view of love. However, Donne’s hopeful tone, expressed through his repeated use of the words except and if, suggests that Donne does not believe that love will inevitably die. Donne believes that the high point of love can be maintained, but this conflicts with the metaphor in that the duration of noon can never be prolonged.
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