Interpretation of a lecture upon the shadow

A Lecture upon the Shadow
By John Donne

Niloofar Mohammadof

Dr. Didari

Islamic Azad University of Tehran-South Branch

A Lecture upon the Shadow by John Donn
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so.
That love has not attain'd the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.
Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.
Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night.

Biography
John Donne's standing as a great English poet, and one of the greatest writers of English prose, is now assured. However, it has been confirmed only in the present century. The history of Donne's reputation is the most remarkable of any major writer in English; no other body of great poetry has fallen so far from favor for so long and been generally condemned as inept and crude. In
Donne's own day his poetry was highly prized among the small circle of his admirers, who read it as it was circulated in manuscript, and in his later years he gained wide fame as a preacher. For some thirty years after his death successive editions of his verse stamped his powerful influence upon English poets. During the Restoration his writing went out of fashion and remained so for several centuries. Throughout the eighteenth century, and for much of the nineteenth century, he was little read and scarcely appreciated. Commentators followed Samuel Johnson in dismissing his work as no more than frigidly ingenious and metrically uncouth. Some scribbled notes by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Charles Lamb's copy of Donne's poems make a testimony of admiration rare in the early nineteenth century. Robert Browning became a known (and wondered-at) enthusiast of Donne, but it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that
Donne's poetry was eagerly taken up by a growing band of avant-garde readers and writers. His prose remained largely unnoticed until 1919.
In the first two decades of the twentieth century Donne's poetry was decisively rehabilitated. Its extraordinary appeal to modern readers throws light on the Modernist movement, as well as on our intuitive response to our own times. Donne may no longer be the cult figure he became in the
1920s and 1930s, when T. S. Eliot and William Butler Yeats, among others, discovered in his poetry the peculiar fusion of intellect and passion and the alert contemporariness which they aspired to in their own art. He is not a poet for all tastes and times; yet for many readers Donne remains what Ben Jonson judged him: "the first poet in the world in some things." His poems continue to engage the attention and challenge the experience of readers who come to him afresh.
His high place in the pantheon of the English poets now seems secure.
Donne's love poetry was written nearly four hundred years ago; yet one reason for its appeal is that it speaks to us as directly and urgently as if we overhear a present confidence.
It is thought that Donne's final illness was stomach cancer, although this has not been proven. He died on 31 March 1631 having written many poems, most of which were circulated in manuscript during his lifetime. Donne was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him was erected (carved from a drawing of him in his shroud), with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself. Donne's monument survived the 1666 fire, and is on display in the present building.

Interpretation
"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.
The morning, noon and evening described in this poem parallel the rise and fall of a relationship based on love. The first stanza details the progression of love from its beginnings to its peak.
During the first stages of love, young lovers often keep their feelings private, wanting to be sure of their love before submitting it to public scrutiny. This is what the lovers in the poem have done: "So whilst our infant loves did grow, / Disguises did, and shadows, flow / from us". (ll.10 11) The lovers have worked diligently under the guise of the shadows they them "selves produc'd" in order to substantiate their love.
At noon, the narrator decides to stop walking and explain to his lover his "philosophy" of love.
(l. 2) The narrator points out that "now the Sunne is just above our head", and no longer do they hide under the cover of morning shadows. (l. 6) Their "love hath attain'd the highest degree" and emerged from the shadows. (l. 13) At this point, the shadows they used as disguises are invisible below them and they stand in the "brave clearenesse" of unchallenged light. The lovers, and everyone who sees them, are aware of the virtue of their love.
However, according to the metaphor, this highest form of love is short-lived because the "first minute after noone, is night". (l. 26) The shadows that once blinded others will reappear and " these which come behinde / will worke upon" the lovers, blinding them. (ll. 17 - 18) As their love declines, these new shadows represent the disguises each lover will use to manipulate the other. The narrator goes on to say that "I to thee mine actions shall disguise", warning her of the lies and secrets that are to come between them. "The morning shadows weare away, / But" the shadows that blind the lovers "grow longer all the day" until they stand in total darkness. (ll. 22 23) Though the lovers may attempt to deny that they are falling out of love, eventually, they will be unable to maintain their relationship.
This cyclical metaphor of love as the day applies to many a romantic relationship, but the poet undermines his own metaphor by trying to stop the cycle at its highest point. The narrator and his love have been taking a morning walk for three hours. The shrinking shadows of the morning are representative of the disguises the lovers shed. At noon, they stand together with the sun above them illuminating their love. In the day, this point is a fleeting moment and, therefore, the metaphor deems it impossible for such a love to not degenerate.
In the second stanza, despite the unstoppable, cyclical nature of the day, the poet makes a plea to his lover to extend the moment and make their love last. When he says "Except our loves at this noone stay, / We shall new shadows make the other way", he is revealing his true optimistic philosophy of love that contradicts the metaphor. (ll. 14 - 15) The narrator tells his love that the lies and disguises that could separate them are dependent on "if our loves faint". (l. 19) Every day the sun rises and sets without exception, without regard to human action or emotion. If their

love were metaphorically compatible with the day, it would inevitably deteriorate. Donne, nonetheless, continues trying to repudiate his own metaphor when he writes "But, oh, loves day is short, if love decay". (l. 24) Days do not vary in length, and if love and the day were synchronous, neither would love. In direct contradiction with the metaphor, the second stanza serves as a warning of what could happen should something go wrong, not as an unavoidable pronouncement of the future.
One argument against my reading is that Donne is aware of the inadequacies of the metaphor and is informing his lover of their fate in a roundabout way. Another argument is that the choice of the day is a subconscious, but telling choice. This implies that the author is trying to maintain an optimistic view because his love is currently doing well, but knows that it will end soon.
However, if either of these arguments were valid, then Donne would not have used the conditional. He did not simply put these words in the poem to sustain the rhythm and meter; he chose them because he feels that the decline of this love affair is not inevitable.
Now that the faults in the metaphor have been established, one must question Donne's choice.
Why would a poet opt to use the day as a metaphor if it does not fully apply to love? The conclusion I have come to is that the morning and noon parallel the model relationship he is describing, and though he hopes the relationship will not continue to follow the metaphor, the day is still the closest thing he could think of with which to compare love. Love is an often indescribable, human emotion that can never be wholly equated with anything else. Due to the complexity of human emotion, especially love, a perfect metaphorical comparison is impossible.
A better choice for Donne would have been, perhaps, to describe love not in terms of he day but in terms of itself and the other human emotions and qualities that go along with it.
True love and the cycle of the day are simply not metaphorically compatible when we examine the poet's intent. The narrator wants his love to remain at the peak it has reached, but if love follows the path of the rising sun, then it must also follow the path of the setting sun. The poet establishes a correlation between the course of the day and love and then tries to nullify it when it no longer serves his goal. The one thing that Donne makes very clear in this poem is the difficulty of finding a metaphor appropriate for describing love.

More Interpretation
In this poem, John Donne describes the gentle cadence of love and its passing as the progress of shadows throughout the day. His emphasis on the wasting of time alludes to the impermanence of all things and the importance of the here and now. Donne’s humanist perspective is clearly evident in his focus on the present and in the finality of failed love. A Lecture Upon the Shadow uses the motif of time to show the temporality of life and love from the humanist perspective of the Renaissance.

“Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind

Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.” (14-18)

The first lines in this stanza emphasize a choice that must be made, to stay in the noon light or let love falter and decline. Donne suggests that through our own merit we can make love last and stand the test of time. This reflects the humanist perspective that we have the potential to reach God in our lives by our own virtue and not by God’s grace alone. However, Donne goes on to describe the fading of love over time. By using the past tense in the first stanzas and the future tense for faltering love, Donne suggests that only in the moment does love “[attain] the high’st degree”. This also comments on the church’s focus on the afterlife. “But, oh, love’s day is short if love decay.” Donne implies that by always looking toward death, one never experiences life and may as well be dead.
“Love is a growing or full constant light,
And his first minute after noon is night.” (25-26)

The final stanza of A Lecture Upon the Shadow suggests that a fading love is no love at all and imposes a certain finality on death. Some might argue that the single day of the poem only represents fluctuations in a relationship as it goes through continuing cycles. However, the final lines of the poem imply that once love starts fading it is gone forever, for it has already become night. This concept is used by Donne to emphasize the importance of life and the value of every individual. Yet once again Donne reveals his humanist views in that we have the ability to preserve love by our own virtue. Though he emphasizes the temporary nature of existence, he allows that love may endure and that we can decide our own destinies.
John Donne’s use of shadow imagery conveys a powerful truth about the impermanence of life. Emphasizing the passage of time, Donne suggests that one must live life in the present rather than focus on the afterlife. His poem also exerts a strong humanist perspective, implying that an individual may make love endure by one’s own virtue rather than by the grace of god.
The conceit between shadows and love in A Lecture Upon the Shadow by John Donne, stresses the importance of life and humanist ideals in a fragile reality.

Figurative of speech
The most obvious allusion to shadows is “A Lecture Upon the Shadow” in which the narrator and his beloved are pausing after a morning's walk. The lover, waxing philosophic, tells his beloved to wait while he metaphorically expounds
Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy
These three hours that we have spent

In walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced (lines 1–5)
The morning is bright and sunny, and from contextual clues in the poem the lovers are apparently walking into the sun, which would make sense as a metaphor of new beginnings. If the lovers are walking into the sun, then the shadows that also “went along” are tagging behind them like dutiful children. This concept is important, because at this stage of growing “infant love” (9), when others might chance to see the lovers, they will find that they are blocking the light: So, whilst our infant love did grow
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us, and our cares (9–12)
Infant love is childish love, and childish love often is filled with pretense and disguise. It is still concerned with how it appears in the eyes of other people, and thus “That love hath not attained the high’st degree, / Which is still diligent lest others see.”
However, we are not any longer in that stage of love when the lecture is taking place. For while it took the couple three hours to walk to their current location, the sun was gradually rising higher and higher into the sky and it is noon time. After speaking about the shadows that went along, the lover continues: “But, now the Sun is just above our head, / We do those shadows tread” (6–7). Their love has reached its apex—“Except our love at this noon stay, / We shall new shadows make the other way” (14–15)—and the shadowy deceptions that were once intentionally cast are now being trampled under foot. In this bright noon sun, “to brave clearness all things are reduc’d” (8); nothing is left hidden to anyone: not to the lover and beloved and not to any onlookers. But we have already noted that if the lovers do not stay in this noon—and is that ever possible?—then they will make “new shadows the other way” (15). The problem with these shadows is that unlike before when they stretched behind and blinded others, the shadows will now stretch in front and cause the lovers themselves blindness:
Except our love at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes (16–19)
The philosophy of love does not end with blindness however, for there is also the lamentation that if love goes into “westwardly decline” there is little remaining purpose in love, and in fact soon shadow falls as the harbinger of night and death:
If once love faint, and westwardly decline,
Te me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,

But these grow longer all the day,
But oh, love’s day is short, if love decay (19–24)
Love’s day is indeed very short when love decays. It is so short in fact, that the shadows it casts the other way really have no chance to grow long and distorted. The shadow decayed love casts is rather that of instant night:
Love is growing, or full constant light;
And his first minute, after noon, is night (25–26)
Summing up what we have seen, the first shadows cast by the heavenly shine of love are those where infant lovers are still caught up in a world of appearances. Love is still growing, so there is little harm in all of that; soon the noon-day sun will appear and dispel all such shadows.
However, when that love is lost, the shadows that fall will not be so gradual but will instead plunge the world into shadow, in this case, shadow being “instant night.” The first shadow, then, is deceptive and disguised but rendered innocuous by the approaching light, but the second shadow has not the influx of light to drive it away and thus quickly ends in night and death.
Though Donne does not explicitly equate “shadow” with “shade” (as in “ghastly specter”), we would be justified in that overarching idea, for the “first minute, after noon, is night” (26), which presumably refers to a yet living being, a hellish, existential state like the undead walking. Such a conception of shadows juxtaposes nicely with “A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day; Being the
Shortest Day” where the word “shadow” is mentioned only once.
Though the gloss in Theodore Redpath’s edition indicates that St. Lucy’s Day is actually not the shortest day of the year (133), nevertheless, we can infer that for the purposes of the poem, the shortest day results in the longest night. The first line thus begins with “the year’s midnight,” in which “the sun is spent” (4) and “life is shrunk” ... “as to the bed’s feet,” (6) or, in other words, to the foot of the bed. Yet in spite of being “dead and interr’d,” (7) these are a mere laughingstock (8) compared to the narrator who claims to be the “epitaph” (9) of these bleak scenes. As an epitaph, the narrator invites “you who shall lovers be / At the next world, that is, at the next Spring” to “study me then” (10–11), for he is a memento mori of the highest magnitude, “a quintessence” (15) wrought by love’s “new alchemy” (13). Because of the narrator's great loss— his “dull privations, and lean emptiness” (16)—he is “re-begot / Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not(17–18).
The third stanza continues to dig a deeper pit, for whereas all good things—“Love, soul, form, and spirit” (20)—have their basis in substance, the narrator has his basis in total negation, not merely nothingness, but “the grave / Of all that is nothing” (21–22). Finally in the fourth stanza we get the reason behind the narrator being the king of nothing: “But I am by her death (which word wrongs her), / Of the first nothing the Elixir grown” (28). His beloved has died (though she is not dead, but lives beyond this life and world), and in the loss and absence that remains, he is not only the fountainhead of nothing, but his source and origin springs from “the first nothing” from which in the beginning God created the first day and the first night.

If that is not outrageous enough, he claims that he is not a man or a beast (30, 32) who at least has “Some ends, some means” (33); he is not, in fact, even a plant or a stone (33) which might at least have some semblance of personality and existence. He is no “ordinary nothing” (35). Why?
Because “As shadow, a light and body must be here” (36).
We have taken a rather extended journey to get to the idea of shadow in this poem, but we can see that is considered an “ordinary nothing,” for it assumes as its context and point of reference things that are. To have shadow, one must first have “light and body” in order that the latter might partially block the former. But the narrator has been so affected by the death of his beloved that he has not even the luxury of the fading shadow of love’s night: he has moved beyond into a place where even death is derivative, where there is no death or dying because there is no life and living.
From our limited examination of the word “shadow” in only two of Donne’s poems, we get a sense of the extraordinary range of meaning a word can assume in Donne’s capable hands. We begin on a walk in the morning sun casting ordinary shadows behind us that disappear entirely with the noon-day rays. Pausing to reflect on this phenomenon, we learn that it can serve as a philosophic examination of love, which, when young, grows into increasing maturity, eliminating its shadow by degrees. Shadow in this instance of course refers to appearance, show, and deception. The shadow that follows the noon-day sun is one very much like death, where the deception is turned inward in a harmful way, the lovers no longer loving but hurting, wounding, and being duplicitous with one another. The shadow here is shadowy, leading quickly to a deathlike state where love is lost entirely. The conclusion of “A Lecture Upon the Shadow” even suggests that there really is no post-noon shadows to love: that it dies in a minute and all is night.
From that darkening definition, we find “A Noctural Upon St. Lucy’s Day; Being the Shortest
Day” that is no longer content to speak of shadows, as such things are ordinary nothings: we have moved into a darkness that is beyond death, because in order to have death, one must first have life, and we have been “re-begot” to have neither. Where there is light, there is shadow, but where light does not exist, there are no shadows—there are no nothings at all. For a shadow is not the darkness nor is it the light, but it is something that travels somewhere between the two, in degrees from mid-morning to the depth of midnight black.

More Figurative of speech:
"A Lecture upon the Shadow"--alternating 11-line and 2-line stanzas, with a meter I won't attempt to describe (do the math!), rhyming aabbcddceee and ff (or is it back to aa again?). The lovers, walking upon their first meeting under the waxing sun, produce shadows which grow less while they produce love that grows greater. The paradox is compounded by the danger that love poses should it once cease to grow--it shrinks to nothing (noon to midnight) in an instant.