Elements of Plato in John Donnes The Good Morrow Essay

Elements of Plato in John Donnes The Good Morrow There are clear Platonic elements in Donnes The Good Morrow. The idea that Donne and his lady are halves that complete each other is traceable to Platos theory of love. Lines 7 and 8 of the poem refer to the Platonic World of Ideas: the lady is presented as the Idea of Beauty, of which all earthly beauty is but an imperfect reflection. My argument, however, is that Platos cave allegory and his World of Ideas are integral to a full understanding of this highly complex poem. The first reference to the Platonic cave comes in line 4 of the poem: Or snorted we in the seven sleepers den? The seven sleepers are seven young Christians who were walled up in a cave in the year 249.†¦show more content†¦This is a long and difficult process, however, and those who succeed in it act as if they have awakened from a dream and finally discovered the true destiny of their soul. Overwhelmed with joy, they do not wish to return to the cave, but Plato insists that they must, to educate and free their fellow human beings who are still inside. In the first stanza of The Good Morrow, Donne and his lady are in darkness, but in the second, they have emerged into the sunlight, awakened from the dream that they previously considered to be reality, and discovered perfection. The perfection they have found, however, is not God but each other, and they feel no responsibility toward those human beings who are still in darkness. As in Plato, it is perfection rather than size that is of the highest importance, and the little room the lovers dwell in becomes more significant than all the vast new worlds discovered by seventeenth-century voyagers and students of the heavens. Platos freed cave-dwellers discover God, but Donne and his lady find each other. The Good Morrow is thus a very clever reworking of Platos cave allegory, for Donne and his lady establish a perfect love relationship and become themselves part of the World of Ideas. Together, they constitute a complete and perfect world. The third and last stanza ends as follows: Whatever dies was not mixed equally; If our two loves be