Examples from other poems from this period:

• How neatly doe we give one onely name

• To parents issue and the sunnes bright starre!

Instead of ‘A Lecture Upon Love’ the poet calls the poem ‘A Lecture Upon the Shadow’. What is the effect that this has on our reading of the poem?

Notice the spelling of the following words

houres shadowes Sunne

noone clearnesse behinde

The ‘e’ that was used in Donne’s period got dropped from English orthography later. Pick out the other words in the poem that have this peculiar feature.

Take note also that the apostrophe is not used for indicating the possessive form: loves philosophy.

Notice the adjectives in phrases such as ‘infant loves’ and ‘brave clearnesse’. What is the meaning of these adjectives

(i) in isolation

(ii) as part of these phrases.