Pearson Edexcel · A-Level · English Literature
Course version: 9ET0 · Version from Sept 2015
Poetry – Section B: Specified Poetry Pre- or Post-1900 – Pre-1900 –…
Full specification wording
Component 3: Poetry – Section B: Specified Poetry Pre- or Post-1900 – Pre-1900 – Metaphysical Poetry – Metaphysical Poetry, editor Colin Burrow (Penguin, 2006): A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day
Donne’s poem turns the darkness of St Lucy’s Day into an image of grief after a lover’s death.
Checked against the Pearson Edexcel 9ET0 specification (opens in a new tab) on .
- Point 7 of 23
- 4 key terms
Study notes
From the checked teaching notes for this specification point.
The idea
Donne’s poem turns the darkness of St Lucy’s Day into an image of grief after a lover’s death. The speaker calls himself the dead world’s ‘epitaph’ and describes love as an alchemist: while love once drew ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’, bereavement has made him the ‘grave / Of all that’s nothing’. The poem contrasts nature’s expected spring renewal with a speaker who feels excluded from renewal.
What earns the marks
- Analyse the alchemical conceit: love first draws ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’, then its ‘limbeck’ distils the bereaved speaker into the ‘grave / Of all that’s nothing’.
- Examine the St Lucy’s Day setting and the opening description of the year’s shortest light as a framework for the speaker’s grief.
- Evaluate how five nine-line stanzas use sharply varied line lengths, syntax and pauses to control the movement between natural description and abstract argument.
- Explore the paradoxes through which the speaker defines himself by absence, darkness and death after his lover’s loss.
Common mistakes and how to put them right
Reading the poem as a standard elegy without addressing its philosophical depth.
Put it right: Focus on the ontological arguments and the speaker's claim to be the embodiment of 'nothingness'.
Misunderstanding the alchemical references as literal science.
Put it right: Analyse alchemy as a metaphysical conceit used to express the distillation of pure grief.
Overlooking the contrast between the speaker and the rest of the world.
Put it right: Highlight how the speaker urges other lovers to enjoy the coming spring, emphasising his own permanent exclusion from renewal.
Exam tips
- Use the exact phrase ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’ and explain how its meaning changes when the poem later presents the speaker as the grave of nothing.
- Contrast the next spring promised to future lovers with the speaker’s conviction that his own loss cannot be renewed.
- Link formal observations to precise effects in a particular stanza instead of treating varied metre or line length as automatic proof of a ‘broken’ mind.
Try the lesson
The start of the Component 3: Poetry – Section B: Specified Poetry Pre- or Post-1900 – Pre-1900 – Metaphysical Poetry – Metaphysical Poetry, editor Colin Burrow (Penguin, 2006): A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day lesson, made from checked teaching notes for this specification point.
Have a go first
In John Donne's 'A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day', what does the specific date of St Lucy's Day primarily symbolise in relation to the speaker's emotional state?
Listen
Donne’s poem turns the darkness of St Lucy’s Day into an image of grief after a lover’s death. The speaker calls himself the dead world’s ‘epitaph’ and describes love as an alchemist: while love once drew ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’, bereavement has made him the ‘grave / Of all that’s nothing’. The poem contrasts nature’s expected spring renewal with a speaker who feels excluded from renewal. A strong answer earns marks for these points. Analyse the alchemical conceit: love first draws ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’, then its ‘limbeck’ distils the bereaved speaker into the ‘grave / Of all that’s nothing’. Examine the St Lucy’s Day setting and the opening description of the year’s shortest light as a framework for the speaker’s grief. Evaluate how five nine-line stanzas use sharply varied line lengths, syntax and pauses to control the movement between natural description and abstract argument. Explore the paradoxes through which the speaker defines himself by absence, darkness and death after his lover’s loss. A common slip: Reading the poem as a standard elegy without addressing its philosophical depth. Instead, Focus on the ontological arguments and the speaker's claim to be the embodiment of 'nothingness'. Exam tip: Use the exact phrase ‘A quintessence even from nothingness’ and explain how its meaning changes when the poem later presents the speaker as the grave of nothing.
Key words
Say what each word means before you turn the card.
Alchemy and Science
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Nothingness and Absence
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Death and Mourning
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Time and Seasons
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See every definition
- Alchemy and Science
- A metaphysical conceit in which love is described as an alchemist drawing a quintessence even from nothingness, and later distilling the bereaved speaker into the grave of all that's nothing.
- Nothingness and Absence
- The accumulating language of absence, darkness and death through which the speaker defines himself by absence after his lover's loss.
- Death and Mourning
- The grief after a lover's death that the poem turns the darkness of St Lucy's Day into an image of.
- Time and Seasons
- The contrast between nature's expected spring renewal and a speaker who feels excluded from renewal.
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