Corinna's Room

The physical setting of the poem is Corinna's bedroom. We know this from the context, though the setting is not described in physical terms. Readers are told that she is lying in bed, and that the speaker is there trying to convince her to get out of bed and face the day. However, this setting provides readers with important contextual information about Corinna and about her relationship with the speaker. It tells us, for instance, that Corinna is at least somewhat lazy, reluctant to get out of bed early. It also strongly implies that she and the speaker are already lovers, because he is in her bedroom. The bedroom (or bed-chamber, the word "bedroom" was still quite new) was an entirely private place, particularly for young women. The speaker should not have been allowed in at all, yet the poem suggests that the speaker either has unlimited...