➥ Donne: "A Valediction: forbidding mourning”
About the Author
John Donne, (born c. Jan. 24–June 19, 1572, London, Eng.—died March 31, 1631,London), English poet. Donne was born into a Roman Catholic family. He entered the University of Oxford at age 12; he later transferred to the University of Cambridge and subsequently studied law. An adventurer in youth, he hoped for a high public appointment, but his clandestine marriage to his employer’s daughter ruined his prospects. He converted to Anglicanism; ordained in 1615, he became a preacher of great power and eloquence and was installed as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1621. The greatest of the English Metaphysical poets (Metaphysical poetry), he is noted for his love lyrics, religious verse and treatises, and sermons. His secular poetry, most written early in his career, is direct, intense, brilliantly witty, and daringly imaginative. Later his tone darkened with works such as the Anniversaries (1611–12), two long poems meditating on the decay of the world. His 19 famous Holy Sonnets (written 1607–13) were published posthumously. Among his prose works, many as dramatic and intimate as his poetry, the most enduring is Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624).
Summary of the Text
In the beginning, the speaker paints a picture of good men dying quietly while softly telling their minds to leave their bodies. The dying men’s friends can’t agree on whether or not the men have stopped breathing yet because these good deaths are so subtle.
The speaker says that he and the lover he’s leaving should be like these people who have died and quietly say goodbye. Even though they want to cry and sigh a lot, they shouldn’t give in. So publicly grieving would actually lower their private love by letting everyone see it.
Natural changes in the ground, like earthquakes, hurt and scare people. Normal people see these things happen and wonder what they mean. Most people don’t notice the moves of the heavens, even though they are bigger and more important.
People who are boring and normal feel a kind of love that can’t handle being apart because it depends on physical connection. Their love rests on being able to touch each other, but being apart takes away that ability.
However, the speaker and his lover have a more unique and rare kind of relationship. They don’t even know it, but they are mentally connected and sure of each other on a level that isn’t physical. So, when their bodies are apart, it doesn’t mean as much to them.
Love brings the lovers’ souls together. There will be no breaking of their souls even though the speaker has to leave. Fine metal swells when hammered, so they will grow to fill the space between them.
Even if their souls are separate, they are still connected in the same way that the legs of a compass are connected. The lover’s soul is like the compass’s “stationary foot,” which doesn’t move on its own but does react to the movement of the other foot.
This compass foot is not moving and is in the middle of a piece of paper. As one compass foot goes farther away, the other foot changes its angle to lean in that direction, as if it wants to be closer to its partner. As the foot that was moving closes the compass, the foot that was not moving stands straight up, looking alert and excited.
He says that the speaker’s lover will be like his still foot, while he has to go around in a roundabout way. Because she is in the same place, he is stable enough to make a perfect circle that stops where it began, which brings the speaker back to his lover.
Critical Analysis
‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’s’ first stanza starts with a picture of death. The man he is talking about died and was “virtuous.” Because he was a good person, he dies quietly. In this case, Donne says that death is like “whispering” one’s soul away. There’s nothing scary about it. “Whisper” is a great example of this style of writing. The word looks or sounds like the noise it stands for.
The man who is dying is not by himself. There are “sad friends” around his bed who can’t decide if he’s still alive or not. There are no signs to let people know that he has died because his last moments are so quiet. They talk to each other and ask if “the breath goes now” is true.
People who aren’t used to Donne’s complicated use of conceit might find the second stanza bit strange. It doesn’t say what the first stanza was about; instead, it gives more details.The speaker is comparing the good man’s quiet death to his love for the person he is talking to. They don’t have the “tear-floods” and “sigh-tempests” of the shallow when they split up.The speaker in Donne’s poem can see how other couples treat each other and knows that his are better.
He and his partner would never be so rude as to show how they feel to “laity,” or regular people. They don’t talk about it with anyone else. He says that telling everyone about it would be a “profanation,” or an insult to their “joy.” They are going to “make no noise” and stay above people who are in less important relationships.
The third stanza uses the phrase “Moving of th’ earth,” which means an earthquake, to describe another natural disaster. It’s something strange and hard to explain. When there are earthquakes, there are also “harms and fears.” Adding these lines makes the point that it’s silly to make a big deal about the speaker’s leaving even stronger.
‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’s’ next two lines are a little less clear. They mean the spheres, or concentric rings, in space where the moon, stars, and planets move.Even though they are divided, they still move and shake when other things happen. This way, the person talks about their “trepidation,” which means they are shaking. It’s shaking more than an earthquake can, but you can’t see it and it’s not dangerous. This is another figure of speech that shows how the speaker sees his relationship. That’s not the impressive earthquake; that’s the much stronger shaking of the heavenly spheres.
In the fifth line, the speaker goes back to talking about other people’s less-than-perfect love. It’s “Dull” and “sublunary,” which means it’s under the moon instead of in the sky. It is the senses that drive people in these interactions. What a person can feel is what the “soul” of the connection is. For these loves, being physically together is the most important thing. They “cannot admit / Absence” because it “takes away” the whole relationship. Touch and sight are the only things that shallow mates do with each other.
‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’s’ fifth stanza is different from the fourth. His own relationship comes up again, and he calls himself and his wife “we.” It’s a “refined” or highbrow friendship. Their love goes beyond the real world so much that it’s hard for them to understand. “They don’t know what it is.” The next two lines say again that the speaker and his wife love each other in a spiritual way. More than anything else, it’s mental. They are “Inter-assured of the mind” and don’t care about “eyes, lips, and hands.” These are not the things they will miss about each other when they split up.
The first line of the sixth stanza makes a clear and recognized statement about marriage. They may have two different souls, but for now they act like they are “one.” This is why, when they part, they won’t “endure” a “breach, but an expansion.” If you beat gold very thin, it will stretch like their love does. No matter how hard you push it, it stays the same. Also, it’s important to remember that Donne picked gold to stand for their love.He sees the parts of his relationship that make it strong and beautiful.
At this point in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” the compass picture we talked about earlier starts to play a big role. First, Donne goes back to what he said before about how they were “one.” He knows that there may be some doubts about their “inter-assured” relationship, that’s why he gives in. He meant himself and his wife. If they are “two,” then they are like the two points on a map.
For Donne, his wife is the “fixed foot” of the machine. There is something stable about her “soul” that never “shows / To move.” His wife will only move if “the other do,” which means he does. The eighth line of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” goes into more detail about how the set foot moves. At first, it’s the most important thing to them; everything else swirls around it. Then it leans if the other leg, the one that looks like Donne’s, goes off to “roam” far away. In this picture, his wife only moves this way. She “grows erect” or “hearkens” after him when he needs her to and doesn’t bend over until he gets home or back to the set point. In case there was any doubt about any part of the compass metaphor, the last four words explain it all. It sounds like the speaker is talking to his wife in these lines. He tells her that she is the one who will bring him back. “Firmness” in her makes his “circle just,” or keeps it in a certain area. She will always get him back to where he started, no matter what he does or where he goes.
Comments
Post a Comment