Comments on a Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

A Valediction: forbidding mourning

Overall Explanation

This is a "classic" Donne poem. In it, he shows off his vast knowledge of everything from alchemy to astronomy, and puts his most famous technique, the conceit, to great use. There is a rumor that this poem was written by Donne to his wife, before he went away on a long holiday with his friends, leaving her at home.

Donne's basic argument was that most people's relationships are built on purely sensual things - if they are not together at all times, the relationship breaks down. Donne asserts that the love between him and his wife is different - it is not a purely sensual relationship, but something deeper, a "love of the mind" rather than a "love of the body". This love, he says, can endure even though sometimes the lovers cannot be close to each other at all times.

Donne uses some very evocative imagery in this poem. First of all, the parting of two lovers like Donne and his wife is likened to the death of a virtuous man. As a virtuous man dies, he knows that he has reconciled himself to God and will therefore be accepted into heaven. Thus he dies in peace and calm, and the people surrounding him at his deathbead are sad, but not anguished. In the same way, when two virtuous lovers part, there is no pain, because they know that each will be true to the other, even when they are apart. The people surrounding the dying man are quiet partly so as not to disturb him - in the same way, Donne says that too much outward show of emotion on the part of one lover would just disturb the other.

Donne is then very disparaging of the love of the rest of the population. The wails and screams and tears that "ordinary" lovers display when they must part is shown to be simply an act, with no real emotion in it.

The lovers are then likened to planetary bodies. In such a way, Donne places them above the "mortal earth". Unlike natural disasters, which are unpredictable and chaotic, the movement of the planets is peaceful and calm, even though the planets move much further.

Donne's most famous conceit is then introduced. The two lovers are likened to the two points of a compass. At first this seems ridiculous, but Donne shows how it makes sense. The idea of the wife staying and minding the house while the husband goes away is old-fashioned now, but we can still comprehend it. There is a lot more explanation of the "compass" conceit below.

Poetic Devices

* Ballad - like four-line stanzas help to create the gently, slowly moving "feel" of the poem. The rhyme scheme is consistent and predictable all the way through, as well. Here there is emotion, but it is confined to the "layetie"-the ordinary lovers who cannot stand parting.

* Conceits used:

o Donne and wife > celestial bodies > the points of a compass.

o The wedding ring > the path of a planet > the alchemical symbol for gold > the path traced out by a compass

o The emotions of the common people > earthquakes and tempests

Imagery

* The circle

o Marriage ring

o Path of

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