Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Step Two
1.
What does the title suggest?
a.
Something or someone is preventing a farewell
from being associated with sadness.
2.
What is literally occurring?
a.
The speaker is dying, so they are giving their
farewells to a loved one.
3.
Tone of poem & words/phrases explain this?
a.
Determination undermined by sorrow permeates
this poem. The poet speaks of “A breach, but an expansion”. This line reveals
how determined the speaker is to remain connected with his lover though the
universe though his shape will change. Before this, the speaker expresses how
all men “pass mildly away,” The speaker acknowledges the improbability of
forever, but continues to hope that there is something more after death.
4.
Main idea of poem?
a.
That love continues due to the force connecting
the people, unbound by death’s chains.
Step Three
1.
What are the speaker’s requests in the first two
stanzas?
a.
The narrator asks that there be no crying or
wailing at his death. He wishes his lover to be calm and accept his death. This
is enforced by the idea that the outside world shouldn’t see a change in her
because she should be so steadfast in her devotion.
2.
In the third stanza, what causes ‘fear’?
a.
Great earthquakes cause immediate fear in
humans.
3.
What much greater force is ignored by humankind?
a.
The movement of earth through space, around the
sun, is a far larger movement but it goes practically unnoticed in day to day
lives.
4.
What does the speaker say about the quality of
‘sublunary lover’s love’?
a.
The average person’s love is constrained by
physical restrictions, but the speaker in this poem scorns that. He calls it
‘dull’ and doesn’t believe it can hold a candle to true love.
5.
How is this love contrasted with the speaker’s
love?
a.
The speaker in this poem believe that his lover
and himself love in a spiritual way, unbound by physical restrictions.
Therefore, the love between them will not disappear when his physical form
dissipates, but will endure.
6.
Explain the relationship between the two lovers
that the poet wishes to depict.
a.
The relationship of the man and his lover is
compared to that of a compass. It has two individual legs, but they are
connected at the top. The speaker expresses his opinion that their love
transcends the physical world, connected by a greater and more important
spiritual love that defies time and other earthly constraints.
Step Four
The poem, “A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne expresses two different scenarios
which love can take. The first is physical, relying on earthly bodies and the
like to determine love. This form does not last long and is easily disintegrated
by death, time, and host of other factors. Stanza four comment heavily on the
‘dull’ love of people concentrated on purely physical. The first half of the
poem focuses on this inferior form of love. It describes what not to do - mourn
him and focus only on what the five senses perceive.
The
second form of love is permanent and cannot be swayed by any barriers. “….love
refined” the speaker calls it in stanza six. The speaker proposes that this is
what he himself practices. The souls meld as one although they can go separate
ways for a time, they two souls are intertwined. The poet writes the speaker as dying, but not
with the fear so commonly found in most peoples hearts when death approached.
The narrator feels no apprehension because he knows that the love he shares
with his companion is not bound by his time one earth. He believes it will
carry on forever, both beings still connected. This second half of the poem is
an illustration of enduring love, it
concentrates on mindful awareness and the connection of souls which isn’t seen,
only felt.
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