A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1633

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

An effective way to think about meter in a poem is to consider its “measure.” This means that any poem in which the line length can be measured by counting syllables, stresses, or both, is metrical. The four basic meters in English poetry are iambic (a single foot is an iamb), trochaic (a single foot is a trochee), anapestic (a single foot is an anapest), and dactylic (a single foot is a dactyl). A line four feet long in iambic meter is called iambic tetrameter. John Donne’s poem, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” is written predominantly in iambic tetrameter, meaning each line contains four iambic feet. Following iambic pentameter, this meter is the most common meter in English language poetry.

Consider the following scan of a few lines from the poem’s first stanza to illustrate the ways meter and syllabic stresses are functioning in the poem:

And WHISper TO their SOULS to GO, iambic tetrameter

Whilst SOME of THEIR sad FRIENDS do SAY iambic tetrameter

The BREATH goes NOW, and SOME say, NO iambic tetrameter

The concluding two lines of the poem also perform this metrical work:

Thy FIRMness MAKES my CIRcle JUST, iambic tetrameter

And MAKES me END where I beGUN. iambic tetrameter

Alliteration (Consonance)

Alliteration is the repetition of letter sounds in nearby words. Donne’s repetition of the consonant sound “s” in the first stanza allows the tone and content of the poem to merge in its desire for quietness, or lack of outward mourning. The repeated use of “s” sounds is sometimes utilized to achieve a “susurrus”—a whispering or rustling sound. Donne utilizes this consonant sound in the opening quatrain’s address to his lover in order to enact the same hushed state that he requests from her.

Consider the highlighted instances in the first quatrain below to see where Donne employs consonance:

Stanza One:

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say

The breath goes now, and some say, No: (Lines 1-4)

The second stanza of the poem, opening with “So” continues this consonance work (See Poem Analysis for further consideration of movement between Stanza One and Stanza Two). Here are instances in the second quatrain:

Stanza Two:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;

‘Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love. (Line 5-8)

As the poem progresses, so does Donne’s sonic work. Just as his use of “s” sounds enacted the whisper of the poem’s content, Donne’s repetition of the nasal consonant sounds “m” and “n” allow for a calming warmth to permeate the poem. Often associated with satisfaction, these sounds further the poem’s argument by perpetuating the intimacy between the speaker and his lover, and by subverting the expected dread and despair one might typically find in a poem of departure. Donne uses both the bilabial nasal “m” and the alveolar and postalveolar “n” in “So let us melt and make no noise,” (Line 5).

Here are highlighted instances in the third and fourth quatrains highlighting where Donne employs this consonance work:

Stanzas Three and Four:

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did, and meant;

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, because it doth remove

Those things which elemented it (Lines 9-16).

Conceit

Latin for “concept,” a conceit is an extended metaphor. Early Ionian philosophers resorted to such complex metaphors to express abstract metaphysical thought. Because they often grappled with discordant subjects of ambiguity, complexity, and flux, conceits allowed the subjects to reach a sense of harmony—to achieve a sort of balance in an otherwise jumbled world. Whereas individual instances of simile and metaphor might exist in containment in a poem, a conceit can govern an entire poem. Because of Donne’s heightened interest in the truths of the universe, religion and morality, his conceits are often engrained into the poem’s logic and structure in entirety. Specifically, Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” revolves around the metaphysical conceit of the twin compasses who exist in separation yet are unified. Conceits force readers to consider likeness while also being strongly conscious of unlikeness: They are used to persuade, define, or prove a point and are instruments of definition.