John Donne
A valediction:forbidding Mourning
Poet's schooling
- went to Oxford at 11 years old
- never got degrees because he was Catholic
- at 20 he went to study law
Family
- his brother was killed because of his faith
- made his loose his faith
- this inspired some of his best writings
marriage
- both families disapproved of the marriage
- her father held her dowry for 7 years
- Anne died giving birth to their 12th child
A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
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:
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.
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.
But we, by a love so much refined
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
explanation
He says that the parting between him and her should be like the gentle death of an old man.
Then he shifts to saying shallow love is like an earthquake that makes a big fuss but doesn't have a long lasting effect.
But his love is slow moving like the planets.
Then he says that their love could stretch any distance because they are one soul
The last comparison is that him and her are like a compass drawing a circle and are two feet that are connected and will always come back together.
Literary devices
- earthquake
- compass
rhyme
citation
"Bruno Mars - Grenade [OFFICIAL VIDEO]." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
"John Donne Biolgraphy." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 20 Feb. 2016.