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In 1611, John Donne wrote A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning to his wife, Anne More Donne, to comfort her while he was in France conducting government business and she remained home in Mitcham, England, about seven miles from London. The title says, in?essence, When we part, we must not mourn. Valediction is derived from the Latin verb valedicere, meaning to say farewell. (Another English word derived from the same Latin verb is valedictorian, referring to a student scholar who delivers a farewell address at a graduation ceremony.) The poem then explains that a maudlin show of emotion would cheapen their love, reduce it to the level of the ordinary and mundane. Their love, after all, is transcendent, heavenly. Other husbands and wives who know only physical, earthly love, weep and sob when they separate for a time because they dread the loss of physical closeness. But because Donne and his wife have a spiritual, as well as physical, dimension to their love, they will never really be apart, he says, for their souls will remain unitedeven though their bodies are separateduntil he returns to England.? John and Anne More Donne? John Donne (1572-1631) was one of Englands greatest and most innovative poets. He worked for a time as secretary to Sir Thomas Edgerton, the Keeper of the Great Seal of England. When he fell in love with Anne More (1584-1617), the niece of Edgertons second wife, he knew Edgerton and Anns fatherSir George More, Chancellor of the Garterwould disapprove of their marriage. Nevertheless, he married her anyway, in 1601, the year she turned 17. As a result, he lost his job and was jailed for a brief time. Life was hard for them over the next decade, but in 1611 Sir Robert Drury befriended him and took Donne on a diplomatic mission with him to France and other countries. Donnes separation from his wife at this time provided him the occasion for writing A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Anne bore him twelve childrenfive of whom died very young or at birthbefore she died in 1617.Valediction as a Metaphysical Poem? Some scholars classify A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning as a metaphysical poem; Donne himself did not use that term. Among the characteristics of a metaphysical poem are the following:* Startling comparisons or contrasts of a metaphysical (spiritual, transcendent, abstract) quality to a concrete (physical, tangible, sensible) object. In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne compares the love he shares with his wife to a compass. (See Stanza 7 of the poem).* Mockery of idealized, sentimental romantic poetry, as in Stanza 2 of the poem.* Gross exaggeration (hyperbole).* Presentation of a logical argument. Donne argues that he and his wife will remain together spiritually even though they are apart physically.* Expression of personal, private feelings, such as those Donne expresses in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.Publication Information? A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning was first published in 1633, two years after Donne died, in a poetry collection entitled Songs and Sonnets.Figures of Speech? Donne relies primarily on extended metaphors to convey his message. First, he compares his separation from his wife to the separation of a mans soul from his body when he dies (Stanza 1). The body represents physical love; the soul represents spiritual or intellectual love. While Donne and his wife are apart, they cannot express physical love; thus, they are like the body of the dead man. However, Donne says, they remain united spiritually and intellectually because their souls are one. So, Donne continues, he and his wife should let their physical bond melt when they part (Line 5). He follows that metaphor with others, saying they should not cry sentimental tear-floods or indulge in sigh-tempests (Line 6) when they say farewell. Such base sentimentality would cheapen their relationship. He also compares himself and his wife to celestial spheres, such as the sun and others stars, for their love is so profound that it exists in a higher plane than the love of the laity (Line 8), husbands and wives whose love centers solely on physical pleasures which, to be enjoyed, require that the man and woman always remain together, physically. Finally, Donne compares his relationship with his wife to that of the two legs of a drawing compass. Although the legs are separate components of the compass, they are both part of the same object. The legs operate in unison. If the outer leg traces a circle, the inner legthough its point is fixed at the centermust pivot in the direction of the outer leg. Thus, Donne says, though he and his wife are separated, like the legs of the compass, they remain united because they are part of the same soul.Alliteration (Line 3): Whilst some of their sad friends do say? Alliteration (Lines ): Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun.? Simile (Stanza 6): Observation that the expansion of their spiritual unity is like gold to aery thinness beat.Theme? Real, complete love unites not only the bodies of a husband and wife but also their souls. Such spiritual love is transcendent, metaphysical, keeping the lovers together intellectually and spiritually even though the circumstances of everyday life may separate their bodies.Rhyme Scheme and Meter? The last syllable in the first and third lines of each stanza rhyme, as do the second and fourth lines of each stanza. The meter is iambic tetrameter, with eight syllables (four feet) per line. Each foot, or pair of syllables, consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The first two lines of the second stanza demonstrate this metric pattern:.1.? .2.? .3.4? So LET | us MELT | and MAKE | no NOISE? ? .1.? .2.? .3.? .4? No TEAR- | floods NOR | sigh-TEMP? | ests-MOVEExplanation.Good men die peacefully because they lived a life that pleased God. They accept death without complaining, saying it is time for their souls to move on to eternity. Meanwhile, some of their sad friends at the bedside acknowledge death as imminent, and some say, no, he may live awhile longer.? .Well, Anne, because I will be in France and other countries for a time while you remain home in England, we must accept our separation in the same way that virtuous dying men quietly accept the separation of their souls from their bodies. While the physical bond that unites us melts, we must not cry storms of tears. To do so would be to debase our love, making it depend entirely on flesh, as does the love of so many ordinary people (laity) for whom love does not extend beyond physical attraction.（1-3）.Earthquakes (moving of th earth) frighten people, who wonder at the cause and the meaning of them. However, the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies (trepidation of the spheres) cause no fear, for such movements are natural and harmless. They bring about the changes of the seasons.? .You and I are like the heavenly bodies; our movementsour temporary separationscause no excitement. On the other hand, those who unite themselves solely through the senses and not also through the soul are not like the heavenly bodies. They inhabit regions that are sublunary (below the moon) and cannot endure movements that separate. By contrast, our love is so refined, so otherworldly, that it can still survive without the closeness of eyes, lips, and hands.（4-5）The point is this: Even though our bodies become separated and must live apart for a time in different parts of the world, our souls remain united. In fact, the spiritual bond that unites us?actually expands; it is like gold which, when beaten with a hammer, widens and lengthens.? .Anne, you and I are like the pointed legs of a compass (pictured at right in a photograph provided courtesy of Wikipedia), used to draw circles and arcs. One pointed leg, yours, remains fixed at the center. But when the other pointed leg, mine, moves in a circle or an arc, your leg also turns even though the point of it remains fixed at the center of my circle. Your position there helps me complete my circle so that I end up where（6）A Valediction: forbidding MourningSummaryThe speaker explains that he is forced to spend time apart from his lover, but before he leaves, he tells her that their farewell should not be the occasion for mourning and sorrow. In the same way that virtuous men die mildly and without complaint, he says, so they should leave without tear-floods and sigh-tempests, for to publicly announce their feelings in such a way would profane their love. The speaker says that when the earth moves, it brings harms and fears, but when the spheres experience trepidation, though the impact is greater, it is also innocent. The love of dull sublunary lovers cannot survive separation, but it removes that which constitutes the love itself; but the love he shares with his beloved is so refined and Inter-assured of the mind that they need not worry about missing eyes, lips, and hands. Though he must go, their souls are still one, and, therefore, they are not enduring a breach, they are experiencing an expansion; in the same way that gold can be stretched by beating it to aery thinness, the soul they share will simply stretch to take in all the space between them. If their souls are separate, he says, they are like the feet of a compass: His lovers soul is the fixed foot in the center, and his is the foot that moves around it. The firmness of the center foot makes the circle that the outer foot draws perfect: Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun.Form The nine stanzas of this Valediction are quite simple compared to many of Donnes poems, which utilize strange metrical patterns overlaid jarringly on regular rhyme schemes. Here, each four-line stanza is quite unadorned, with an ABAB rhyme scheme and an iambic tetrameter meter.Commentary A Valediction: forbidding Mourning is one of Donnes most famous and simplest poems and also probably his most direct statement of his ideal of spiritual love. For all his erotic carnality in poems, such as The Flea, Donne professed a devotion to a kind of spiritual love that transcended the merely physical. Here, anticipating a physical separation from his beloved, he invokes the nature of that spiritual love to ward off the tear-floods and sigh-tempests that might otherwise attend on their farewell. The poem is essentially a sequence of metaphors and comparisons, each describing a way of looking at their separation that will help them to avoid the mourning forbidden by the poems title.First, the speaker says that their farewell should be as mild as the uncomplaining deaths of virtuous men, for to weep would be profanation of our joys. Next, the speaker compares harmful Moving of th earth to innocent trepidation of the spheres, equating the first with dull sublunary lovers love and the second with their love, Inter-assured of the mind. Like the rumbling earth, the dull sublunary (sublunary meaning literally beneath the moon and also subject to the moon) lovers are all physical, unable to experience separation without losing the sensation that comprises and sustains their love. But the spiritual lovers Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss, because, like the trepidation (vibration) of the spheres (the concentric globes that surrounded the earth in ancient astronomy), their love is not wholly physical. Also, like the trepidation of the spheres, their movement will not have the harmful consequences of an earthquake.The speaker then declares that, since the lovers two souls are one, his departure will simply expand the area of their unified soul, rather than cause a rift between them. If, however, their souls are two instead of one, they are as the feet of a drafters compass, connected, with the center foot fixing the orbit of the outer foot and helping it to describe a perfect circle. The compass (the instrument used for drawing circles) is one of Donnes most famous metaphors, and it is the perfect image to encapsulate the values of Donnes spiritual love, which is balanced, symmetrical, intellectual, serious, and beautiful in its polished simplicity.Like many of Donnes love poems (including The Sun Rising and The Canonization), A Valediction: forbidding Mourning creates a dichotomy between the common love of the everyday world and the uncommon love of the speaker. Here, the speaker claims that to tell the laity, or the common people, of his love would be to profane its sacred nature, and he is clearly contemptuous of the dull sublunary love of other lovers. The effect of this dichotomy is to create a kind of emotional aristocracy that is similar in form to the political aristocracy with which Donne has had painfully bad luck throughout his life and which he commented upon in poems, such as The Canonization: This emotional aristocracy is similar in form to the political one but utterly opposed to it in spirit. Few in number are the emotional aristocrats who have access to the spiritual love of the spheres and the compass; throughout all of Donnes writing, the membership of this elite never includes more than the speaker and his lover-or at the most, the speaker, his lover, and the reader of the poem, who is called upon to sympathize with Donnes romantic plight.John Donne was born in Bread Street, London in 1572 to a prosperous Roman Catholic family - a precarious thing at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was rife in England. His father, John Donne, was a well-to-do ironmonger and citizen of London. Donnes father died suddenly in 1576, and left the three children to be raised by their mother, Elizabeth, who was the daughter of epigrammatist and playwright John Heywood and a relative of Sir Thomas More. Family tree.Donnes first teachers were Jesuits. At the age of 11, Donne and his younger brother Henry were entered at Hart Hall, University of Oxford, where Donne studied for three years. He spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge, but took no degree at either university because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy required at graduation. He was admitted to study law as a member of Thavies Inn (1591) and Lincolns Inn (1592), and it seemed natural that Donne should embark upon a legal or diplomatic career.In 1593, Donnes brother Henry died of a fever in prison after being arrested for giving sanctuary to a proscribed Catholic priest. This made Donne begin to question his faith. His first book of poems, Satires, written during this period of residence in London, is considered one of Donnes most important literary efforts. Although not immediately published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through private circulation of the manuscript. Same was the case with his love poems, Songs and Sonnets, assumed to be written at about the same time as the Satires. Having inherited a considerable fortune, young Jack Donne spent his money on womanizing, on books, at the theatre, and on travels. He had also befriended Christopher Brooke, a poet and his roommate at Lincolns Inn, and Ben Jonson who was part of Brookes circle. In 1596, Donne joined the naval expedition that Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, led against Cdiz, Spain.? In 1597, Donne joined an expedition to the Azores, where he wrote The Calm. Upon his return to England in 1598, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, afterward Lord Ellesmere. Donne was beginning a promising career. In 1601, Donne became MP for Brackley, and sat in Queen Elizabeths last Parliament. But in the same year, he secretly married Lady Egertons niece, seventeen-year-old Anne More, daughter of Sir George More, Lieutenant of the Tower, and effectively committed career suicide. Donne wrote to the livid father, saying:Sir, I acknowledge my fault to be so great as I dare scarce offer any other prayer to you in mine own behalf than this, to believe that I neither had dishonest end nor means. But for her whom I tender much more than my fortunes or life (else I would, I might neither joy in this life nor enjoy the next) I humbly beg of you that she may not, to her danger, feel the terror of your sudden anger.1Sir George had Donne thrown in Fleet Prison for some weeks, along with his cohorts Samuel and Christopher Brooke who had aided the couples clandestine affair. Donne was dismissed from his post, and for the next decade had to struggle near poverty to support his growing family. Donne later summed up the experience: John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone. Annes cousin offered the couple refuge in Pyrford, Surrey, and the couple was helped by friends like Lady Magdalen Herbert, George Herberts mother, and Lucy, Countess of Bedford, women who also played a prominent role in Donnes literary life. Though Donne still had friends left, these were bitter years for a man who knew himself to be the intellectual superior of most, knew he could have risen to the highest posts, and yet found no preferment.? It was not until 1609 that a reconciliation was effected between Donne and his father-in-law, and Sir George More was finally induced to pay his daughters dowry.In the intervening years, Donne practised law, but they were lean years for the Donnes. Donne was employed by the religious pamphleteer Thomas Morton, later Bishop of Durham. It is possible that Donne co-wrote or ghost-wrote some of Mortons pamphlets (1604-1607). To this period, before reconciliation with his inlaws, belong Donnes Divine Poems (1607) and Biathanatos (pub. 1644), a radical piece for its time, in which Donne argues that suicide is not a sin in itself. As Donne approached forty, he published two anti-Catholic polemics Pseudo-Martyr (1610) and Ignatius his Conclave (1611). They were final public testimony of Donnes renunciation of the Catholic faith. Pseudo-Martyr, which held that English Catholics could pledge an oath of allegiance to James I, King of England, without compromising their religious loyalty to the Pope, won Donne the favor of the King. In return for patronage from Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead, he wrote A Funerall Elegie (1610), on the death of Sir Roberts 15-year-old daughter Elizabeth. At this time, the Donnes took residence on Drury Lane.? The two Anniversaries An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) continued the patronage. Sir Robert encouraged the publication of the poems: The First Anniversary was published with the original elegy in 1611, and both were reissued with The Second Anniversary in 1612.Donne had refused to take Anglican orders in 1607, but King James persisted, finally announcing that Donne would receive no post or preferment from the King, unless in the church. In 1615, Donne reluctantly entered the ministry and was appointed a Royal Chaplain later that year. In 1616, he was appointed Reader in Divinity at Lincolns Inn (Cambridge had conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity on him two years earlier). Donnes style, full of elaborate metaphors and religious symbolism, his flair for drama, his wide learning and his quick wit soon established him as one of the greatest preachers of the era. Just as Donnes fortunes seemed to be improving, Anne Donne died, on 15 August, 1617, aged thirty-three, after giving birth to their twelfth child, a stillborn. Seven of their children survived their mothers death. Struck by grief, Donne wrote the seventeenth Holy Sonnet, Since she whom I lovd hath paid her last debt. According to Donnes friend and biographer, Izaak Walton, Donne was thereafter crucified to the world. Donne continued to write poetry, notably his Holy Sonnets (1618), but the time for love songs was over. In 1618, Donne went as ch