John Donne And Lady Mary Wroth's

John Donne and Lady Mary Wroth are two popular and controversial poets from the early seventeenth century. Donne often wrote sensuous and spiritual poetry, while Wroth had written Petrarchan (in nature) sonnets concerning love from a woman’s (practically unheard of for that time) perspective. In both Donne’s “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning” and Wroth’s “Sonnet 22” (in the sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus) the issue of separation between lovers is explored by means of nature, metaphysical conceits, and complex metaphors. Additionally, the form of either of these respective works seems to mimic the sense of certainty or complacency of the speakers. With that said, although the speakers love in both poems seems readily accessible, they deal with the separation from their beloved in contrasting ways. Donne’s speaker’s love is intensified by means of the separation with his beloved, seeing as their love transcends physicality. Wroth’s Pamphilia, on the other hand, in “Sonnet 22” works to come to terms with her depression caused by the absence …show more content…
Apart from that, another dissimilarity between the works is what images they choose to explore. For instance, as discussed, Donne uses scientific and mathematical metaphors. On the other hand, Wroth’s poem involves comparing the speaker to elements of nature. Moore explains in her article concerning Wroth’s sonnet sequence that Pamphilia explores, “the issues of self-knowledge” (Moore 109). This is what Pamphilia is doing in the volta. The final couplet, “If trees and leaves, for absence, mourners be/ No marvel that I grieve, who like want see” (Wroth 14-15) explains that after all her grieving in the earlier quatrains she is led to finally accept her situation. The couplet is very reflective in that it explains the idea that if nature can grieve the absence of its leaves, then the speaker may also grieve her