Analysis Of A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning By John Donne

John Donne, in “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”, hits the reader with a poetic barrage of metaphors and shifting images throughout the poem. Though outwardly convoluted and extravagant, the writing’s metaphysical focus on the narrator and his lovers’ boundless love necessitates figurative dynamism. This dynamism reflects itself in the ever-changing conceits Donne employs to differentiate the narrator’s unparalleled spiritual love from the dull love of the common people. By meticulously infusing multiple complex yet intertwined metaphysical conceits throughout the poem to create comparisons, John Donne creates a distinct yet unified notion of complex love that transcends both the physical world and the traditional understanding of love. …show more content…
By beginning the conceit of the natural phenomenon of an earthquake with a trochee, a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, in line 9, “Moving of the’ earth brings harms and fears” (Donne 9), the physical disruption caused by an earthquake is created poetically through the disruption of the iambic pentameter. Causing both “harms” and “fears”, the earthquake and its subsequent effects are equated to the outward chaos and mayhem that arises when ordinary lovers are separated. Once again, the use of a natural disaster not only amplifies the magnitude of the emotions arising from the separation, it specifically creates a vivid image of literal physical movement; the literal physicality of this conceit further restricts the ordinary lovers to a one-dimensional earthly love. In contrast, the disturbance the narrator’s relationship experiences, when separated, is equated to the “trepidation of spheres” (Donne 11); here, “trepidation” has the dual function of contrast and imagery through its dual meaning. Its first meaning connotes a fear of something bad happening in the future, but in this poem specifically, a fear the narrator and his lover do not have, but a fear that the common do. Its second meaning connotes trembling, which illustrates the motion of the spheres. The phenomenon mentioned describes the subtle movements of the concentric spheres of the universe that are imperceptible to those on earth, while earthquakes, on the other hand, are perceptible to those on earth. The word “innocence” (Donne 11) describes the subtlety of the effects of separation represented by the physical movements of the spheres; this distinction regarding physical perception implies that the separation of the narrator and his lover cause an