"A Valediction: forbidding Mourning"

Denotative Analysis:

A Valediction: forbidding Mourning is a poem written by John Donne,  it is divided into nine stanzas, in each of four-lie stanzas there is a ABAB rhyme scheme. The author 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  without complaint, he says, that they should leave without "tear-floods" and "sigh-tempests," for reveal their feelings in such a way would profane their love. The author 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". Indeed 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 lover's 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."

Connotative Analysis:

In this poem Donne, anticipate a physical separation from his loved. 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 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 poem's title. First, the author says that their farewell should be as mild as the deaths of virtuous men. Next, the author compares the 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 lovers are all physical, unable to experience separation without losing the sensations of their love. But for the spiritual lovers, their love is not whole physical because, they are like the trepidation of the spheres. Also, like the trepidation of the spheres, their movement will not have the harmful consequences of an earthquake. Secondly The author declares that, since the lovers' two souls are one, his departure will simply expand the area of their unified soul. If, however, their souls are "two" instead of "one", they are as the feet of a drafter's compass, connected, with the center foot fixing the orbit of the outer foot and helping it to describe a perfect circle. This is one of the most significant metaphor, because it is the perfect image to express the values of Donne's spiritual love, which is balanced, symmetrical and intellectual. In conclusion "A Valediction: forbidding Mourning" creates a division between the common love of the everyday world and the uncommon love of the author. Indeed only few people and the author can have access to the spiritual love of the spheres and the compass.