Metaphysical poets, selected poems Contents
- Social / political context
- Religious / philosophical context
- Literary context: ideas and innovations
- Aire and Angels
- A Hymn to God the Father
- A Hymn to God, my God, in my Sicknesse
- A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies day
- At the Round Earth's Imagin'd Corners
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Synopsis of Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Commentary on Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Language and tone in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Structure and versification in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Themes in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- A Valediction: of Weeping
- Batter my heart
- Death be not Proud
- Elegie XIX: Going to Bed
- Elegie XVI: On his Mistris
- Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward
- Lovers' Infiniteness
- Oh my blacke Soule!
- Satyre III: 'On Religion'
- Show me Deare Christ
- Since She Whom I Lov'd
- Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre
- The Anniversarie
- The Dreame
- The Extasie
- The Flea
- The Good-morrow
- The Sunne Rising
- This is my playes last scene
- Twicknam Garden
- What if this present
- Aaron
- Affliction I
- Death
- Discipline
- Easter Wings
- Jordan I
- Jordan II
- Life
- Love II
- Man
- Prayer I
- Redemption
- The Church-floore
- The Collar
- Vertue
- Hymn in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
- Hymn to St Teresa
- St Mary Magdalene, or the Weeper
- To the Countesse of Denbigh
- Ascension - Hymn
- Man
- Regeneration
- The Night
- The Retreate
- The Water-fall
- A Dialogue between Soul and Body
- On a Drop of Dew
- The Coronet
- The Definition of Love
- The Garden
- The Mower Against Gardens
- The Mower to the Glo-Worms
- The Mower's Song
- The Nymph Complaining for the Death of her Faun
- The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
- To his Coy Mistress
- Upon Appleton House, to my Lord Fairfax
- An Elegie upon the Death of the Deane of Paul's Dr John Donne
- To a Lady that Desired I would Love her
Imagery and symbolism in Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
Science and Maths
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is structured through the main conceits and it is through them also that the argument builds up. There is, as in A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies Day, a focus on scientific or mathematical images:
- earthquakes
- compasses
- the properties of gold.
This is set against the traditional imagery of parting: sighs and tears, which are dismissed as
- ‘teare-floods' and
- ‘sigh-tempests'
- The use of the term ‘melt' suggests more the melting of snow – totally quiet
Moral virtue
The initial image, of the deathbed, is the only one that suggests moral quality. ‘Virtuous men' have the power to choose the moment of death and do it silently. Silence becomes the new moral virtue.
Investigating Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
- Look at the image Donne develops in the last three stanzas:
- Do you feel that this final image rather hi-jacks the poem, so that at the end this is all we remember about the poem?
- Or do you feel it provides a neat and memorable ending?
- Compare and contrast the use of imagery here to that in A Valediction: of Weeping
- Do you see any significant differences?
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