Figure of Speech in A Valediction Essay

John Donnes A Valediction Forbidding Mourning is an amazing mania verse with beautiful figurative language, a f arewell to Donnes married woman before their long partition. The writer assures his loved the parting provide do no revile and praises on their endless love. With his competent writing style using extended metaphors, comparisons along with connotation and denotation throughout the rime, Donne expresses his belief in the strength of their dulcet love to puddle through the physical separation.In 1611, John Donne had to leave for a Europe trip, leaving behind his pregnant wife (Brackett). He wrote this poem as a farewell pledging his wife on their reunion and suggesting her not to be sorrowful. The writer uses several methods of figure of speech, among which are the donatives of vocabulary of the poem. The word leave-taking in the title is the act of bidding farewell, mourning is grieving or crying for a loss, laity in line 8 refers to common, ordinary people, sublunar y (line 13) refers to being below the moon and elemented (16) is being the component of something. These denotations play an important role in the poem to mask the meaning of the word, forcing its au snapnce to pay beside attention to every(prenominal) detail. Besides these words, extended metaphor links numerous imageries and comparisons in the poem creating the most famous love poem of Donnes works.Donne begins the poem with the virtuous men (1) image. He compares the separation between lovers to souls parting their bodies, life coming to death. These virtuous men (1) are immortal in the livings memory, even though their souls may moderate left their physical covers. As the memory remains, they will however be there with their beloved ones. Therefore they die without fear, facing death with peace and courage. Donne uses this comparison to announce to his wife, that the love they share is far too great, too profound to be affected by guiltless physical separation. He also says in his sermons Death, is the Divorce of body and soul Resurrection is the Re-union. . . . (Freccero). They catch no fear of separation like those decent men have no fear for death. The union of body and soul after death will serve as a figure of reunion of the lovers later on in the poem.In the second stanza, the poet asks his wife to melt, and exercise no noise/ Notear-floods, nor sight-tempests move (5-6). The word melt symbolizes the unity of two people vex one, not two separated individuals. The poet tells his dear wife to shed no tears, for that action is only for the laity (8). This parting forbids mourning, as the couple has such consecrated meaning Donne praised his love to be above of those common people. If they publicly display their grief, he feels it would taint the love he shares with his wife by being no better than the love of ordinary people. Donne pleads with his lady to accept his departure. Then the writer moves from the laity people to a larger view of the whole universe (Brackett). just now the trepidation of the spheres,/ Though greater far, is innocent (11-12).Trepidation of the spheres is meant to talk about the moving of the Earth and other planets. In Donnes time people still believe the Earth is the join of the universe, and other planets move around it (Brackett). Although men wonder about the constitution of these movements of the universe, and blame harms and fear (9) on those planets, the truth is the nature is innocent (12). Men with their weakness suffer from their own mis meets, not from influence of the stars or such matters. As Donne and his love have reached the level of angelic love, which has a symbol of a perfect circle, they are of no guilt for all misfortune and mistakes the normal people have (Freccero). This metaphor refers to the main image of the poem, the compass. This symbol in later reference also has a st subject stand in the center, with another part moving around it creating a perfect circle. The ne ver-failing spinning of the Earth is like the lovers romance,In the fourth stanza, Donne ranks the dull sublunary lovers (13) as the ones who cannot truthfully understand the depth of love like his and his wifes since he place his romance to the level of the universe, these under the moon relationship whose soul is sense (14) cannot bear absence of their partner.They simply have a physical bond, among them lacks the spiritual connection that keeps the relationship unwavering through time and space. He sees this fount of love as weak in essence, because it is not establish correctly on the bonding of two souls, but more on the bonding of two bodies. It cannot endure such an absence as Donne must take from his spouse, as it would . . . remove/ those things which elemented it (16). They do not have the bond even when being apart and as a result would not be able to stand the trials of distance. They would be torn apart by absence because they areno longer together to cement the feelin gs that they once possessed. Donne and his wife have the type of romance that is so much refined (17), they cannot even understand it.Their relationship is not only about missing the eyes, the lovers lip or the warmth of their hands. Their feeling here is the loss of a part of themselves. Though the feeling is hard to bear, believing in the others return helps them get through the separation. In the next stanza Donne creates another spectacular metaphor. Our two souls, therefore, which are one (21) declares them as two living bodies but sharing one nubble and one soul. The separation will only be a reach, but expansion (23), compared to gold to airy thinness beat (24). Gold can be expanded and condensed over and over again, but it will never break. The strength of gold is also the strength of the love between the couple. Like gold, it cannot be break up or torn by expansion.The most important symbol, the key link of the chain of metaphors appears in the seventh stanzaIf they be tw o, they are two soAs stiff pit compasses are twoThy soul, the fixed pluck, makes no show, To move, but doth, if th other do (25-28).Like the compass is made of a center and a rotating foot that makes no show to move, but doth, if th other do (27-28), the lovers stay connected through the soul though their bodies are apart. Although the center and the foot are stretched out, they are still joined at the beginning. However as the center foot stays still, when the other moves away it still leans and hearkens (31). The unrelated mathematical spin suddenly becomes a dramatic metaphor describing the couples situation. The lady staying at home as the center, waiting and missing her man, longing after every step her husband takes, with part of her soul watching over him. Meanwhile the man, as the moving foot drawing out, still has a part of him lingering back at home with his love. No matter how far the geographic distance between them, they are as one with their love bond.Together they make a perfect circle, the angelic love model as an Aristotelian circle (Tate). Notably a circle with a point in the center also is the seventeenth century symbol for gold (Divine), as mentioned earlier it stands for the ability to stretch out but not to break of the soul. Seeing no loss in the parting, the couplepictures their happy reunion thy firmness makes my circle just, and makes me end where I began (35-36). Like a circle, the lovers will end up together. They have to experience separation, but after the separation comes uniting. Once a circle is formed, the beginning point and the ending point become one.The poem is full of pilot program ideas and associations it is complex, and highly intellectual. John Donne incredibly creates unique figurative language in his work, making A Valediction Forbidding Mourning his most famous love poem. Along with using the rich imagery and metaphors skillfully he dedicates the poem to his beloved wife with a beautiful message the deserving s oul will return to the awaiting body, as the traveler will return to his darling (Freccero).Works CitedBrackett, VirginiaA Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Facts On File Companion toBritish Poetry, seventeenth and 18th Centuries. New York Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Blooms Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http//www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=CBP1029&SingleRecord=True (accessed June 17, 2009).Divine, Jay Dean. Compass and Circle in Donnes A Valediction ForbiddenMourning, Papers on Language and Literature 9, no. 1 (Winter 1973) pp. 78-80. Quoted as The Symbolic Importance of the Compass in Harold Bloom, ed. John Donne, Blooms Major Poets. Philadelphia Chelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Blooms Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http//www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=BMPJD30&SingleRecord=True (accessed June 17, 2009).Donne, John. A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. 1611. Rpt. in fusion LiteratureReading Re acting Writing. By Kirszner and Mandell. 6th ed. 2007.Freccero, John. Donnes Valediction Forbidding Mourning from English LiteraryHistory 30, no. 3 (March 1963) pp. 336-38. Quoted as The Circle of Love in Harold Bloom, ed. John Donne, Blooms Major Poets. PhiladelphiaChelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Blooms Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http//www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=BMPJD32&SingleRecord=True (accessed June 17, 2009).Tate, Allen. Essays of Four Decades (Chicago Swallow Press, 1968) pp. 247-49.Quoted as Movement in the Valediction in Harold Bloom, ed. John Donne, Blooms Major Poets. Philadelphia Chelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Blooms Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http//www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=BMPJD33&SingleRecord=True (accessed June 17, 2009).