A VALEDICTION: OF
WEEPING
BY JOHN DONNE
Presented by: Pamela Daz
Fernndez
Katherine
Yesenia Gonzlez
JOHN DONNE
John Donne (22 January 1572 31 March 1631) was an
English poet and a cleric in the Church of England. He is
considered the pre-eminent representative of the
metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong,
sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious
poems,
Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and
sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language
and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to
that of his contemporaries. These features, along with his
frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense
syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction
against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan
poetry and an adaptation into English of European
baroque and mannerist techniques.
JOHN DONNE
His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense
knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge
with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne's
poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent
much time considering and about which he often
theorized. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and
love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of
metaphysical conceits.
The metaphysical poets is a term coined by the poet and
critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of English
lyric poets of the 17th century, whose work was
characterized by the inventive use of conceits, and by
speculation about topics such as love or religion. In
literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a
complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem.
STRUCTURE AND VERSIFICATION
A syllogism:
A Valediction: of Weeping, is structured into three
fairly long stanzas. The tri-partite divisions
suggests the form of the syllogism, an old logical
form used from Greek time onwards, which
consisted of a major premise, a minor one and a
conclusion. Donne would have been trained in this
syllogistic method, both as a scholar and as a
lawyer. It gives the poems the impression of a
dialectic form, and a firm logical progression of a
persuasive argument, even if, in actuality, the poem
really is a shout of existential pain or passion.
STRUCTURE AND VERSIFICATION:
A new verse form:
Each stanza of A Valediction: of Weeping ,consists of
nine lines, but the line lengths are quite different.
Donne seems to invent a new verse form for almost
every one of his Songs and Sonnets. Here we are
struck by the short dimeters of the first, fifth and
sixth line of each stanza. The fifth and sixth also
rhyme together, so drawing attention to themselves,
though only in the first stanza is the couplet neatly
tucked into itself. The final three lines rhyme together
and so draw the weight of the stanza to its ending,
which is what a logical argument wants to do as well.
UNKNOWN WORDS
Pour: To cause (a liquid or granular solid) to
stream or flow, as from a container.
Emblem: an object or its representation,
symbolizing a quality, state, class of persons, etc.
Shore: The land along the edge of a sea, lake,
broad river, etc.
Globe: A spherical representation of the earth or
of the constellations with a map on the surface.
Griefe: Intense sorrow, especially caused by
someones death.
A VALEDICTION: OF WEEPING
Theme:
The theme of the poem is the departure of the
poet for a voyage. The poem expresses intense
misery on part of the lovers caused by the
parting.
Analysis:
The poem denotes the grief of separation. The
poet is about to go on a voyage and he is trying to
console his beloved. He consoles her by saying
that she should not weep, as her sighs will result
in the death of other. He asks her to be calm so
that he can have a safe voyage and return safely.
A VALEDICTION OF: WEEPING
The
first stanza begins with the lovers proclamation of sorrow
towards his beloved:
Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.
The
poet is not asking for any physical connection with his
beloved, instead he seeks to reflect and be reflected by his beloved
implying the concept of being inseparable.
A VALEDICTION OF: WEEPING
The next stanza introduces a new metaphor:
On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Africa, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixd with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.
The poet brings in the concept that like all the continents are put together
by a workman to create a perfect globe, the lovers together form a perfect
conjugal globe.
Just like a sphere is empty without the maps, and becomes all only after
the maps are engraved upon it; in a similar manner, the tears also become
all only when the lovers face is reflected in it.
A VALEDICTION OF: WEEPING
Just after this the poet compares the beloved to the moon, the source of
energy which controls the tidal waves:
O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath,
Whoeer sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the others death.
The last two lines : breathing which is considered a source of life becomes a
source of death, when it comes in the form of sighs from the lover. Thus,
like the metaphor of tears drowning his reflection, her sighs appear to be
taking away his life-breath.
A VALEDICTION OF: WEEPING
Like most of Donnes metaphysical poems, this
too plays around with different variations of
conceits; complicated metaphors are drawn in to
bring in symbolic implications of the emotional
harm brought upon by the tears. The tone of the
poem is colloquial and appears to be
conversational, as if a silent listener is present
before the poet.
Though the poet does not use any sexual imagery
in the poem but the importance of being united in
soul is established throughout the poem.
OUR POEM
SHADES AND BREATH
Please let be inside
once again Im losing my side
But Im definitely dont letting you aside
You three say you aint heard of me
You say you aint seen me
In a quite while
I'm gonna let you go and walk away like every day I said I would
And tomorrow, I'm gonna listen
To that voice of reason inside my head telling me that we're no
good
That Im getting sigh one anothers breath.
You know I am away
But Im on my way
Dont you dare loose hope
Im so far but remember Im close
And thats the only truth you should close.
Its hard to find the perfect time to say something
You know, is gonna change everything
Living with the shame,
It aint nothing like the pain that I saw on her face
Now me and my pile of things at the place
You know I am away
That she threw out the window,
Drowning next to me
With the wind hurting me
Being the cruelest thing life with me
The shades just come make me go down on me
Dont you dare loose hope
Im so far but remember Im close
And thats the only truth you should close.
Its hard to find the perfect time to say
something
You know, is gonna change everything
Living with the shame,
It aint nothing like the pain that I saw on her
face
Now me and my pile of things at the place
That she threw out the window,
But Im on my way
Drowning next to me
With the wind hurting me
Being the cruelest thing life with me
The shades just come make me go down on me.
