Metaphysical Conceit

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

By: John Donne

Aside from the poet has created a well-crafted piece, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", John Donne has also produced a timeless poem because of its exquisite concealed messages. As you’ve  heard the title, it seems to suggest that the poem is all about dull, brooding and sorrow but you would not believe that this is all about love unless you have read and analyze each lines and every single word in it. Donne used orthodox illustration in which ordinary ideas are used to create resemblance, offering insight into something profound importance which was said to be a Metaphysical conceit. “A Valediction” of Donne was made of a startling usage of imagery; an extremely ingenious parallel between apparently incongruous objects. Metaphysical conceit sets up an analogy between one entity’s spiritual qualities and an object in the physical world and sometimes controls the whole structure of the poem. Metaphysical conceit is really effective when the reader is about to identify directly the poet's meaning, regardless of the sudden nature of the comparison in a poem.

The poem, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" was inevitably offering a metaphysical conceit, let’s take a look ,on its opening word, we could notice that Donne used “As” and if you’re not aware of its meaning you might get confused by thinking that it is “While” where in fact it really means “Like”. However, the second stanza serves as a context clue that enables the reader to understand both lines. So, at the very beginning it immediately used an extended simile comparing the death of virtuous men to the separation of the two lovers. The stanza compares the dying of virtuous men to the lover’s upcoming separation from his beloved. This is an unusual analogy but Donne's purpose is to explain that the virtuous accept both death and separation calmly and without fear "As virtuous men pass mildly' away”, “And whisper to their souls to go.”, while others may fear death, the truly pious will journey to the hereafter with quiet resignation and even a bit of optimism. To emphasize the peacefulness of virtuous men's deaths, Donne adds that death comes so unnoticeably that friends cannot tell if the last breath has actually vanished "Whilst some of their sad friends do say”, “The breath goes now, and some say, No." In both images, the person who’s experiencing the actions has the understanding that outsiders do not. The mournful friends do not know that the dying man is undaunted and tranquil about death, nor do they know if he has yet died. The public will not know the rock bottom of their love, as they face separation. For them, being away with each other is like being a dead man. This stanza's unruffled manner compares with a great deal of Donne's poetry, which often unwrap with great drama and passion.

Donne used an imagery of a beaten gold, as you can see on the sixth stanza, "Our two souls therefore, which are one,” “Though I must go, endure not yet” “A breach, but an expansion,” ”Like gold to airy thinness beat.” Donne fall out that if their souls are one, then his departure does not indicate a "breach" or division, but rather an expansion or a stretching. As the maxim goes by; “Absence makes the heart grows fonder” which signifies that being away doesn’t have to rift the love they had but rather increase their longing and love with each other. Anon, he compares their love to a gold which was durable, valuable and ductile. Thus, gold is obviously analogous to the kind of love the poet describes. If you would bear in mind, Donne gone further to its deepest meaning by taking the ability of the gold as malleable. He compares it to change shape and to expand with the lover's capability to twist the stipulation yet keep each other sanctified love as depicted in the poem” To tell the laity our love.”; by virtue of their unfathomable union. Gold's qualities define the term love for both have commonalities: it can be melted and merged as suggested in line twenty-one; in the annealed state it can be hammered cold into a translucent wafer, so it can be also elongated. This resemblance is well measured because it works from every angle of love. Mutually, gold and love can be melted and merged; both can be "hammered" and yet remain tough and essentially unchanged. The allusion to gold, as valuable metal, also correspond his view of their bond as something precious and rare.

Donne develops the compass imagery that has become almost synonymous with the term "metaphysical conceit" in the existing literary dissertation. The image is first presented in the seventh stanza: “If they be two, they are two so” “As stiff twin compasses are two;” Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show” ”To move, but doth, if th' other do." At this point, Donne is referring to a mathematical compass. The compass in itself calls to mind stiffness for the center leg is unmovable. This explains that his loved is the stationary leg in the center, whilst the outer leg must be him. This idea brought out the connection of the eight stanza “And though it in the center sit,” “Yet when the other far doth roam,” “It leans and hearkens after it,” “And grows erect, as that comes home." With the poet portrayal of the lovers as two legs of a compass, the poet seems to state that two legs were at the height of structural separation but not of a broken separation. So it means that they are still connected with each other. And, this is the hallmarks of their unconditional love. Both of them were in working in tandem, the “fixed foot” is her and the other foot roaming around far is him. The sturdiness of her supports to the movement of him that makes his circle just. The circle made by a mathematical compass doesn’t define as perfect but rather infinity. Donne acknowledges when he remarks, "Yet when the other far doth roam,” “It leans and hearkens after it." When the travels come to an end, and the lovers are reunited, they both stand tall and remain steadfastly side by side, as the two legs of a closed compass which has been mentioned “And grows erect, as that comes home."