A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning: Love Between Two People

Part I of Essay
Although the subject matter of A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning could be applied to any couple pending separation, according to Izaak Walton, a seventeenth-century biographer, John Donne wrote his poem for his wife on the eve of his departure for France in 1611 (Damrosc ....

Part II of Essay
.... fear and emotion. He suggests that the separation of the lovers be like this separation caused by death. In the second stanza the speaker furthers his comparison for a peaceful separation. “So let us melt, and make no noise” (line 5) refers to the melting of gold by a goldsmith or alchemist. When gold is melted it does not sputter and is therefore quiet. The speaker and his love should not display their private, intimate love as “tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move” (line 6). The speaker thinks that it would be a “profanation” (line 7) to rev ....