6 - Valediction of Weeping Flashcards
intro
Poet persona beseeches his lover to let him cry before her, for then her reflection will be in his tears and this makes them valuable. He struggles with the fact that their tears will not be able to reflect one another when ‘on a diverse shore’, questioning whether this means they will still exist as lovers once separated. His tears with her image are then likened to globes, and her ‘stamp’ upon them makes ‘nothing all’, like going from a plain workman’s ball to an intricate globe model. He then imagines their tears mixing together and overflowing the world, a striking man-microcosm. In the last stanza, he imagines his lover can control the elements, and bids her not to ‘weep’ for this will, he supposes, cause this imagined flood and drown him, evoking the danger of the sea voyage Donne was about to embark upon. The poem ends on a morbid note as he warns that they must not ‘sigh’ and grieve for one another, as this could be prophetic of a real disaster befitting the grieved party; the voice wants their love to be unifying not destructive.
Tear poem. Explores the grief of two lovers at the prospect of their separation. Uses the conceit of water/tears to figure the speaker’s love for his partner – each conceit emphasises her beauty/power. However, the poem remains complex, as whilst the focus appears to be on the female, absent listener, the abundance of personal pronouns suggests the speaker’s underlying concern with his own grief.
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;
- Let me = invocation, direct address, quasi RE sign, importance of relationship to him. Not arrogant, he is pleading (emphasised by soft L sound), she is in control
- Pour forth = imitates overflowing grief, drama
- My tears = vulnerability subverts gender roles. Tears reflect face of beloved, tear poem
- Thy face coins them (…) they are something worth = tears become previous. Semantic field of money. Conceit 1 = tears as money. Just as a coin is worth something due to the face they bear, his tears are worth something because they reflect the face of his lover. Organic flow of conceits mimics tears. (recoinage vs. Petrarchan valuing body)
- Pregnant of thee = shape of tear vs. full of meaning. Pregnant woman holds reflection of a man
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.
- Fruits of much grief = fruit of your womb, continues imagery of pregnancy
- More = pun on Ann’s name. More autobiographical, they are reflections of Ann vs. more = carry greater significance, foreshadowing the end?
- Thou and I are nothing (…) shore = paradox that tears cannot reflect eachother when apart and so lose validity. Cause of existential angst. Agonising over separation
On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, 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,
- Round ball = cosmological, symbol of perfection
- A workman (…) can lay an Europe(…) = contrasts with 3d and cosmological ball. Their love has meaning in both carto and cosmographical views of space. (Magello expedition).
- Nothing, all = caesura separates the two, their love = powerful
- Each tear (…) a globe, yea world = meta manipulation of space, has collapsed entire world into a single tear. Microcosm of lovers linked to macrocosm of the world. (R voyages, updated view of space). Globe = symbol of perfection. Love allows them their own world.
Till thy tears mix’d with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.
- Thy tears mixed with mine = 2 become 1. Poem of separation that deals with intense unity simultaneously. Turning point, tonal shift, first instance of connection, JD = mastering emotion and beginning to focus more on lover than own grief
- This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so = invokes biblical illusion Noah’s Ark, Genesis 7:11 – the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
- Dissolved = death of material states
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.
- O more than moon = compares lover to moon, controls sea – persuasive compliment. Moon = symbol of the female, lunacy, change, liminal border between unity and separation. She is beyond womanhood and physical/material ideas. She can not only draw up the tides, but also drown the earth. Power from a distance – separation does not matter.
- Drown me in thy sphere = Petrarchan obsession with body, sphere of perfection
- Weep me not dead – climatic, extent of grief could kill him
- Forbear to teach the sea = highly dramatic. Asking her to control sea so that he does not drown in his own tears. Sea and own tears merge into one source of water
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another’s breath,
Whoe’er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other’s
death.
- Let not the wind = lovers’ grief figured as high winds. Giving lover elemental power to influence sea/wind
- Thou and I sigh one another’s breath = 2 become 1
- Whoe’er sighs most (…) hastes the other’s death = parting requires mutual forbearance. Grieving could be an omen of disaster, invitation to fate. R belief in limited no of breaths
- Death = harsh sounding word. Dental ds proliferated throughout final stanza. Sense of argument
language
- Abundance of me/thy pronouns, no collective pronouns = separation at fore front of poem. Highlight move in and out of unity
- Water imagery = fluidity in poem
- Elongated vowels – weight of speaker’s emotion, become more frequent towards the end
Round imagery: coin, globe fruit. Evokes notion of eternity, their bond is transcendent
language conceits
o Tears as coins and fruit
♣ Parallel of coins being stamped with someone’s face to give them to validity and tears being stamped with beloved’s face
♣ Leads to paradox in line 8: when they are apart, tears no longer reflect eachother and so lose their validity.
o Tears as worlds/globes
♣ Beloved’s reflected image in his tears becomes his world
♣ Her tears fall on his, heaven drowns in his world – Noah’s ark
o Tears as tides/seas
♣ JD’s lover = moon, which drawn upon tidal force of the sea
♣ She is more than the moon, as she drowns land
♣ Tears become an emblem of the storm he could experience
♣ Concludes with lover’s grief figured in high winds: grief could become an omen of real disaster – invitation to fate
o Organic flow of conceits mimics tears.
o John Carey, the changing identity of the tears – coins, fruits, globes, mirrors – projects instability.
structure general
- Fragmented by immanent separation, elongated vowels and fragmented punctuation
- Symmetry of stanzas suggest unity and harmony in chaos
- Lack of regular line length, link to imagery of water
structure rhyme
- Rhyme lacks consistency, full/half rhyme – grappling with idea of being separated
o Lines 1-4 depend on stanza, half rhyme (separation)
o 5-6 = BB (togetherness 2 lines visually centralised, rhyme reflects couple)
o 7-9 = CCC (other considerations, he ultimately has to leave)
structure, turning point
- Turning point - Thy tears mixed with mine = 2 become 1. Turning point, first instance of connection, JD = mastering emotion. Despite being a poem of separation, it begins to simultaneous deal with the intense unity of the lovers
o S1 and 2, one sentence, focused on himself till line 16
o S3 = 2 sentences, greater unity, focus on her (more elongated vowels), addresses her directly. Sentences suggest rational control, complete units of thought. Becoming able to manage his existential pain.
♣ H, still more first person than second person pronouns, evidences the inherent masculine arrogance of the speaker, focus is ultimately on himself.
structure, syllogism
- Structured as a syllogism – rhetorical exercise.
o Creates sense of argument: how destructive weeping is and why it should be relinquished. This is established throughout and emphasised in the last stanza – especially with the harsh sound final word.
evaluative sentences - syllogism
Although the poem is structured as a syllogism – suggesting its function as a rhetorical exercise – it remains intensely emotional and personal. This expectation is indeed established by the title, which could be said to make the evocative content even more striking. It establishes the central argument, reflecting both the logical progression common to metaphysical poems, but also the sense of reasoning John Donne would have acquired from his time as a barrister.
evaluative sentences - pronouns
Despite the poem emphasising the unity between the speaker and his lover, it is interesting to observe how the poem lacks collective pronouns. This certainly suggests the fragmenting effect of separation on the lovers’ relationship.
