Study Questions on "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
The poem is about four hundred years old. You need to be super sensitive to the possibility that the words may not have exactly the same denotations or connotations as they do now. Start with the title. What does "valediction" mean? What "mourning" mean?
Donne's poems very often posit a situation; remember that this is true in "Break of Day," in which a woman speaks to her lover as he is about to leave because he has "business" to do. For this poem, the title alone tells us some important things about the situation. If you were making a film of this situation, what locale would emphasize the situation?
The "As" signals the beginning of a simile. Where does the simile end? The core of the simile is a comparison of two verbs; what are they?
The opening simile compares "virtuous men" to "us." Who is the "us," and what quality in "us" corresponds to the "virtue" of "virtuous men"? (The answer to the previous question has to be deduced from what you know about the situation and the simile.)
Lines 7 & 8 contain what Perrine (i.e., our text) terms a "Form 4" metaphor. (See p. 71.) What is the literal term of the metaphor? What is the figurative term of the metaphor?
"Moving of th' earth" means "earthquakes"; "trepidation of the spheres" means "skyquakes." (Ptolemaic astronomy, which was dominant in Donne's time, could not adequately account for the motions of the heavenly bodies in their supposedly perfect spheres and so had to posit a periodic "trepidation of the spheres.") The entire third quatrain (lines 9 - 12) is a "Form 3" metaphor (see p. 71); what is the literal term of the metaphor? (Hint: Both terms, literal and figurative, are named in the following quatrain.)
The primary meaning of the word "admit" (line 14) is one that is not very common today, except as it appears in the phrase "Admissions Office." What is that meaning?
Because of the use of the word "sense" (line 14), the word "absence" (line 15) is a pun. (Punning is a very important literary device which Perrine does not directly mention, even in the appropriate chapter, which is "Chapter 3: Denotation and Connotation." You will have to Google the definition of "pun" and remember that not all puns are jokes.) Explain the pun.
In reference to line 26: When someone speaks of a "pair of scissors," how many instruments is that person referring to? And, when someone speaks of a "pair of pants," how many garments is that person referring to? The instrument that the speaker is referring to is now known as a "navigation divider." Google "navigation divider" and report the results. Now, here are the main questions: In the poem, to what are the "stiff twin compasses" compared? Why is the comparison appropriate?
Is there a sex joke in line 32?
What is the primary meaning of the word "just" (line 35)? (Hint: This page is left justified.)
What does the quatrain beginning at line 25 say about the relationship between the two people?
What does the quatrain beginning at line 29 say about the relationship between the two people?
What does the quatrain beginning at line 33 say about the relationship between the two people?