“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” (p. 484)
John Donne
This is considered to be one of Donne’s best love poems. Its intellectual tone, its paradoxes, and its
conceit at the end (the comparison to the compass) make it a showcase for the elements that define
metaphysical poetry.
1. Read the title. What does it tell us already?
2. How does the speaker suggest that he and his beloved should part? Use a word or phrase from
the text to support. (Stanzas 1 & 2)
3. “Though I must go, endure not a breach, but an expansion…..”
conceit in “Meditation 17”:
How is this quote like the
4. “Our two souls therefore, which are one” (line 21)
Explain why this is a paradox.
5. Read over lines 25-28. Why would Donne use this conceit to compare the lovers to the two
legs of a compass?
6. In the last stanza, identify (exact quote) the paradox and explain what it means.
7. What is the theme of the poem?
8. What is the tone of the poem?