'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ by John Donne

In John Donne’s poem ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,’ we could easily sense the apparent appearance of the usage of metaphor. Moreover, due to course of English Poem which is instructed by Professor Amber Wang, I acquired a short poem titled ‘Metaphors’ written by Sylvia Plath. Like its first metaphor states ‘I’m a riddle in nine syllables,’ this poem is a riddle to be solved by identifying the literal terms of its metaphors. Yet, I myself would consider that it might be slightly difficult to understand the definition of metaphor by simply reading through poems.
After searching and reading some other poem and literal information, I would state that a metaphor is an analogy between two objects or ideas, conveyed by the use of a word instead of another. Plus, metaphor also denotes rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison, and resemblance, for instance, antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile; all are species of metaphor. Additionally, a metaphysical conceit is an extended metaphor or simile in which the poet draws an ingenious comparison between two very unlike objects.
‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ shows many features associated with seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry in general, and with Donne’s work in particular. The poem tenderly comforts the speaker’s lover at their temporary parting, asking that they separate calmly and quietly, without tears or protests. The speaker justifies the desirability of such calmness by developing the ways in which the two share a holy love, both sexual and spiritual in nature. Donne’s celebration of earthly love in this way has often been referred to as the ‘religion of love,’ a key feature of many other famous Donne poems, such as ‘The Canonization.’ In fact, he discovers ways of suggesting, through metaphysical conceit, that the two of them either possess a single soul and so can never really be divided, or have twin souls permanently connected to each other.
To sum up, I would suggest that ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ is centered on a spiritual love that transcends the physical and perfectly ends with one of Donne’s most famous metaphysical conceits, in which he argues for the lovers’ closeness by comparing their two souls to the feet of a drawing compass — a simile that would not typically occur to a poet writing about his love.