Analysis Of Adrienne Rich's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

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John Donne was a metaphysical poet of the Elizabethan era. In 1611, Donne wrote a poem titled, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”, in which he expresses the extraordinary love him and his wife share, and the separation they must face. Before writing the poem, Donne had left his wife to accompany Sir Robert Drury to France on a diplomatic mission. This was not the first time he had parted from his wife. When Donne married his wife, his father in law had him imprisoned for a year. Through all this parting he has experience with leaving someone he loves profoundly. Adrienne Rich was an American poet who began her poetry after the Second World War. Rich wrote a poem in 1971 with the same title as Donne’s poem with a slight grammar change, “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”. This similarity was done on purpose. Rich wanted to not only bring attention to herself by using a very popular persons title, but to also emphasize that men are hindrances on her writing ability. During this time Rich was known for her feminist writing. This poem explores the role of female poets in a male dominated society. It highlights how women have been forced to conform to the standards and practices of dominating male poets. Donne sets the scene of a virtuous man dying to begin his poem. This scene was set so Donne could use this simile to compare the death of the virtuous man to the separation of him and his wife. In the first stanza he says, “And whisper to their souls to go”, the man dying

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