Question

HELP HELP ME!!! MEDAL FOR ANYONE WHO CAN HELP
explain the metaphor of the compass in Donne's a valediction: "forbidding mourning"

Answer 1

I can't give exact answers but here's how we had interpreted the poem last year @ uni:
If you mean metaphor,there is a metaphysical conceit in the 7th stanza,and it is the compass.It symbolises the poet persona and his lover's mutual dependence because as the 8th stanza explains,while one foot roams,the stable one leans and grows erect (sexual connotation) as the wandering foot comes home.
The poem creates a perfect circle.It began with death and ends with death.The lovers' seperation is because of death but yet again death is also the beginning of afterlife.
The poet persona also compares his love with other loves around.Theirs is superior to others' because it is mysterious (stanza number 6,2nd line:we know not what it is) this mysteriousness gives the love holiness.We don't know what it is but still believe in it.That is why their love is superior to other people's love.

This is all i have to say.I know it wasnt to the point but i hope i helped :-)

Answer 2

thanks so much! that really helped!!

Answer 3

Ok I'm glad! ;)

Answer 4

@SoccerChick101 can you help me with one more please?

Answer 5

I can try my best..

Answer 6

Let me see what you got...

Answer 7

@marylou004 its this one too :)

Answer 8

Is that a screenshot?

Answer 9

ahah yes xD its easier than typing it

Answer 10

Copy and paste....can you do that? It will make it a lot easier for me to help you.

Answer 11

i actually cant copy, my homework site dosen't let me do that

Answer 12

okay....let me see what I can do......

Answer 13

can you not open, if you cant i can always type it

Answer 14

well for #14 the theme is victory over death so I would say either B or C, C sounds like it tho

Answer 15

ohh ok awesome thanks :)

Answer 16

I also think C is correct for #14

Answer 17

John Donne was not only the most renown English metaphysical poet of his time but also one of its most celebrated preachers. Donne’s poetry falls into two basic groups, the early erotic and ironic verse and the later religious poems of which the “Holy Sonnets” are a major part. His love poetry centers on the nature and psychology of love. As a minister of the Anglican Church, Donne’s religious poems powerfully express his yearning for union with God and his obsession with salvation and death (Benet 268). However, Donne did not avoid social problems and everyday concerns (Drabble 211). For example, one of the most cited lines in all of Donne’s works is about the brotherhood of man: “As not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. . .The death of any man diminishes me” (Donne 298).
2. The theme or main idea of “Holy Sonnet 10,” which also goes under the title “Death Be Not Proud,” the first line of the poem, emphasizes Donne’s firm belief in the immortality of the soul. The dramatic power of the poem lies largely in its technique of personifying death and addressing it as if it were and arrogant person who believe that he is invulnerable and all-powerful. Although all men must some day dies since they are all mortal, death itself still ought not be proud or think that it is what men most fear. Why? Donne himself says it best in his closing couplet: “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die .”
3. On December 16, 1959 my father died most unexpectedly at age fifty-six. It was during my first year of teaching at De La Salle Military Academy in Kansas City, Missouri. When I returned to Saint Louis for the wake, funeral, and burial at Calvary Cemetery, I was so overcome with grief that I could think of nothing else to do but take up a book that my mother had left on an end table. It happened to be a collection of John Donne’s poetry. I was so impressed with his “Holy Sonnet 10” that I copied it out long hand and memorized it. Just before my father’s casket was sealed, I kissed him one last time, and slipped my copy of this poem into the breast pocket of his blue suit. He would have liked that. “One short sleep past” and he wakes eternally.

Answer 18

@marylou004 and @SoccerChick101 thanks guys so much for the help :)

Answer 19

For the first ? tho I would say D

Answer 20

i thought C but you're probably right xD

Answer 21

idk that one is pretty tough

Answer 22

ok I'll take my best guess thanks guys :)

Answer 23

14 and 13 were both b