Plog #2

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING. by John Donne
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;

'Twere profanation of our joys

To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;

Men reckon what it did, and meant ;

But trepidation of the spheres,

Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit

Absence, 'cause it doth remove

The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,

That ourselves know not what it is,

Inter-assurèd of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two ;

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;

Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun.

In "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne, the reassuring and loving diction and tone create the theme that love will last forever, even after one partner may die.

At first, the reader gets the feeling that one of the lovers in the poem is dying (the speaker), and that this is going to be a depressing poem about love being lost. This feeling is created by the pessimistic diction such as "sad", "harm", and "fears". However, soon you realize that the speaker is instead telling his lover that they will be together even after he dies, by saying "Though I must go, endure not a breach, but an expansion", where he is telling her than their love will grow rather than die when he is no longer with her. This gives the poem a much more uplifting mood, which in turns helps create a theme of eternal love.

The speaker also uses numeral diction like "one" and "two" specifically, which he uses to stress the fact that their souls are combined as one, which death cannot break. I also noticed the use of the analogy of one foot following the other, which I interpreted as his way of telling his lover that like that, she would one day follow him into the afterlife where they would once again be reunited. This would be a typical theme of John Donne, since he was well known for being a religious man, and this would show that he believes that he and his love will meet again in heaven.

Therefore, through John Donne's use of soothing and reassuring diction and tone, the theme of lovers being reunited after death is created in the poem "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning".

Plog 1

In the poem, "The Good-Morrow" by John Donne, the use of rhetorical questions and the diction creates the theme of unending love. The use of open-ended questions about the mysteries of love and the repitition of diction associated with love all help create this overall theme of unending love.

The open-ended questions which seem to require no answer give the reader a feeling that this poet's love will just go on forever. Besides the rhetorical questions, Donne only ends a sentence at the very end of each stanza, giving it a feeling as you read it that it is continuously flowing and there are no abrupt stops. This feature also contributes to the idea of unending or uninterrupted love, which is the major theme in this poem.

The repeated diction of such words as "love", "beauty", "pleasures", "hearts", and "souls" also gives the reader a feeling of happiness and love. By the constant repitition of words like these, the poet is stressing that these words represent the feelings that he has always. It shows that in this poet's life, these are the only feelings and emotions he encounters because he is surrounded by love and happiness. Therefore, since the diction is consistently positive and never turns bitter or pessimistic, the feeling that this happiness and love will continue forever is created.