A valediction

Lecture 6The 17th CenturyThe Period of Revolution and Restoration(II)John Donne ---A V alediction: Forbidding MourningI. Teaching Aims1. The literal meaning of the poem2.The theme3.The imagery4. The unity of the form and the contentII. Key Points:The imageryIII. Difficulties:The metaphorsIV. Teaching methods:1.Direct Method & Communicative Method2.Authorware PresentationV. Teaching Procedures:1.Check the assignment2.Authorware Presentation.3.Read the poem and explain3.1 The reasoning process in the nine quatrains(see Textbook)The theme: The wholeness, oneness and unity of love.The style---The regular form go well with the loyalty of love.The other aspect (cf. Song)of Donne---loyal and serious to love .4.The circle imagery on three levels4.1Theme---Traveling Modestarting ---destination---ending(the starting and the ending points coincide to make a circle) 4.2 Structure---The beginning and the ending echo with circle imagesThe beginning : a virtual circle image---dying(living)-death-rebirth(活-死-活)---endless, eternal4.3 Specific images: gold beaten to extreme thinness to form a circle without the circumference5.The attribute of a circle?Endless, constant, cyclical(无始无终, 连绵不绝, 周而复始)---wholeness, oneness and unity of love6. Discussion1.The circle imagery and the metaphorical meaning2. Why is the form regular?VI. HomeworkGet ready for the mid-term exam.References :1. 李正栓等, 英国文学学习指南, 北京: 清华大学, 20002. Encyclopedia Britannica V ol 33.卞之琳.卞之琳译文集[C].合肥：安徽教育出版社，2000.4.T. S. Eliot. The Metaphysical poets[A]. In William R. Keast (ed.) Seventeen Century English Poetry[C] . OUP , 1962.。

约翰·多恩《别离辞·莫悲伤》JOHN DONNE (1572-1631)A V ALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNINGAs virtuous men pass mildly away, 正如有德行的人安详别逝And whisper to their souls, to go, 轻声向灵魂辞安Whilst some of their sad friends do say, 悲伤的友人或伤逝"The breath goes now," and some say, "No:" 叹其气，绝其魂，亦有说不然So let us melt, and make no noise, 就让我们轻声说话，不要喧哗，No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move; 不要泪涌如潮，不要凄声哀鸣；'Twere profanation of our joys 那是对我们欢乐的亵渎，To tell the laity our love. 让俗人知道我们的爱。

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears; 地动带来伤害，叫人害怕，Men reckon what it did, and meant; 人们推其为断其意But trepidation of the spheres, 天体震动，虽然威力更大Though greater far, is innocent. 却对什么都没有损伤。

Dull sublunary lovers' love 乏味的凡情俗爱(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit （感官为上）最忌Absence, because it doth remove 别离，因为情人分开，Those things which elemented it. 爱的根基就会破碎支离。

On John Donne’s A Valediction: Forbidding MourningBy AnnieA Valediction: Forbidding Mourning is a magnificent poem written in 1611 by John Donne, one of famous Elizabethan poets. It’s said that John Donne wrote it to his wife as a farewell speech when he was about to travel to France and Germany. 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 treats their love as sacred, elevated above that of ordinary earthly lovers. He argues that because of the confidence the ir love gives them, they are strong enough to endure a temporary separation.The most outstanding linguistic feature of this poem is its innovative metaphysical conceit. As we know, in English literature conceit is generally associated with the 17th century metaphysical poets, an extension of contemporary usage. In the metaphysical conceit, metaphors have a much more purely conceptual, and thus tenuous, relationship between the things being compared. Helen Gardner observed that “a conceit is a comparison whose ingenuity is more striking than its justness” and that “a comparison becomes a conceit when we are made to conce de likeness while being strongly conscious of unlikeness.”Reading through the whole poem, it’s not difficult to find there is bizarre and unexpected imagery and symbolism used by Donne. At the beginning of this poem, the poet compared his departing with his lover to the death of the noble man. “As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls, to go”. As a virtuous man dies, he knows that he has reconciled himself to God and will therefore be accepted into heaven. Thus he dies in peace and calm, and the people surrounding him at his deathbed are sad, but not anguished. In the same way, when two virtuous lovers part, there is no pain, because they know that each will be true to the other, even when they are apart. The people surrounding the dying man are quiet partly so as not to disturb him. In the same way, Donne said that too much outward show of emotion on the part of one lover would just disturb the other. He presented his own opinion of departing for the first time in this poem: true love can endure the trial of departing. And the departing between lovers should be calm and peaceful, “So let us melt, and make no noise”, because true love is built on the communication of the two souls but not on physical connection. Although departing is bitter, the souls of the two have melt together. They should separate from each other by making no noise and not explain love by tear-flood and sigh-tempest just as the laity do.In the third stanza, the poet used two peculiar images to describe the difference between true love and love of the laity. To the common people, separation with the lovers is like the moving of the earth, which means the end of everything including love. The poet compared the departing between true loves to the movement of the celestial bodies. Although its influence is bigger than the moving of the earth, it is mysterious.In the sixth stanza, “A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat”.Here we may find the important symbolism of gold. The poet used the properties of gold as a symbol to tell the reader that gold is very malleable which means it can be beaten to airy thinness. It is also the most precious of all the metals, the least reactive of all metals, which ties in with Donne's placing of the lovers above the emotional “laity”. In terms of alchemy, gold is also the most noble metal, and the most difficult to destroy.Finally, “A V alediction: Forbidding Mourning” ends with one of Donne's most famous metaphysical conceit, in which he argued for the lovers' closeness by comparing their two souls to the feet of a drawing compass. The two lovers are likened to the two points of a compass. At first it seems ridiculous, but Donne showed how it made sense. As far as we know, a compass has two legs. When we are drawing a circle, one leg of the compass is standing on one location and the other turn around the standing one until it come back to the starting point. The poet used the very feature of the compass to describe the true love. The lovers are dependent on each other, and as long as they cooperate with each other perfectly, can they draw the circle that stands for perfect love. At the same time, the poet explained the main idea of this poem more clearly: departing is not the end of love buy the evaporation of the love’s emotions.。

DONNE’S POETRYJohn Donne“A Valediction: forbidding Mourning”page 1 of 2SummaryThe speaker explains that he is forced to spend time apart from his lover, but before he leaves, he tells her that their farewell should not be the occasion for mourning and sorrow. In the same way that virtuous men die mildly and without complaint, he says, so they should leave without “tear-floods”and “sigh-tempests,”for to publicly announce their feelings in such a way would profane their love. The speaker says that when the earth moves, it brings “harms and fears,”but when the spheres experience “trepidation,”though the impact is greater, it is also innocent. The love of “dull sublunary lovers”cannot survive separation, but it removes that which constitutes the love itself; but the love he shares with his beloved is so refined and “Inter-assured of the mind”that they need not worry about missing “eyes, lips, and hands.”Though he must go, their souls are still one, and, therefore, they are not enduring a breach, they are experiencing an “expansion”; in the same way that gold can be stretched by beating it “to aery thinness,”the soul they share will simply stretch to take in all the space between them. If their souls are separate, he says, they are like the feet of a compass: His lover’s soul is the fixed foot in the center, and his is the foot that moves around it. The firmness of the center foot makes the circle that the outer foot draws perfect: “Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end, where I begun.”FormThe nine stanzas of this Valediction are quite simple compared to many of Donne’s poems, which utilize strange metrical patterns overlaid jarringly on regular rhyme schemes. Here, each four-line stanza is quite unadorned, with an ABAB rhyme scheme and an iambic tetrameter meter.Commentary“A Valediction: forbidding Mourning”is one of Donne’s most famous and simplest poems and also probably his most direct statement of his ideal of spiritual love. For all his erotic carnality in poems, such as “The Flea,”Donne professed a devotion to a kind of spiritual love that transcended the merely physical. Here, anticipating a physical separation from his beloved, he invokes the nature of that spiritual love to ward off the “tear-floods”and “sigh-tempests”that might otherwise attend on their farewell. The poem is essentially a sequence of metaphors and comparisons, each describing a way of looking at their separation that will help them to avoid the mourning forbidden by the poem’s title.First, the speaker says that their farewell should be as mild as the uncomplaining deaths of virtuous men, for to weep would be “profanation of our joys.”Next, the speaker compares harmful “Moving of th’earth”to innocent “trepidation of the spheres,”equating the first with “dull sublunary lovers’love”and the second with their love, “Inter-assured of the mind.”Like the rumbling earth, the dull sublunary (sublunary meaning literally beneath the moon and also subject to the moon) lovers are all physical, unable to experience separation without losing the sensation that comprises and sustains their love. But the spiritual lovers “Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss,”because, like the trepidation (vibration) of the spheres (the concentric globes that surrounded the earth in ancient astronomy), their love is not wholly physical. Also, like the trepidation of the spheres, their movement will not have the harmful consequences of an earthquake.The speaker then declares that, since the lovers’two souls are one, his departure will simply expand the area of their unified soul, rather than cause a rift between them. If, however, their souls are “two”instead of “one”, they are as the feet of a drafter’s compass, connected, with the center foot fixing the orbit of the outer foot and helping it to describe a perfect circle. The compass (the instrument used for drawing circles) is one of Donne’s most famous metaphors, and it is the perfect image to encapsulate the values of Donne’s spiritual love, which is balanced, symmetrical, intellectual, serious, and beautiful in its polished simplicity.Like many of Donne’s love poems (including “The Sun Rising”and “The Canonization”), “A Valediction: forbidding Mourning”creates a dichotomy between the common love of the everyday world and the uncommon love of the speaker. Here, the speaker claims that to tell “the laity,”or the common people, of his love would be to profane its sacred nature, and he is clearly contemptuous of the dull sublunary love of other lovers. The effect of this dichotomy is to create a kind of emotional aristocracy that is similar in form to the political aristocracy with which Donne has had painfully bad luck throughout his life and which he commented upon in poems, such as “The Canonization”: This emotional aristocracy is similar in form to the political one but utterly opposed to it in spirit. Few in number are the emotional aristocrats who have access to the spiritual love of the spheres and the compass; throughout all of Donne’s writing, the membership of this elite never includes more than the speaker and his lover—or at the most, the speaker, his lover, and the reader of the poem, who is called upon to sympathize with Donne’s romantic plight.。

论约翰·邓恩的诗歌写作特点约翰.邓恩（John Donne 1572-1631）被公认为是伊丽莎白一世和詹姆斯一世统治时期英国最著名的诗人。

他是玄学派诗歌的创始人和主要代表人物，是现代派诗歌的先驱。

他打破了传统诗歌所采用的彼待拉克式的甜美、娇柔的诗风，对诗歌进行了大胆的变革，“通过逻辑、类比、科学参照的暗示，运用独创性的比喻复杂事物意象的手法，展现了沉博绝丽的诗歌形式和起伏跌宕的节奏”。

他的诗歌凝聚着智慧、幽默、激情、哲理；语言生动、格律多变、意象夸张，具有浓厚的思辨特征。

托马斯.德.昆西（Thomas De Quincey）认为邓恩“以极富热情的庄严感融合了别人不曾做到过的------辩证之精妙和谈吐的最高升华。

”玄学奇喻（metaphysical conceit）是邓恩的诗歌最显著和最出名的特征。

所谓玄学奇喻，也就是“将很明显的两个毫不相关的主题以一种奇妙的、匪夷所思的方式联系在一起，进行比喻”，即“a combination of dissimilar images,or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike.”（塞缪尔.约翰逊Samuel Johnson），如他将夫妻比喻为圆规的两个腿；将死亡和拯救比喻为地图上的东方和西方，甚至将跳蚤比喻为恋人的婚床、婚姻的殿堂等。

邓恩的诗歌类比独特，诡异新颖。

不同的思想、情感、意象的交织，赋予了他的诗歌一种清新、独特、奇异的美。

本文拟以邓恩在诗歌中的戏剧性独白的元素及口语体为视角，探讨邓恩的玄学奇喻所带来的戏剧性对比及语言口语化的效果。

一、新颖的比喻、奇特的意象约翰·邓恩的诗歌以想象大胆、独特，比喻新颖、别致而著称。

奇思妙喻（metaphysical conceit）是其诗歌最显著的特征。

诗人从自然界和人类社会各个领域中可知可感的具体事物中获取意象，并借助于它们来表达抽象的思想和情感。

关于悲伤的英⽂诗歌阅读 诗歌朗读、学习诗歌、并进⾏诗歌创作和翻译过程中都是⼀种美的感受,能够让学⽣体会其特有的韵律美,尽情发挥想象,驰骋在诗歌的海洋中。

店铺整理了关于悲伤的英⽂诗歌，欢迎阅读! 关于悲伤的英⽂诗歌篇1 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 别离辞：莫悲伤 As virtuous men pass mildly away 正如贤⼈安然辞世 And whisper to their souls to go 轻声呼唤灵魂离去 Whilst some of their sad friends do say 悲伤的有⼈或伤逝 "Now his breath goes," and some say "no" 叹其⽓绝魂离，亦⼜说不然 So let me melt, and make no noise 就让我们悄然别离，不要喧哗 No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move 不要泪涌如潮，不要凄声叹息 They were profanation of our joys 那是对我们欢乐的亵渎 To tell the laity of our love 向俗⼈宣⽰我们的爱 Moving of the earth brings harms and fears 地动带来伤害与恐惧 Men reckon what it did, and meant ⼈们推其为断其义 But trepidation of the spheres ⽽天体运转震动，威⼒虽⼤ Though greater far, is innocent 却对什么都没损伤 Dull sublunary lovers' love 乏味的烦情俗爱 -whose soul is sense- cannot admit 建⽴在感官之上，⽆法承受 Of absense, 'cause it doth remove 别离，因为别离 The things which elemented it 使爱的根基破碎⽀离 But we by a love so much refined 但我和你拥有如此纯洁的爱 Though ourselves know not what it is 连我们都⽆法理解 Inter-assured of the mind ⼼⼼相印、相许 Careless，eyes,lips and hands to miss 岂在乎眼、唇和⼿的交融 Our two souls therefore, which are one 我们俩的灵魂合⽽为⼀ Tought I must go, endure not yet 我纵须远离 A breach, but an expansion ⾮违爱诺，实是延展 Like gold aery thinness beat 宛若黄⾦锤炼成轻飘韧箔 If there be two, they are two so 若我们的灵魂⼀分为⼆ As stiff twin compasses are two 应如坚定的圆规般 Thy suol, the fied foot, makes no show 你的⼼灵是定脚，坚守不移 To move, but doth, if the other do 但另⼀只脚起步，你便随之旋转 And though it in the centre sit 尽管⼀直端坐中央 Yet, when the other far doth roam 但当另⼀只脚四周漫游 It leans, and hearkens after it 它亦会侧⾝，细听周详 And grows erect, when that comes home 待它归来，便挺直如旧 Such wilt thou be to me, who must 这便是你之于我，我⼀直 Like the other foot, obliquely run 如同那另⼀只脚，侧⾝转圈 Thy firmness makes my circle just 你的坚贞使我的轨迹浑圆 And makes me end where it begun 也让我的漫游在起跑线终⽌ 关于悲伤的英⽂诗歌篇2 On Joy and Sorrow By Kahill Gilbran 欢乐与忧伤---纪伯伦 Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.” And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from Which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. ⼀位妇⼈说：请给我们谈谈欢乐和忧伤。

Amy Tan人物简介:谭恩美（Amy Tan），著名美籍华裔女作家，1952年出生于美国加州奥克兰，曾就读医学院，后取得语言学硕士学位。

作品有《喜福会》、《灶神之妻》(又译《灶君娘娘》)、《接骨师之女》、《沉没之鱼》等。

谭恩美三十三岁开始写小说，后出版第一部长篇小说《喜福会》，自此奠定了她在文学界的声誉。

《喜福会》生动地描写了母女之间的微妙的感情，这本小说不仅获得该年度国家书卷奖，还被改编成了电影，创下了极高的票房佳绩。

谭恩美在《喜福会》之后，还出版了《灶神之妻》(The Kitchen God's Wife)及《百种神秘感觉》(The Hundred Secret Senses)，两部都是畅销书。

曾就读医学院，后取得语言学硕士学位。

她因处女作《喜福会》而一举成名，成为当代美国的畅销作家。

著有长篇小说《灶神之妻》、《灵感女孩》和为儿童创作的《月亮夫人》、《中国暹罗猫》等，作品被译成20多种文字在世界上广为流传。

艾米·谭是当代讲故事的高手。

她是一个具有罕见才华的优秀作家，能触及人们的心灵。

异样人生:谭恩美在《命运的反面》里自述曾在十六岁时，为了新交的男友，和母亲发生了激烈争吵。

母亲把她到墙边，举着切肉刀，刀锋压在她喉咙上有20分钟。

最后，她垮了下来，哭泣着求母亲：“我想活下去，我想活下去。

”母亲才把切肉刀从她脖子上拿开。

在叛逆的青春期，她出过两次车祸；被人用枪指着抢劫，几乎被强奸；受到死亡威胁，几乎被泥石流冲走。

20多岁那年，她最好的朋友在生日那天被入室抢劫者捆绑勒死，她被叫去辨认尸体，从此中途辍学，放弃博士学位。

晚年的母亲还告诉她一个秘密：她在中国大陆有3个同母异父的姐姐。

这个秘密深深震撼了谭恩美，成了她创作的主题。

作品描述:1987年，谭恩美根据外婆和母亲的经历，写成了小说《喜福会》，并于1989年出版该书。

该书一出版就大获成功，连续40周登上《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜，销量达到500万册，并获得了“全美图书奖”等一系列文学大奖，还被好莱坞拍成了电影，创下了极高的票房佳绩。

Metaphor used in A Valediction: Forbidding MourningAs one of the seventeenth century poets, John Donne, the precursor of the metaphysical poetry, is well known for his unexpected metaphor, usually called conceit. Sometimes the employing of distinctive metaphor makes his poems obscure and bizarre. However, it is witty and ingenious metaphor that turns abstract concept into concrete one and attracts readers to go deep into the theme. In the poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, John Donne reveals his insights on the condition of human love and its relationship to the soul by employing unexpected metaphors. He metaphorically eulogizes spiritual love and soul unit of lovers in spite of physical distance.At the beginning of the poem, Donne shows the parallel between a positive way to meet death and a positive way to separate from lovers. When the virtuous man died, he whispered his soul to go. The death of the man and the departure of the lovers are not the ending but the beginning of a new cycle. The common lover usually sorrowful when they depart from each other, but the poet and his lover will "make no noise, no tear-floods, nor sigh-tempes t move”. Here Donne compares the death of the virtuous man with the departure of the lovers. They share some similarities in two points: on the first level, it refers to the separation of the dying man from the world or his intimate people in the world and the separation of the lovers; on the second level, it refers to the separation of body from soul. The soul of the dying man is apart from his body to get the union with another world, heaven or God. As for the lovers, they can achieve the spiritual union after their souls are separated from bodies. Although they separate physically, their souls still get together. In the third and fourth lines of the first stanza, the sad friends are incapable of detecting the exact moment of death. This may be resulted fr om their anxiety and affection, but “it is obviously the first and literal meaning” (Allen, 1953:70). In fact, it implies that the sad friends do not understand the spiritual world of the virtuous man, or laity cannot understand the spiritual love between the poetry and his lover. “……man at the moment of death, lovers at the moment of spiritual union……beyond the understanding of the “laity”who have not had these ultimate experiences” (Allen, 1953:70). So the poet does not want the laity to know their spiritual love because this will profane the joy of love.In the three stanzas there is a complex comparative relationship. The element of the earth is introduced. It is acknowledged that earthquakes are omens of misfortune because of their potential to bring inevitable devastation to the land. The departure of secular lovers is likened to “moving of th’earth”---the earthquake. The secular lovers feel sorrowful when they are separated as if men are fearful about the damages of earthquakes. Here it refers to the physical love of secular lovers. However, when it comes to the poet and his lover, spiritual love between them is viewed in a different light by employing the “trepidation of the spheres”, which metaphorically refers to the departure of the poet and his lover. The “trepidation of the spheres” cannot bring harms to the land as the spheres are extremely far away from the earth. It implies that separation between the poet and his lover cannot bring sorrow to them in that there is a great gap between spiritu al love and physical love of secular lovers. “Trepidation, though a much more violent motion than an earthquake, is neither destructive norsinister” (M. Logan 1248). The “trepidation of the spheres” is more violent than “moving of th’earth” implies that spiritual love is greater than physical love.In the last three stanzas the poet turns his concentration from spiritual love to physical love. Donne’s most famous metaphysical conceit is introduced.The two separate lovers are likened to the legs of “geometer’s compass” (Yang 240). The image is said to be “the ingenious and playful though nonsensical conceit” (Chen 224). “The metaphor is apt if the readers take into account the fact that the compass is a emblem of firmness and perfection of love”(Chang 78). Without the firmness of the fixed point, he would be unable to complete the journey and make the circle just. We can see that the poet takes compass as the symbol of the perfection of his love. He proves the point by drawing the circle with the compass. The legs of the compass move together as the two souls in love do, and part and unite as one of these “roams” to draw but always “come home” on finishing its job. The last stanza also emphasizes the position of women. Men “obliquely run”. Donne compares his wife as standing and leaning firm in center and himself as the roaming leg eager to get back to the end of the circle. The poem ends with the image of a circle, implying the union of two souls in a love relationship. This perfection is attained by parting at the beginning of the circle and reuniting at the point where the curves reconnect. The circle in the “Valediction” represents the journey during which two lovers endure the trial of separation, as they support each other spiritually, and eventually merge in a physically and spiritually perfect union.To sum up, in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, John Donne expresses his deep understanding on love in his metaphysical wring style. Instead of physical love, he emphasizes spiritual love. Although two l overs’ bodies are separated due to long distance, they can also achieve spiritual union. Donne employs surprising metaphor effectively to convey his ideas, not only thought-evoking, but also striking.Works CitedGeorge, M. Logan. The Norton Anthology of English Literature from 1600 to 1700.York: W.W. Norton, 2006.Tate, Allen. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Jr, Detroit: Gale Research, 1989. 常耀信(Chang Yaoxin). 英国文学简史. 天津：南开大学出版社，2008.陈嘉(Chen Jia). 英国文学史. 北京：商务印书馆，1999.杨周翰(Yang Zhouhan). 英国文学名篇选注. 北京：商务印书馆，1983.浅谈《别离辞：节哀》中的隐喻修辞作为一个诗人,约翰·多恩于十七世纪,玄学派诗歌的先导,他以令人意想不到的隐喻修辞的运用而著称,这种隐喻通常被称为幻想。