A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

Though primarily known for his interest in the divine and for the political sphere that shaped his environment, Donne was (and still is) also widely celebrated as one of the great love poets. In his poems, love is elevated as sacred and is merged with faith to challenge notions of corporeality (see Themes). The poem, though titled through a mechanism suggesting a formal farewell, is widely considered a love poem at its core. In “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” the poet presents love as faith and faith as love—the concepts are unable to be divorced, despite external circumstance. The romantic declaration of the speaker and his inability for separation from his lover is achieved through the theme of faith.

Donne’s love poems seek a reciprocity from their addressee and invite dialogue. Donne was suspicious of the overly decorative and elevated language of the love poems before him; much of his work seeks to not only complicate these flattened sentiments but to expand them to create new definitions. By elevating love and sex as sacred entities, Donne’s metaphysical proclivities are prominently on display in this poem.