Valediction and Conjoined
The two poems, "A Valediction", by John Donne, and "Conjoined", by Judith Minty, are written about the same subject, and yet they convey two completely opposite ideas regarding the bonds of relationships. While the speaker of Donne's "Valediction" sees his relationship as having a love that transcends the physical world, the woman of "Conjoined" views her marriage as a unnatural, terrible thing that was forced upon her and which limits her. Both authors make use of literary devices such as metaphors and tone in order to convey their views.
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is about a couple who is separating, possibly because of the coming death of the speaker. However, the speaker forbids his lover from being sad or mourning him, as their love is strong enough to cross the largest of distances, even that between life and death. The love of this couple is seen as greater than the normal relationship between people. In fact, the speaker says, "Twere profanation of our joys/ To tell the laity of our love." By this he means that the bond they have is so special, so beautiful that it would be disrespectful to their love to tell the common people about it. This is because their love is so profound that those in common relationships could not even comprehend. He believes the bond that is in common relationships is lesser, while that which he shares with his love is "so much refined." Where normal relationships are earthly, or "sublunar," theirs is heavenly, among the planets and the stars. The planetary metaphor is further used in the third stanza, which reads: "Moving of th' earth brings harm and fears... But trepidation of the spheres,/ Though greater far, is innocent." By this he is saying that while earthquakes are far less movement than the movement of an entire planet, it is the earthquake that the people of earth will concern themselves with. In this way, the normal people are concerned with the more shallow, physically dependent relationships, and they do not comprehend the higher love of the speaker and his lover, which is more spiritual and less dependent on actual closeness. This is why the speaker and his lover are able to endure much distance and time away from each other, through their unique bond, and is why he urges his love not to cry when they part. He even likens their bond to a compass, what's legs do not truly separate but remain connected, even with distance, which "endure[s] not yet/ A breach, but an expansion." And as one leg of the compass is far from the first, it is still connected, and its path revolves around the still leg. His point is that the love that they have is strong enough to overcome any distance, and that it will endure until they are eventually reunited.
The speaker of "Conjoined" offers a much different view of relationships than does the Speaker of "Valediction." The woman of "Conjoined" is a married woman, and she sees her own relationship as anything other than heavenly. She continually compares her marriage to unnatural, strange pairs, that would normally be separate, giving the impression that she views her marriage more as a forced, terrible union than a wonderful, loving bond. She uses such strong language in her similes as "monster," and "freaks." she speaks of a onion, made of two onions pressed together, that grew deformed because of the proximity of the other onion. These onions are covered by a "transparent skin," which makes it seem like a normal onion, and which hides the truth underneath. This is like her marriage, in which she is not happy, but in which she seems to be pleasantly joined to her love. The marriage covers the problems underneath and shows them as a happy couple. Her marriage is described, by herself, as an "accident, like the two-headed calf," or like Chang and Eng, a pair of twins joined at the chest. These are examples not only of unnatural, or "wrong," occurrences, but ones in which such a pair could not be safely separated. The speaker mentions a "skin that binds us... To sever the muscle could free one, but might kill the other." In this case, as in the others, separation could greatly improve the quality on one life, and allow them to grow, but the bond merges the two together such that separation could be the death of the other. The speaker wishes to be rid of her husband, but, as she says, she "cannot escape" the prison, her relationship, that binds her permanently to him.
Obviously, the speakers of Minty' and Donne's poems were of differing opinions when it came to their relationships. Where one saw boundless love, the other saw limiting confinement. And where one saw a supernatural, heavenly bond that can withstand any amount of separation and not be broken, the other saw a cruel, unnatural bond, that she wished could be broken.
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is about a couple who is separating, possibly because of the coming death of the speaker. However, the speaker forbids his lover from being sad or mourning him, as their love is strong enough to cross the largest of distances, even that between life and death. The love of this couple is seen as greater than the normal relationship between people. In fact, the speaker says, "Twere profanation of our joys/ To tell the laity of our love." By this he means that the bond they have is so special, so beautiful that it would be disrespectful to their love to tell the common people about it. This is because their love is so profound that those in common relationships could not even comprehend. He believes the bond that is in common relationships is lesser, while that which he shares with his love is "so much refined." Where normal relationships are earthly, or "sublunar," theirs is heavenly, among the planets and the stars. The planetary metaphor is further used in the third stanza, which reads: "Moving of th' earth brings harm and fears... But trepidation of the spheres,/ Though greater far, is innocent." By this he is saying that while earthquakes are far less movement than the movement of an entire planet, it is the earthquake that the people of earth will concern themselves with. In this way, the normal people are concerned with the more shallow, physically dependent relationships, and they do not comprehend the higher love of the speaker and his lover, which is more spiritual and less dependent on actual closeness. This is why the speaker and his lover are able to endure much distance and time away from each other, through their unique bond, and is why he urges his love not to cry when they part. He even likens their bond to a compass, what's legs do not truly separate but remain connected, even with distance, which "endure[s] not yet/ A breach, but an expansion." And as one leg of the compass is far from the first, it is still connected, and its path revolves around the still leg. His point is that the love that they have is strong enough to overcome any distance, and that it will endure until they are eventually reunited.
The speaker of "Conjoined" offers a much different view of relationships than does the Speaker of "Valediction." The woman of "Conjoined" is a married woman, and she sees her own relationship as anything other than heavenly. She continually compares her marriage to unnatural, strange pairs, that would normally be separate, giving the impression that she views her marriage more as a forced, terrible union than a wonderful, loving bond. She uses such strong language in her similes as "monster," and "freaks." she speaks of a onion, made of two onions pressed together, that grew deformed because of the proximity of the other onion. These onions are covered by a "transparent skin," which makes it seem like a normal onion, and which hides the truth underneath. This is like her marriage, in which she is not happy, but in which she seems to be pleasantly joined to her love. The marriage covers the problems underneath and shows them as a happy couple. Her marriage is described, by herself, as an "accident, like the two-headed calf," or like Chang and Eng, a pair of twins joined at the chest. These are examples not only of unnatural, or "wrong," occurrences, but ones in which such a pair could not be safely separated. The speaker mentions a "skin that binds us... To sever the muscle could free one, but might kill the other." In this case, as in the others, separation could greatly improve the quality on one life, and allow them to grow, but the bond merges the two together such that separation could be the death of the other. The speaker wishes to be rid of her husband, but, as she says, she "cannot escape" the prison, her relationship, that binds her permanently to him.
Obviously, the speakers of Minty' and Donne's poems were of differing opinions when it came to their relationships. Where one saw boundless love, the other saw limiting confinement. And where one saw a supernatural, heavenly bond that can withstand any amount of separation and not be broken, the other saw a cruel, unnatural bond, that she wished could be broken.
1. Cathy's thesis is about how the two poems have two different opinions on marriage. One sees it as horrible, the other sees it as beautiful. You do a great job with saying that they are different. But the introduction is not deep enough in saying how they are different besides their opinions on marriage. Valediction is older and a lot more descriptive of its metaphors and uses beautiful language. The other has a negative tone to how the speaker views her marriage. Look at the words, and compare them to the words of Valediction.
ReplyDelete2. You do use the text very well. But you need to uses more from the Valediction. I feel like you didn't understand it that well (It is weird). YOu didn't use that much form Valediction or get into the text of the poem/ Its not that you need more commentary. You need to kin of dissect the words of the poem and see why the author uses that word or metaphor and what does that have to do with the meaning of the work.
3. Like I said in the paragraph above. You need to see not only the different view on marriage that they have but also the different metaphors, words, and phrasing that each poem has. One is older and using very expressive metaphors. The other is contemporary and just using a negative tone of marriage.
4. No you do not use the literary devices to analyze the poem. You did it a little in the paragraph about Conjoined but I see that you do not understand Valediction very well to use the literary devices that it has and analyze it to give more depth to your essay. I think you need to do that a little bit more.
5. No you didn't have much misinterpretations that I could see. You stayed away from that because you just didn't understand some of the poems so you repeated yourself a lot. Instead of repeating yourself, see if you can get more from each point that you make.
6. How is the diction different from each work?
What does the different of centuries have to contribute to each poem?
What is the tone of each poem? Is one more pessimistic of marriage?
1. your thesis is contrasting the two poems and gives explanation to how the authors' viewed marriage and separation. the intro was really well written but more of the figurative language used should have been mentioned in the poem.
ReplyDelete2. contrasting to connie i LOVED your analysis of valediction! the bodies gave so much detail in your close reading of the poems. you paid such close attention from everything to the metaphors to just simple words and your analyzation of them made it so simple for the reader to understand the poems greater meaning and your argument.
3. your attempt to achieve the effect that valediction is a poem of endless bond and conjoined is a poem of hope for separation was well achieved and your commentary of the evidence used made your argument clear. i loved your mentioning of the onion metaphor and your analysis that it is not just about the onion itself but the skin of it.
4. there could have been more literary devices contributed in your poem i mostly saw just metaphors but there could have been more to say about the figurative language the authors' used and the effect they tried to achieve regarding the greater meaning.
5. i didnt see any misinterpretations. i think you understood the poems very well, in fact i loved your interpretations.
6. what figurative language other than metaphors could you have used? and how do these contribute with the meanings of the poems?
7. i loveeeeedddd it! good job. :))
1. The thesis is that the two poems take two different views on the same subject. It's pretty good, but I think you can go a little further with it. What about that is important?
ReplyDelete2.You use a lot of examples very well, good job there!
3. Definately. You went below the surface.
4.While you focus on metaphors, the examples were good. Maybe you could try to explore other options.
5. Nope. :-)
6. What does the two different points of views reveal?
Are the poems similar at all?
7. I think you did a very very good job, but I think you need to tie them in together other than the fact that: They're different. It's could be two essays smushed together. Find the reason we explored these two poems at the same time. :-)
The comments I received were helpful in allowing me to revise my essay. They pointed out that while my thesis was okay in explaining that the views were different, and what they were, I didn't mention the devices used and such. So that was definitely something to fix. I did use that in my essay, even though it wasn't in the intro, so I didn't have to add too much of that into the revised draft, because it was there. They told that I did a good job with that, but they also pointed out areas that could use work, as well as giving me good ideas and viewpoints to think about. After reading the comments and other essays, as well as discussing them in class, I feel as if I better understand the poems and what the authors meant. And as I think about it more, I could probably come back later and revise this essay into an even better draft. All in all, I appreciated the feedback that everyone gave in the comments.
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