Frogs and Wheelbarrows

So confession time... I love poetry. I love reading it, I love writing it, and I especially love to take it apart. Not the way you would dissect a frog, mind you. There is a good chance that if you make one wrong move, the whole project is ruined and there goes a perfectly good dead frog. But a poem? You don't have to kill the poem before you take a peak inside. You don't have to worry about "messing up," because a poem can be interpreted in more than one way. A frog is a frog, and there isn't any hidden symbolism tucked behind the left ventricle.



More confession time... I didn't always love analyzing poetry. It seemed so tedious to me; like the teacher was asking me to take something wild and beautiful from it's natural habitat and beat it into an unrecognizable pulp. Why can't we just enjoy poetry, instead of handcuffing it to a chair and interrogating the poor thing? Let the poem be free, I'd mutter under my breath while trying to make something of a silly red wheelbarrow.

Things change, especially mindsets, and I discovered that you don't have to demand a poem to reveal its secrets by threatening it with a baseball bat.

Here's what I was able to gently coax out of John Donne's "A Valediction: A Forbidding Mourning:" (no baseball bats or handcuffs required)

1. Genre and subgenre: As lyric poetry, this piece depends heavily on its rhyme and meter. The ABAB rhyme scheme also alludes to the musical quality of this piece, as seen in the first stanza's end rhyme pattern: "...passe mildly away...their soules, to goe...sad friends doe say...and some say, no." Lyrical poetry is known for its emotion and feeling, and this poem doesn't try to hide the emotion behind its words in the slightest.
2. Narrator and Persona: Lyrical poetry is often found to be in first person, which only adds to the passion that can be conveyed as the narrator speaks directly to the object of his affection. Donne is able to speak to his audience in a more personal manner, thus creating a more intimate persona throughout the entire piece. He constantly refers to "us" in a way that feels warm and inviting. 
3. Setting: Although no setting is mentioned directly in the poem, with a little imagination, a reader might visualize the narrator speaking at the doorstep, just before he begins his journey, or at his deathbed, attempting to console his loved one before he passes away. This is deducted from the lines "Our two soules therefore, which are one, though I must goe, endure not yet / A breach, but an expansion." This sets the poem in a world where love is strong enough to stretch across any distance, and is even made stronger by that distance. 
4. Plot: The setting and plot are related in a sense that the impeding separation has caused Donne to feel the need to solidify the relationship between him and his love. This situation is one that many couples find themselves in; leaving for a time (whether it be short or long) and consoling the other that all will be well while they are gone, with words such as:"Yet when the other far doth rome, it leans, and hearkens after it." The plot gives reason behind the words; if Donne wasn't leaving, there would be no need to say such words to comfort his love. 
5. Character: The narrator, the main character of this piece, has an almost scientific way of approaching the impending separation. Words such as "moving of the earth," and "gold to ayery thinnese beate" give a rational voice to an emotional situation. This rationality allows the poem to maintain a level of dignity, showing the narrator to be a calm, sober-minded person. 
6. Symbolism and Imagery: Throughout the poem, Donne is constantly referring and comparing his love and himself to circles. In the third stanza he mentions "trepidation of the spheres," in the seventh he compares his love and himself to "twin compasses," and in the final lines Donne solidifies this circular image with the lines "Thy firmnes drawes my circle just, and makes me end, where I begunne." These final words tell the reader that their relationship does not have an end; it is eternal. 
7. Diction: Donne's word choice is one of the more powerful tools in this piece. The words that rhyme tie each line together, giving the poem a unified feel, only add to the subliminal message put forth by the author that he and his love are united, whether that distance is from line to line, stanza to stanza, or even world to world. The first five stanzas are almost gentle in their diction: "pass mildly away," "let us melt," and "inter-assured of the mind" are all very soothing, almost hypnotic. Then, with the last stanzas, Donne is firm and confident: "not yet / a breach, but an expansion," "stiffe twin compasses," and "growes erect." 
8. Rhetoric: The persuasion used throughout the poem is one of the more subtle aspects that Donne exercises. He never comes out and says "Just trust me, okay? I love you and you NEED to believe what I say because I'm right. So stop worrying, would you?" Instead, the narrator chooses to present his proof of logic; he shows his love the reasons distance doesn't matter in their relationship. He presents his case almost in a non-biased way in the beginning. He states that the "moving of the earth brings harmes and feares," meaning that it's natural for her to feel afraid and lonely if he has to go. But he then calmly states that their love is as logical as one foot following after the other; where one goes, the other will shortly follow after. 
9. Historical and Cultural Setting: The period in which this poem was written was in the 1500's, a time where women were seen almost as helpless, relying on their husbands to take care of them and provide for them. This poem is a token of a man's heart, much the same as his lady giving him her handkerchief as a token of her devotion. Even during this early time in history, men understood that the way to calm a women's heart was by speaking to her heart in an almost hyperbolic declaration of love. 
10. Visual Design: The simple four-line, nine stanza set up is clearly identifiable as a poem from the minute you look at the page. Because of this, expectations of rhyme and meter are established before the reading even begins. Looking at the poem gives the reader a sort of confidence, something that the actual words of the poem are trying to do as well. The layout of the poem goes hand-in-hand with the soothing message: I don't want you to worry. It will all be okay. "Such wilt thou be to mee..." the fixed foot that will never change.