"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is a metaphysical poem by John Donne. Written in 1611 or 1612 for his wife Anne before he left on a trip to Continental Europe, "A Valediction" is a 36-line love poem that was first published in the 1633 collection Songs and Sonnets, two years after Donne's death. Based on the theme of two lovers about to part for an extended time, the poem is notable for its use of conceits and ingenious analogies to describe the couple's relationship; critics have thematically linked it to several of his other works, including "A Valediction: of my Name, in the Window", Meditation III from the Holy Sonnets and "A Valediction: of Weeping".
Donne's use of a drafting compass as an analogy for the couple—two points, inextricably linked—has been both praised as an example of his "virtuoso display of similitude",[1] and also criticised as an illustration of the excesses of metaphysical poetry; despite detractors, it remains "the best known sustained conceit" in English poetry.[2] As well as citing this most famous example, literary critics point to Donne's use of subtlety and precise wording in "A Valediction", particularly around the alchemical theme that pervades the text.
John Donne was born on 21 January 1572 to John Donne, a wealthy ironmonger and one of the wardens of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, and his wife Elizabeth.[3] Donne was four when his father died and, instead of being prepared to enter a trade, he was trained as a gentleman scholar; his family used the money his father had made from ironmongering to hire private tutors who taught him grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, history and foreign languages. Elizabeth soon remarried to a wealthy doctor, ensuring that the family remained comfortable; as a result, despite being the son of an ironmonger and portraying himself in his early poetry as an outsider, Donne refused to accept that he was anything other than a gentleman.[4] After study at Hart Hall, Oxford, Donne's private education eventually saw him study at Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he occupied his time with history, poetry, theology and "Humane learning and languages".[5] It was at Lincoln's Inn that Donne first began writing poetry, looking upon it as "a life-sign or minor irritation" rather than something which defined him.[6]
In November 1597 he became chief secretary to Thomas Egerton, and soon after met Egerton's niece, Anne More.[7] After meeting in 1599, the two conducted a heated love affair in the summer of 1600; letters exchanged between the two reveal the growing suspicion of Anne's father, Sir George More, and Donne's pledge to pick Anne over the favour of his patron, Egerton.[8] The two secretly married, and when More discovered this in 1602, he had Donne sent to Fleet Prison for violating canon law. After many demands, Egerton also consented to Donne's dismissal. After Donne wrote to Egerton, he was released from prison, and during his trial at the Court of Audience the marriage was validated and Donne absolved of any canon law violation.[9] "A Valediction" was written to a heavily pregnant Anne, in 1611 or 1612,[10][11] as Donne prepared to travel to Continental Europe with Sir Robert Drury. It was later published in 1633 as part of the collection Songs and Sonnets, following his death.[12]
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“The breath goes now," 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 the 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, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we, by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured 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 fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do;
And though it in the center 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 the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Thematically, "A Valediction" is a love poem; Meg Lota Brown, a professor at the University of Arizona, notes that the entire poem (but particularly the compass analogy in the final three stanzas) "ascribe to love the capacity to admit changing circumstances without itself changing at the same time".[20] Achsah Guibbory highlights "A Valediction" as an example of both the fear of death that "haunts" Donne's love poetry and his celebration of sex as something sacred; the opening draws an analogy between the lovers' parting and death, while, later on, the poem frames sex in religious overtones, noting that if the lovers were "to tell the layetie [of] our love" they would profane it.[21]
Targoff argues that "A Valediction" follows on from Donne's earlier poem "A Valediction: of my Name, in the Window" in theme, with the opening stanza of one, like the closing stanza of the other, concerning itself with dying men,[22] while J.D. Jahn, writing in the journal College Literature, compares it to Donne's Meditation III, from the Holy Sonnets.[23]Carol Marks Sicherman, however, draws parallels between it and another Valediction—"A Valediction: of Weeping", saying that "The speaker of "Mourning" begins where his "Weeping" colleague ends; he knows at the outset that "teare-floods" and "sigh-tempests" do not suit the climate of love he and his lady enjoy".[24]
E. M. Forster’s renowned guide to writing sparkles with wit and insight for contemporary writers and readers. With lively language and excerpts from well-known classics, Forster takes on the seven elements vital to a novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm. He not only defines and explains such terms as “round” versus “flat” characters (and why both are needed for an effective novel), but also provides examples of writing from such literary greats as Dickens and Austen. Forster's original commentary illuminates and entertains without lapsing into complicated, scholarly rhetoric, coming together in a key volume on writing that avoids chronology and what he calls “pseudoscholarship.”
A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the restrained culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. Merchant-Ivory produced an award-winning film adaptation in 1985.
The first part of the novel is set in Florence, Italy, and describes a young English woman's first visit to Florence, at a time when upper middle class English women were starting to lead independent, adventurous lives. Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overbearing older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett, and the novel opens with their complaints about the hotel, "The Pension Bertolini." Their primary concern is that although rooms with a view of the River Arno have been promised for each of them, their rooms instead look over a courtyard. A Mr. Emerson interrupts their "peevish wrangling," offering to swap rooms as he and his son, George Emerson, look over the Arno. This behaviour causes Miss Bartlett some consternation, as it appears impolite. Without letting Lucy speak, Miss Bartlett refuses the offer, looking down on the Emersons because of their unconventional behaviour and thinking it would place her under an "unseemly obligation" towards them. However, another guest at the pension, an Anglican clergyman named Mr. Beebe, persuades the pair to accept the offer, assuring Miss Bartlett that Mr. Emerson only meant to be kind.
The next day, while Charlotte rests in the pension, Lucy decides to spend a "long morning" in the Basilica of Santa Croce, led by another guest, Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist who promises her an adventure. The older woman immediately takes away Lucy's Baedeker guidebook, which, she says, only touches the surface of things. She will show Lucy the "true Italy." But on the way to Santa Croce, chattering away, the two take a wrong turn and get lost. After drifting for hours through various streets and piazzas, they finally make it back to the square in front of the church only to have the novelist abandon Lucy in pursuit of an old man who, she says, is her "local colour box."[1] Inside the church, Lucy meets the Emersons again. Although their manners are awkward and they are deemed socially unacceptable by the other guests, Lucy likes them and continues to run into them in Florence. One afternoon Lucy witnesses a murder in Florence. George Emerson happens to be nearby and catches her when she faints. Lucy asks George to retrieve some photographs of hers that happen to be near the murder site. George, out of confusion, throws her photographs into the river because they were spotted with blood. Lucy observes how boyish George is. As they stop to look over the River Arno before making their way back to the hotel, they have an intimate conversation. After this, Lucy decides to avoid George, partly because she is confused by her feelings and partly to keep her cousin happy—Miss Bartlett is wary of the eccentric Emersons, particularly after a comment made by another clergyman, Mr. Eager, that Mr. Emerson "murdered his wife in the sight of God." Later on in the week, a party made up of Beebe, Eager, the Emersons, Miss Lavish, Miss Bartlett and Lucy Honeychurch make their way to Fiesole, in carriages driven by Italians. The driver is permitted to invite a woman he claims is his sister onto the box of the carriage, and when he kisses her, Mr. Eager promptly forces the lady to get off the carriage box. Mr. Emerson remarks how it is defeat rather than victory to part two people in love. In the fields, Lucy searches for Mr. Beebe, and asks in poor Italian for the driver to show her the way. Misunderstanding, he leads her to a field where George stands. George is overcome by Lucy's beauty among a field of violets and kisses her, but they are interrupted by Lucy's cousin, who is outraged. Lucy promises Miss Bartlett that she will not tell her mother of the "insult" George has paid her because Miss Bartlett fears she will be blamed. The two women leave for Rome the next day before Lucy is able to say goodbye to George.
In Rome, Lucy spends time with Cecil Vyse, whom she knew in England. Cecil proposes to Lucy twice in Italy; she rejects him both times. As Part Two begins, Lucy has returned to Surrey, England to her family home, Windy Corner. Cecil proposes yet again at Windy Corner, and this time she accepts. Cecil is a sophisticated and "superior" Londoner who is desirable in terms of rank and class, even though he despises country society; he is also somewhat of a comic figure in the novel, as he gives himself airs and is quite pretentious.
The vicar, Mr. Beebe, announces that new tenants have leased a local cottage; the new arrivals turn out to be the Emersons, who have been told of the available cottage at a chance meeting with Cecil; the young man brought them to the village as a comeuppance to the cottage's landlord, whom Cecil thinks to be a snob. Fate takes an ironic turn as Lucy's brother, Freddy, meets George and invites him to bathe in a nearby pond. Freddy, George and Mr Beebe go to the pond, in the woods, take off their clothes and swim. They enjoy themselves so much they end up running around the pond and through the bushes, until Lucy, her mother, and Cecil arrive, having taken a short-cut through the woods. Freddy later invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner. Although Lucy is initially mortified at the thought of facing both George and Cecil (who is also visiting Windy Corner that Sunday), she resolves to be gracious. Cecil annoys everyone by pacing around and reading aloud from a light romance novel that contains a scene suspiciously reminiscent of when George kissed Lucy in Florence. George catches Lucy alone in the garden and kisses her again. Lucy realises that the novel is by Miss Lavish (the writer-acquaintance from Florence) and that Charlotte must thus have told her about the kiss.
Furious with Charlotte for betraying her secret, Lucy forces her cousin to watch as she tells George to leave and never return. George argues with her, saying that Cecil only sees her as an "object for the shelf" and will never love her enough to grant her independence, while George loves her for who she is. Lucy is moved but remains firm. Later that evening, after Cecil again rudely declines to play tennis, Lucy sours on Cecil and immediately breaks off her engagement. She decides to flee to Greece with acquaintances from her trip to Florence, but shortly before her departure she accidentally encounters Mr. Emerson senior. He is not aware that Lucy has broken her engagement with Cecil, and Lucy cannot lie to the old man. Mr. Emerson forces Lucy to admit out loud that she has been in love with his son George all along.
The novel ends in Florence, in melodramatic fashion, where George and Lucy have eloped without her mother's consent. Although Lucy "had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever," the story ends with the promise of lifelong love for both her and George.
A Room with a View is Forster's most romantic and optimistic book. He utilises many of his trademark techniques, including contrasts between "dynamic" and "static" characters. "Dynamic" characters are those whose ideas and inner-self develop or change in the plot, whereas "static" characters remain constant.The main themes of this novel include the empowerment of a young Edwardian girl, sensual awakening, the role of institutional religion, growing up and true love. It is written in the third person omniscient, though particular passages are often seen "through the eyes" of a specific character.
Published in 1908, the novel touches upon many issues surrounding society and politics in early 20th century Edwardian culture. Forster differentiates between conservative and radical thinking, illustrated in part by his contrasts between Medieval (Mr. Beebe, Miss Bartlett, Cecil Vyse) and Renaissance characters (Lucy, the Emersons).
Lucy personifies the young and impressionable generation emerging during that era, during which women's suffrage would gain strong ground. Forster, manifesting his own hopes for society, ends the book with Lucy choosing her own path—a free life with the man she loves. The novel could even be called a Bildungsroman, as it follows the development of the protagonist.
Binary opposites are played throughout the novel, and often there are mentions of "rooms" and "views". Characters and places associated with "rooms" are, more often than not, conservative and uncreative – Mrs Honeychurch is often pictured in a room, as is Cecil. Characters like Freddy and the Emersons, on the other hand, are often described as being "outside" — representing their open, forward-thinking and modern character types. There is also a constant theme of Light and Dark, where on many occasions, Cecil himself states how Lucy represents light, but Forster responds by stating how Cecil is the Dark as they bathe naked in the Honeychurches' pond, alluding to the fact that they can never be together, and that she really belongs with George. Interestingly, the name Lucy means "light", while the name Cecil means "blind", i.e. one who is "in the dark".
Forster also contrasts the symbolic differences between Italy and England. He idealised Italy as a place of freedom and sexual expression. Italy promised raw, natural passion that inspired many Britons at the time who wished to escape the constrictions of English society. While Lucy is in Italy her views of the world change dramatically, and scenes such as the murder in the piazza open her eyes to a world beyond her "protected life in Windy Corner".
The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the Marabar Caves (modeled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar),[6] Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British who rule India.
A young British schoolmistress, Adela Quested, and her elderly friend, Mrs. Moore, visit the fictional city of Chandrapore, British India. Adela is to decide if she wants to marry Mrs. Moore's son, Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate.
Meanwhile, Dr. Aziz, a young Indian Muslim physician, is dining with two of his Indian friends and conversing about whether it is possible to be a friend of an Englishman. During the meal, a summon arrives from Major Callendar, Aziz's unpleasant superior at the hospital. Aziz hastens to Callendar's bungalow as ordered but is delayed by a flat tyre and difficulty in finding a tonga and the major has already left in a huff.
Disconsolate, Aziz walks down the road toward the railway station. When he sees his favourite mosque, he enters on impulse. He sees a strange Englishwoman there and yells at her not to profane this sacred place. The woman, Mrs Moore, has respect for native customs. This disarms Aziz, and the two chat and part as friends.
Mrs. Moore returns to the British club down the road and relates her experience at the mosque. Ronny Heaslop, her son, initially thinks she is talking about an Englishman and becomes indignant when he learns the facts. Adela, however, is intrigued.
Because the newcomers had expressed a desire to see Indians, Mr. Turton, the city tax collector, invites numerous Indian gentlemen to a party at his house. The party turns out to be an awkward business, thanks to the Indians' timidity and the Britons' bigotry, but Adela meets Cyril Fielding, headmaster of Chandrapore's government-run college for Indians. Fielding invites Adela and Mrs. Moore to a tea party with him and a Hindu-Brahmin professor named Narayan Godbole. At Adela's request, he extends his invitation to Dr. Aziz.
At Fielding's tea party, everyone has a good time conversing about India, and Fielding and Aziz become friends. Aziz promises to take Mrs. Moore and Adela to see the Marabar Caves, a distant cave complex. Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely breaks up the party.
Aziz mistakenly believes that the women are offended that he has not followed through on his promise and arranges an outing to the caves at great expense to himself. Fielding and Godbole were supposed to accompany the expedition, but they miss the train.
Aziz and the women explore the caves. In the first cave, Mrs. Moore is overcome with claustrophobia. But worse than the claustrophobia is the echo. Disturbed by the sound, Mrs. Moore declines to continue exploring. Adela and Aziz, accompanied by a guide, climb to the next caves.
As Aziz helps Adela up the hill, she asks whether he has more than one wife. Disconcerted by the bluntness of the remark, he ducks into a cave to compose himself. When he comes out, he finds the guide alone outside the caves. The guide says Adela has gone into a cave by herself. Aziz looks for her in vain. Deciding she is lost, he strikes the guide, who runs away. Aziz looks around and discovers Adela's field glasses lying broken on the ground. He puts them in his pocket.
Then Aziz looks down the hill and sees Adela speaking to another young Englishwoman, Miss Derek, who has arrived with Fielding in a car. Aziz runs down the hill and greets Fielding, but Miss Derek and Adela drive off without explanation. Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Aziz return to Chandrapore on the train.
At the train station, Aziz is arrested and charged with sexually assaulting Adela in a cave. The run-up to his trial releases the racial tensions between the British and the Indians. Adela says that Aziz followed her into the cave and tried to grab her, and that she fended him off by swinging her field glasses at him. The only evidence the British have is the field glasses in the possession of Aziz. Despite this, the British colonists believe that Aziz is guilty. They are stunned when Fielding proclaims his belief in Aziz's innocence. Fielding is ostracised and condemned as a blood-traitor. But the Indians, who consider the assault allegation a fraud, welcome him.
During the weeks before the trial, Mrs. Moore is apathetic and irritable. Although she professes her belief in Aziz's innocence, she does nothing to help him. Ronny, alarmed by his mother's assertion that Aziz is innocent, arranges for her return by ship to England before she can testify at the trial. Mrs. Moore dies during the voyage. Her absence from India becomes a major issue at the trial, where Aziz's legal defenders assert that her testimony would have proven the accused's innocence.
Adela becomes confused as to Aziz's guilt. At the trial, she is asked whether Aziz sexually assaulted her. She has a vision of the cave, and it turns out that Adela had, while in the cave, received a shock similar to Mrs. Moore's. The echo had disconcerted her so much that she became unhinged. At the time, Adela mistakenly interpreted her shock as an assault by Aziz. She admits that she was mistaken, and the case is dismissed. (Note: In the 1913 draft of the novel, EM Forster had Aziz guilty of the assault and found guilty in the court but changed this in the 1924 draft to create a more ambiguous ending.)
Ronny Heaslop breaks off their engagement. Adela stays at Fielding's house until her passage on a boat to England is arranged. After explaining to Fielding that the echo was the cause of the whole business, she departs India, never to return.
Although he is vindicated, Aziz is angry that Fielding befriended Adela after she nearly ruined his life. Believing it to be the gentlemanly thing to do, Fielding convinces Aziz not to seek monetary redress from her. The men's friendship suffers, and Fielding departs for England. Aziz believes that he is leaving to marry Adela for her money. Bitter at his friend's perceived betrayal, he vows never again to befriend a white person. Aziz moves to the Hindu-ruled state of Mau and begins a new life.
Two years later, Fielding returns to India. His wife is Stella, Mrs. Moore's daughter from a second marriage. Aziz, now the Raja's chief physician, comes to respect and love Fielding again. However, he does not give up his dream of a free and united India. In the novel's last sentences, he explains that he and Fielding cannot be friends until India is free of the British Raj.
stitching together the words and
pictures to make meaning
4.
Three stories:words/
pics/
union
1. Current
cultural emphasis
2.
Visual communication
3.
Parallel storytelling
Contemporary Picturebooks
1.A
sense of humor
2. InteranimatingEmpower readers to know more. Picturebooksmotivate new interpretations of
their style
3.
Discrepant text lead to an open ending (some pics leave the reader with a different realityand to create their own closure for the
story p. 51
4.
Alternate perspectives
Systems for Text and Illustration
1. Symmetrical interaction
2.
Enhancing interaction
3.
Counterpointing interaction
4.
Contradictory interaction
Literary
Elements and the Picturebook
1.Character
1.Round
character
2.Anthropomorphism
3.Continuous
narrative
2.Plot
*Closed ending
*Open ending:
less solution/many gaps and uncertainties
lead to an open ending (some pics leave the reader with a different
reality)
lead readers to create their own
closure for the story.
( similar values in quite different cultures)
3.Theme
Theme creates an understanding
about life,
human nature or elements of society
courage,
perseverance, tolerance, peace,
hope, love, trust …
èCurrent
issues è one
central theme
èIdentity
/
Process of discovering who I am
4.Setting
We
“see” setting through words as well as pictures.
These books are classic examples of
integral setting: both
author and illustrator integrate visual and word
pictures for
a setting that is closely interwoven with character, acter,
action, and theme.
Example book: Mailing May
5.Point of view
First-person: I
The
Polar Express
Dual:
first & third-person narration in the text and illustration
Mirror
The
Snowy Day
Objective:
description / Omniscient: he “thinks” / he
“knows”
Omniscient:
he “thinks” / he “knows”
6.Style and Tone
1.Style: size, shape, materials
2. Tone: overvallfeeling
Tone in a picturebook is generally an
overall feeling,
frequently an emotional response created through the story’s resolution.
7.Peritextual Elements
1.Intertextuality: how books relate to on another,
forms the basis of our textsets.
2.Transtextuality: the connections within and
across
texts.
3. Paratexts: has become valuable as one of may
ways to work with their increasingly visual
nature.
4. Peritext: includes features such as the dust
jacket, covers, title pages, casings, and
endpapers.
Artistic
Styles
Impressionism:
Abstract
Summary
Illustrations è
literary elements
Illustrations è
experience / pleasure / meaning
◍Illustrations impact each of these
literary elements in varying degrees, depending on the relationship of the
words and pictures.
◍As we contemplate illustration, we
see it as an extension of experience, an additional source of pleasure but also
an integral part of constructing the meaning of increasingly savvy picturebooks.
