Comparing Poems Essay (edited)

Love is an eternal , loving feeling that is had for another person. However, there is a debate between the honest validity of that emotion. In John Donne’s “A Valediction” his feelings for the girl that he loves are as strong as cupid’s arrows. They are connected through their souls instead of just by looks, or amounts of money. On the other hand, Judith Minty’s “Conjoined” has a much more negative stand point on love. She doesn’t believe that any person would honestly want to be connected to another person, so completely, for the entirety of said person’s life. While both author's use similar figurative language( like onomatopoeia, personification, etc.) to establish the meanings of their poems, they offer very contrasting views of love.
Donne commits to his other-worldly theme with words like “whisper,” “souls to go,” and “breath.” These words have a calm and peaceful feeling about them. The speaker does not fear death, but instead sees it as a kind of peaceful release. We are comforted by the fact that they left quietly. The souls of two lovers are also onomatopoeias and personified. They are quiet, soft, and linger between the lines. They describe that when a great man dies his soul stays behind. Even though his body is gone his soul stays on earth, the love he feels for this other person keeps his soul alive to live on passed his death. This gives the man spiritual form that seems to radiate positive, loving energy.
The use of repetition and hyperbole in “A Valediction” reflects the love of a man who is very much so on earth, in body and mind. “Sigh-tempests” is repetitive and reflects that belief that a common man’s love is superficial. There is no real contact between the two lovers, no deeper meaning to their love. Their relationship is routine and therefore boring. The couple gets used to one another, to the point where they just want to escape each other. There is no more spark or spontaneity to keep the fire that is his or her love burning. A common man’s love is just a routine of superficial sweets. He is unable to actually live in love and engage in new experiences everyday. The hyperbole “tear-floods” explains that the tears flow like floods. A soul of a lover is imperfect and his love is painful. It insinuates that a relationship with a man of the earth is destined for unhappiness.
Donne makes apparent comparisons within the lines of his poem. For example, “Moving of the earth brings harms and fears” and the contrasting “But trepidation of the spheres.” The earth is concrete. A relationship on earth is unstable and disconcerting. The earth is organic and concrete, so the love on the earth is all man-made. Men on the earth are fallible. They make mistakes, harm others, and have inhibiting emotions and fears. Donne compares that with “trepidation of the spheres” which alludes to something spiritual. The spheres are not of this earth, it’s all abstract and intangible. When souls do not come together no one can be blamed. A human is not at fault, it is rather the fact that the universe did not allow the two souls to be aligned. Repetition is used again in stanza 7 with the words, “they,” “two,” and “foot.” It reads,”If they be two, they are two so. As stiff twin compasses are two; thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show to move, but doth, if th’other do.” It emphasizes that fact that a relationship is between two people happens to the fullest extent when they unifying as one. The stanza is also a metaphor and illustrates that both partners have work together like two feet. If one foot goes the other has to follow, and this cannot be done if the two are not in agreement. The concept of walking cannot be successful if one foot moves and the other doesn’t. The whole cannot continue on without it’s other parts. She is the other foot; she completes him.
Minty’s “Conjoined” has a significantly different view on marriage than Donne’s “A Valediction.” Minty uses words like “monsters,” “accident,” and “freaks” that have negative connotations to mirror the negative feeling she has towards marriage. She believes that marriage is unnatural and horrific. Marriage is unfortunate like a freak and destructive like a monster. These three words also create an illusion of a mad-scientist project gone wrong. A scientist invented this concept but during creation, something went wrong and this accident created a monster. Also, Minty uses a simile to compare marriage to Siamese twins. Like Siamese twins, marriage is an indefinite connection to someone. You have to live and work with someone forever and there is no escape. You will always have someone behind you, impairing you, inhibiting you from living a life on your own will. She says, “Do you feel the skin that binds us together as we move, heavy in this house?” Marriage is the skin the binds the two together. But it is a burden and weighs them down. With this skin connecting them, there is no individuality. They ultimately become one person doomed to live as one for the rest of their life. An onion is also used as a symbol. Minty states that the “onion in my cupboard, a monster…each half-round, then flat and deformed where it pressed and grew against the other.” The individual onion was normal, but then grew against the other and became deformed. The individual onion was transformed into this bulbous, hideous onion. The onion reflects the idea that growing against another person in marriage will deform a person.
The two very different authors use a lot of figurative language to establish two completely different points of view. Donne feels that his love is special, greater than a common man’s love because it is a spiritual connection of love, while Minty disagrees with the concept of marriage and gets tired of being with the same person all the time, even though he or she does love that person in some way. Figurative language unfolds the differing attitudes and juxtaposes an optimistic outlook with a negative one.