A Valediction: Of Weeping Literary Elements

A Valediction: Of Weeping Literary Elements

Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View

The speaker of the poem: lover about to go on a journey and leave loved one behind
Point of view: first pers

Form and Meter

Three nine line stanzas, ABBACCDDD ryhme scheme

Metaphors and Similes

There are plenty of metaphors in the poem: tears are compared to coins, to globes; love is compared to heaven etc.on

Alliteration and Assonance

"For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear"-Line 3
repetition of /ð/

Irony

"Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death"-line 27
Sighing is usually seen as an act of love and longing, but in this example it is something that causes harm to the recipient.

Genre

lyric poetry

Setting

Two lovers standing together in a tearful embrace of farewell.

Tone

depressed

Protagonist and Antagonist

Protagonist: two lovers; Antagonist: circumstances that force them to separate.

Major Conflict

The speaker of the poem has to take a journey to a different shore and leave his lover behind.

Climax

The speaker of the poem asks of his lover to not weep too much for him, since it may only bring more unnecessary pain.

Foreshadowing

"So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore."-Line 9
The speaker foreshadows that the love will die once they are separated.

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Earth-a round ball, globe

Personification

"To teach the sea what it may do too soon"-Line 22

Hyperbole

Tears are exaggeratedly compared to coins, to globes; love is heaven; grief is death etc.

Onomatopoeia

N/A

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