A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (Adrienne Rich) Quotes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 11 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (Adrienne Rich) Quotes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 11 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of A Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
This section contains 779 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (Adrienne Rich) Study Guide

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips
-- Speaker (Line 1)

Importance: In this first line, the speaker introduces a central theme of the poem: that of desire. She wants multiple, perhaps conflicting things, which feel like they are "swirling" around her in a way both confusing and overwhelming (1). One thing she seems to want, though, is another person, the "you" addressed throughout the poem. This person, with her "frozen lips," seems to be cold and unresponsive, where the narrator is full of activity, and passion.

The grammar turned and attacked me
-- Speaker (Line 2)

Importance: This line introduces the poem's key theme of the speaker's struggle with language. She is not writing a passive text that conforms to her will. Instead, she imagines the language itself as not merely active but dangerous. It is capable of sudden movement, of shifting from being created to attacking her. This striking image establishes the relationship with language that becomes the central subject...

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This section contains 779 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy the A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (Adrienne Rich) Study Guide
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