Pipkin is a scholar in the fields of British and American literature. In this essay, he discusses the use of simile and metaphysical wit in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

A valediction is a speech or a poem of farewell, one that often carries with it some sense of foreboding or uncertainty about the events to come. Although the title "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" might seem to suggest a dark, brooding theme, John Donne's poem is actually a love poem, and as such it is a fine example of sixteenth-century Metaphysical wit. The Metaphysical school of poets (whose members included Donne, George Her- bert, and Andrew Marvell, among others) were formally given this name by the critic and essayist Samuel Johnson (perhaps best known for his Dictionary of the English Language of 1775), who criticized them for introducing metaphysics or a kind of abstract logic into their poetry.

The...