This paper compares how marriage and love are portrayed in Rita Dove's "Daystar" and John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning." Using the circle as a central symbol, the essay contrasts Donne's metaphysical idealization of perfect, eternal love with Dove's realistic depiction of the monotony and sacrifice that marriage entails. Through close reading of imagery, metaphor, and speaker perspective, the paper argues that while love may be premised in perfection, the daily cycle of marital commitment is often stagnant, ritualistic, and burdensome — especially for women. Together, the two poems offer complementary yet contrasting visions of romantic union.
This paper demonstrates comparative close reading: the writer pairs two poems thematically and analyzes specific images, diction, and metaphors side by side. Rather than treating the poems separately, each analytical paragraph uses one poem's perspective to deepen the reading of the other, producing a dialectical argument about idealized versus realistic marriage.
The paper opens with a framing metaphor (the circle) and a thesis statement contrasting both poems' views on marriage. The second paragraph analyzes Donne's metaphysical imagery and the perfection of spiritual love. The third paragraph turns to Dove's realistic portrayal of marital monotony and the woman's inner life. The conclusion synthesizes both perspectives, arguing that love encompasses both eternal idealism and everyday ritual.
The circle is the symbol of eternity — a form with no beginning and no end. As with life, love can also be considered an eternal journey, but it is viewed from very different perspectives in Rita Dove's Daystar (795–796) and John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" (51–52; hereafter "Valediction"). The unity of marriage in "Valediction" is prized, with symbolic images of metaphysical elements and circles used to depict the perfection of lovers and an undying love. "Daystar," however, describes the ritual of marriage and the timeless monotony of the burdens that marriage presents. Thus, marriage can be premised in perfection, as in "Valediction," but the cycle of commitment between two lovers, as in "Daystar," can grow stagnant along the journey.
"Valediction" draws a parallel between the circle of life and death and the relationship between lovers who must eventually part as they once came together. The image "Thy firmness makes my circle just" (l. 35) establishes that the union of two lovers is both necessary and perfect. The metaphysical comparison between the mourning of a dying man and the separation of two lovers before a journey further reinforces the metaphor that love is timeless, yet possesses a physical beginning and end. Donne writes, "So let us melt and make no noise" (l. 5), implying the quiet separation between a man and his soul — or, by extension, the gentle division within a love relationship.
While "Dull sublunary lovers' love" (l. 13) characterizes immature or imperfect love, the lines "But we by a love so much refined...Careless eyes, lips, and hands to miss" (ll. 17, 20) convey Donne's sense of pure connection between lovers with fully developed souls. Thus, "Valediction" describes a fantasy of love — free of flaws or breaks in the circle — in which the purity of the relationship exists between two perfect lovers. Dove's "Daystar" contrasts this image by portraying the realistic relationship between a man and a woman through the toils and struggles of everyday married life.
The theme of men and women bound in marriage in "Daystar" describes the resentment born of the sacrifices that marriage and family demand, as the length of the circle darkens the path from beginning to end. The woman in "Daystar" wanted "a little more room for thinking" (l. 1), establishing that the monotony of a mother's burdens — satisfying her children and her husband — leads her to imagine that when "she closed her eyes she'd only see / her own vivid blood" (ll. 12–14), a sense of life being drained from her. Her precious time alone was spent dreaming of "building a palace" (l. 20), where she could enjoy a few moments outside of her reality and imagine a state of bliss and perfection.
This was "a place that was hers for an hour — where she was / nothing, / pure nothing, in the middle of the day" (ll. 24–27), a space where the burdens that sprang from marriage could be forgotten. When her husband, Thomas, "rolled over and lurched into her" (l. 22), Dove reveals the commitments of marriage — including the sexual relationship — as an expected outcome regardless of the woman's own sentiment. This view of lovers stands far from the idealized vision in "Valediction"; the man and woman in "Daystar" simply commit to the requirements of the relationship without the transcendent spiritual union Donne celebrates.
The endless circle of life and marriage is symbolic of the love, trials, and tribulations inherent in the unity of a relationship. While "Daystar" and "Valediction" both concentrate on the theme of love, they present it through different perspectives, complementing one another by describing the various and parallel elements of a love relationship. Donne describes the fantasy of love, while Dove presents its reality — with all its rituals and burdens. Combining the two sentiments, love can be rooted in eternal adoration, but the journey is filled with expectation and ritual, which account for the greater part of the cycle.
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