John Donne

William Empson begins his critical essay on John Donne’s "A Valediction: of Weeping" with this statement. Empson here plays the provocateur for the critic who wishes to disagree with the notion that Donne’s intentions were perhaps less base than the sincere valediction of a weeping man. Indeed, "A Valediction" concerns a parting; Donne is going to sea and is leaving his nameless, loved other in England, and the "Valediction" is his emotive poesy describing the moment.
There is little argument as to what Donne is feeling at surface level: he is sorrowful and grieving because he must be apart from his loved one, who has become his world (a metaphor which is carried out in the second stanza). Empson is indeed correct when he says that the poem is not unambiguous. There is a large range of interpretations that can be made based upon the language in the poem, and these are focused around the source of Donne’s grief.
It is easy for one to picture a grieving sailor lea...