John Donne

John Donne

Multiple Choice
Identify the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

Comprehension
The questions below refer to the selection “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.”

____ 1. In plain English the title “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” means —
|a. |a graduation speech commending the senior class |
|b. |a greeting to a person who had been thought missing |
|c. |a vow never to fall in love again |
|d. |a farewell urging the listener not to be sad |

____ 2. The scene described in the first stanza is —
|a. |a childbirth |c. |lovemaking |
|b. |a wedding |d. |a deathbed |

____ 3. Lines 7–8, “’Twere profanation of our joys / To tell the laity our love,” mean —
|a. |our love is profane but confessing it would absolve us |
|b. |we are the only happy people in a society of miserable souls |
|c. |our love is so sacred that we should not speak of it to others |
|d. |mere physical love is very different from true spiritual love |

____ 4. What phrase does the speaker use to describe the opposite of his and his wife’s love?
|a. |“Dull sublunary lovers’ love . . .” |
|b. |“a love, so much