The speaker of “Valediction” is an anonymous man who’s parting from his lover. We don’t have any concrete information about the speaker’s identity. Even so, we can reasonably assume that he’s male, since in Donne’s time men were likelier than women to travel. We also don’t know where the speaker is going or why. It’s clear enough that he’s departing for a journey that will keep him away from home, but how far and for how long remains undisclosed. But these points about identity and travel are hardly the point. What’s mainly at stake in the moment of the speaker’s address seems to be his lover’s anxiety about their impending separation. The speaker is clearly someone who doesn’t like a lot of drama. Indeed, he spends the first two stanzas insisting that he and his lover should part with as little struggle as when, in death, “virtuous men” (line 1) part with life. But lest his exaggerated comparison between parting and death seem a bit emotionally cold, the speaker goes on to demonstrate real care for his lover. His closing conceit about the compass offers a particularly lovely example of his sincere attempt at consolation. He may even be consoling himself!

Izaak Walton, who was Donne’s seventeenth-century biographer, speculated that Donne addressed “Valediction” to his wife, Anne, prior to a trip he made to France in 1611. Although Walton offers no definitive proof of this claim, there is evidence that Donne felt apprehensive about his 1611 trip. As such, it’s possible to interpret the speaker as an avatar of Donne himself. But regardless of whether we agree to equate the speaker with Donne, it’s worth noting that, biographical details aside, both men share a preoccupation with the spiritual nature of their love. Donne was a man devoted to his faith, which his poems and sermons amply demonstrate. Likewise, though he isn’t explicit in his use of specifically religious references, the speaker of “Valediction” emphasizes the spiritual aspects of love. In the fourth stanza, for instance, he mocks what he calls “dull sublunary lovers’ love” (line 13), meaning the base form of love that occurs here on earth between two physical bodies. In a word, he’s talking about sex. By contrast, the speaker insists that he and his lover share a spiritual connection that’s “so much refined / That our selves know not what it is” (lines 17–18).

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