"Death be not Proud " Literary Criticism Michael Lai, October 2nd |
Historical-Biographical John Donne lived in the 17th Century right during the Protestant Reformation. He was taught by Jesuits and had very strong beliefs. However though his beliefs in his original Catholicism did not change, the ideas of Protestantism. At the time he wrote "Holy Sonnet X" ("Death be not proud"), he was actually in a fairly good position, had a steady income, and things were looking up for him. He had already gone through the ordeal of his marriage and so his feelings were high as he chastizes Death. His wife has not yet died and he assures the reader throughout the poem. His poems of assurance are about the confidence in his election to heaven showing hints of Augustininian predestination. He is however confused by the damnation of all Catholics for he is sure that his father is in heaven, though he is not certain about his mother. So perhaps this poem was also to assure himself, as he himself was not confident. His roots of Catholicism was huge because he suffered from the idea of being alone and catholicism was a community religion and alleviated his fears. His development as a preacher is exemplified in the logic of the argument. Another product is his seizing of any idea to furthur his case. "Death be not Proud" alludes to Christian beliefs with "...eternal rest".
Formalistic John Donne uses metaphors and imagery to effectively kill death. "Death be not proud" (1) through connotation and denotation, is both a command and a description respectively. Apostrophies of Death bring this concept down to the speaker's level. He uses personification in the same way to imply mortality. While in this one idea he skips to another, comparing sleep to a picture of death (metaphor) and arguing that Death should be even better for one than sleep (5). There is an ironic idea that since so many good die young, why shouldn't we all (7,8)? He returns to his original statement and begins belittling Death's ego again. His use of "slave" (9) evokes a sense of the subservience of Death to Fate, Chance, Kings and desperate men. He says this in descending order of power to reduce Death even more in the reader's eyes. Death lies among poison, war and sickness each bringing an image of nausea and disgust though synthaesthesia. Poison usually kills horribly and the aftermath of battle caries the stench of blood and iron, and sickness pollutes the air as they thought in those days. He impudently asks Death the reason for his pride for his blade is duller than poppies and charms. The rhyme scheme is abbaabbacddcee. The very last couplet begins ambigiuosly with eternally able to go either way and the die summing everything up together.
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