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Essay on Death Be Not Proud
John Donne 1572-1631 was the most outstanding of the English Metaphysical Poets and a churchman famous for his spellbinding sermons. He was certainly one of the most complex and most difficult among the pantheon of English poets. John Donne’s Death, be not proud is a particularly interesting poem that expresses the act of dying as something natural and pleasant abandoning the reputation it has held for being frightening or powerful.
John Donne’s sonnet is a lovely personification of a rather ironic condition. The poet addresses the subject ‘death’ in a way that challenges society’s viewpoint of the subject. Death basically is a phenomenon feared by many and the very thought of it sends shivers through the hearts of people. In his sonnet, John Donne acts as a literary warrior in refuting this common notion.
In the first 2 lines Donne personifies and addresses Death in the 2nd person, as an equal or even an inferior. In the third and fourth lines his tone is sarcastic: Death thinks it is harming mankind but is really sending people to heaven, while fifth to eight lines are very similar in idea to Shakespeare's soliloquy in Hamlet - To be or not to be. Sleep is like death only longer lasting. Death is only for an instant then off to your reward you go. In ninth and tenth Death is not the boss; people often decide who is to die, eleven and twelve Drugs, also, can produce a more satisfying rest than Death and thirteenth and fourteenth line Death should be afraid, not us.
John Donne toys with a very serious subject in Death Be Not Proud. He challenges the severity of that which ends this world for every man. Donne says that death cannot kill him because he will extend beyond the grave and this world................
