Death has many interpretations and perceptions. This essay seeks to compare and contrast two poems “Death be not Proud” is a sonnet by John Donne and Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death”
“ Death be not proud”
Death be not Proud is a sonnet by John Donne. The poem is part of the 19 series holy sonnets, Donne wrote focusing on his spiritual principles and notions. The poem has the organization of a Petrarchan sonnet that comprises of 14 lines distributed into eight and six-line stanzas ( Donne & Adcock, 2004) .
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The poet, Donne tells death not to be proud, since many individuals tend to view it as powerful. However, Donne tells death that it is powerless. Death thinks that it is powerful because it can make people die, but the poet says that people live in the afterlife, so death is not as powerful as it thinks. Donne argues that death is just an image as that of one sleeping, which is a pleasurable thing. “From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be/ much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow” (Lines 5 and 6). In line 7, Donne agrees that death will take the best men from the world, but it will not be a terrible thing, as their bones will rest as their souls go and live in the afterlife in heaven. Donne continues to call death a slave to fate, chance, desperate men, kings, war, poison, and sickness. Moreover, Donne tells death that it has no difference with sleep as it has the same effect as a drug or a stroke would. “And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well/ and better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?” (Lines 11& 12).
Donne uses symbolism and imagery in the poem. He depicts death as a bully who is not a tough, as he may want people to believe. Using various examples, the speaker makes death seem like a good thing, as he equates it to sleep and a path to the heavenly afterlife. The speaker also uses rest and seep as symbols of death as he compares death to them. Additionally, the speaker personalizes death by telling death that it hangs out with a bad company such as desperate men and war.
The tone used in the poem is intimidating. The narrator intimidates death as something that is powerless and not as powerful as it thinks because people fear it. The speaker speaks about death like it was person. The speaker tells death that he does not fear it, as he knows that death is just like sleep and he will wake up into eternal life.
The poem has an irregular rhythm. The speaker depicts his words as if they were a knot of words, coming from up to down and back and forth. The first stanza has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA, while the second stanza is CDDCEE.
“ Because I could not stop for Death”
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” poem has six stanzas with four lines each. In this poem, the speaker remembers of how she met death. The speaker states that she was too occupied to rest for death but death stopped for her. “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me” (Lines 1 and 2). She hoped into death’s carriage, in which she was accompanied by immortality and death. From the way she speaks, the audience deduces that the speaker trusts death. Later, the audience realized that death had seduced her in a manner that she had learned to trust it ( Dickinson & Howe, 2004).
In the second stanza, the speaker enjoys death’s company, much because death is courteous, thus she does not mind it disrupting her life ( Dickinson & Howe, 2004) . Along their journey, the speaker can see children playing on the school fields. They also pass the sunset, and she starts shivering, perhaps because she had left her gown. The journey ends in a cemetery. The final stanza reveals that the speaker’s trip with death took place years ago. “tis Centuries – and yet Feels shorter than the Day”(Lines 21 and 22). The tone of the poem calm, as the speaker seems at ease with her company Death.
Compare and Contrast
Just as “Death be not proud” by John Donne, Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death,” personalizes death. The speaker, talks of how death stopped for her and they rode together in a carriage. The speaker rides with a personified vision of death and immortality. Together with death, the speaker passes through houses and schools and slowly they ride to eternity. Both poems use symbolism to describe their relationship with death. In the poem “Death be not Proud”, the poet uses sleep as symbol that could be equated to death. Similarly, in the poem “Because I could not stop for Death”, the speaker uses the word ride and carriage to symbolize her journey with death.
However, unlike the poem “Death be not Proud” by John Donne, where the speaker is alive, the speaker in the poem Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” has been dead for centuries. Furthermore, in the poem “Death be not Proud” the speaker intimidates death while the speaker in the poem “Because I could not stop for Death” trusts death and in fact travels together with death, which could be interpreted that she loves the idea of having death around. Unlike Donne who views death as powerless, Emily seems to perceive death as powerful.
References
Dickinson, E., & Howe, S. (2004). Because I could not stop for Death ProQuest LLC.
Donne, J., & Adcock, F. (2004). 'Death be Not Proud' . ProQuest LLC.
