Death Shall Die

Throughout the ages and even in our modern world, people strive to defeat death. Mystical phenomena such as the Fountain of Youth or genetic age reversal, strive to find the solution, cure, or key to create prolonged longevity, but in both John Donne’s “Death be not Proud” and Emily Dickinson’s “I Could not Stop for Death” death has a drastically different aspect. In fact, these poets portray death as kindly. As each poem eagerly declares, death has no power. What helped these poets to come to this conclusion? How did their perspective of death alter from the norm? In comparison, these two poems similarly dethrone death and show to the reader that there is nothing to fear when God is on your side. :)

One very popular literary technique used in poetry is personification. Dickinson portrays death as a courtly gentleman ready take his passengers in a comfy carriage, while Donne captures death as a servant. Currently people imagine death as something to fear, a shadowy grim reaper ready to tear a person away from all good in the world. For Christians this poem holds significant meaning by showing that in eternity there is nothing to fear, but sadly unlike a fictitious animation death has real consequences for those who do not believe. Now a days, very few people know for certain where they will go once they die. Do these poems give a false representation of death by personifying it as something good rather than evil? To truly discover why these poems effectively personify death as something not to fear, the reader must look back and research the author. GOOD.

Donne lived from 1572-1631 during which most people professed their religious beliefs as Christianity. In essence after being published posthumously Donne’s audience would be almost entirely Christian. Likewise Dickinson also had a knowledge of God and eternity during her life in America from 1830-1886. Obviously their poems, meant as encouragement, did not intend to mislead others, but how did they come to...