John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet X,” alternatively referred to as “Death, Be Not Proud,” is a component of a larger group of sonnets. As a whole, Donne’s nineteen Holy Sonnets entreat God’s mercy upon the speaker and herald salvation and victory for Christian believers in a world fraught with opportunities for sin and destruction. “Holy Sonnet X” continues the Christian religious themes of the previous fourteen-line poems; however, instead of maintaining the address to God, “Holy Sonnet X” introduces and directly challenges Death, the personified figure of the inevitable end of life. The speaker of the poem, often assumed to be the author, undermines the dominance of Death. By questioning Death’s ultimate jurisdiction over living creatures, the narrator devalues Death’s role in Christian life, echoing the triumph of Christians in the afterlife. The opening two lines of “Holy Sonnet X” introduce and denounce the personified form of death in direct address, a deviation from the sonnets addressed to God that precede and follow it. Commanding Death to “be not proud” of its abilities, the narrator asserts Death’s utter ineptitude; although “some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful,” Donne claims that “thou are not so” (Donne 1-2). According to the …show more content…
By labeling Death a “slave,” an inherently oppressed and subordinate position, to “fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” and the accompaniment to “poison, war, and sickness,” the speaker declares the weakness and cowardice of Death (Donne 9-10). Death cannot act at random or as it wills. It requires an outside influence to create death, such as the suicides by “desperate men” or a mere accident of “fate” (Donne 9). Since these typically dishonorable or unjust causes of death are frequented by Death, Death itself cannot be honorable or just. A recurring theme in the Holy Sonnets is that God is honorable and just. Therefore, God is worthy of exaltation above
He quotes them stating, “Blessed be God for he created Death!…and the Death is at rest and peace…And giveth Life that nevermore shall cease” (Lines17-20). The audience can easily decipher through this quote that the mourners did not harbor anger or an attitude of bitterness. Rather, the mourners obtain an attitude of acceptance. The tone in this quote remains the same as it does throughout the poem. Therefore, the audience can tell that the mourners’ perspective of death was not positive, but at the very same circumstance, they understood it was something out of their control, in which they transferred their emotions to God by praising Him (Line
The student paper written by Delys Waite titled, Imagery, Meter, and Sound in Donne’s Holy Sonnet 7, takes a formalist approach to critiquing the poem. Waite focuses only on a few literary devices to look at how those devices influence the form of the poem. Waite goes into detail describing sound by showing how groups of words have similar sounds that makes the reader say the words slower with more pauses. He addresses these words and how they sound to help emphasize different ideas the poet is trying to get across. Waite does this in a detailed manner by using accents over the letters that create these sounds and by deeply explaining the sound in each word. In the paper, he also discusses imagery and how the images that the poet is creating show how the poet feels about God.
Every writer leaves his mark, his imprint, in his writing; a thumb print left behind the ink if you know how to look for it, and Donne is no exception. The problem is extracting Donne’s imprint, and essence, from the poem, and understanding what that tells us about him. In one poem in particular this stands out, his Holy Sonnet IX, where Donne’s imprint lingers, giving another story behind the text, of his belief in God, but also his inner questioning, and confliction and doubt which come out as contradictions. Behind the text, Holy Sonnet IX, as Donne speaks through his speaker and poem, we come to understand that he is a religious man, though conflicted, which leads to doubt and contradictions, as he resents God in a way, while also just craving for his absolution and for him to forget and forgive his sins and wash them away, sins which weigh on him heavily and he believes taint him.
Donne, John. “Holy Sonnet 5, Holy Sonnet 6, Holy Sonnet 10.” John Donne’s Poetry: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Donald R. Dickson. W.W. Norton & Company. New York, London. 2004. (Handout)
Holy Sonnet XV deals with the question of reciprocal love that runs throughout Donne’s religious poetry. The Sonnet is an address of the speaker’s mind to the speaker’s soul; it is a meditation on the Trinity and man’s relationship to God. The poem’s form and the multi-layered conflation throughout expound upon the nature of the Trinity. The theme of humility in reciprocal religious love or receiving and understanding God’s glory (as Donne understood it) runs throughout the poem. This allows the speaker’s soul to understand his own need for humility in order to love god fully. Donne uses the Sonnet form cunningly in this poem; the formal divisions of the Sonnet reflect the trinity, with three four-line sections, while the inner workings of the poem expound upon God’s love for mankind and the need for humility. The poem’s rhyme scheme is abba/abba/cddc/ee. This formally divides the poem into three four part sections that move from the spiritual to the physical downward through the Trinity, increasing tangibility with regard to the physical and allowing the speaker to achieve a closer relationship with God through Christ.
This is an enjoyable sonnet that uses nature imagery, found extensively in Petrarca, that Shakespeare uses to get his point across. Not much explication is needed, aside the sustained images of nature, to fully understand its intent, but I would like to point out a peculiar allusion. When reading line 3, "the violet past prime" has made me think of Venus and Adonis. In the end, Adonis melts into the earth and a violet sprouts where his body was, which Venus then places in her heart, signifying the love she has for him. Reading this into the poem makes the few following lines more significant. Having Adonis portrayed as the handsome youth, Shakespeare is alluding to the death of youth (in general and to the young man) through the sonnet. In the next line, it is not certain if "sable" is an adjective or a noun and if "curls" is a noun, referring to hair (which is plausible) or a verb modifying "sable." Invoking the allusion to Adonis here, Shakespeare portends that if Adonis did live longer, he too would have greying hair; thus, Shakespeare sees ["behold"] an Adonis figure, the young man, past his youth.
Both "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "Death Be Not Proud" see death as an opponent; however, one sees it as an adversary that is already defeated while the other sees it as an enemy that must be defeated. In "Death Be Not Proud" Donne says "those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow / Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me"(lines 3-4). This passage shows Donne's belief that people will always overcome death. In Thomas' poem, he writes "Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in the green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (7-9). Even the "good men" are in the end defeated by death according to Thomas.
Love and religion are two of the most common topics of poetry. Many of Donne’s poems are on one of these two very different topics, his works are connected through the continuous use of devices such as allusion, metaphor, and pun; providing a bond for each poem, yet a different context for each one. “The Flea,” “Holy Sonnet VII,” and “A Hymn to God the Father” each have distinct themes, but find common ground by the use of common literary devices. “The Flea” is a carnal poem where the speaker tries to convince his lover to be inclined to him. “Holy Sonnet VII” and “A Hymn to God the Father” are religious poems that address apocalyptic visions and serve as a remembrance to God respectfully, while attending to mention the act of pardoning the speaker’s formerly committed wrongdoings
Newman, B. (2004). Rereading John Donne's Holy Sonnet 14. Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 4(1), 84 -90.
The two poems, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”, by Dylan Thomas and, “Because I Could Not Wait for Death”, by Emily Dickinson, we find two distinct treatments on the same theme, death. Although they both represent death, they also represent it as something other than death. Death brings about a variety of different feelings, because no two people feel the same way or believe the same thing. The fact that our faith is unknown makes the notion of death a common topic, as writers can make sense of their own feelings and emotions and in the process hope to make readers make sense of theirs too. Both Dickinson and Thomas are two well known and revered poets for their eloquent capture of these emotions. The poems both explore death and the
has the gentle heart of a woman but is not inconsistent as is the way
In addition, the sonnet is a statement of respect about the beauty of his beloved; summ...
In John Donne’s sonnet “Death, Be Not Proud” death is closely examined and Donne writes about his views on death and his belief that people should not live in fear of death, but embrace it. “Death, Be Not Proud” is a Shakespearean sonnet that consists of three quatrains and one concluding couplet, of which I individually analyzed each quatrain and the couplet to elucidate Donne’s arguments with death. Donne converses with death, and argues that death is not the universal destroyer of life. He elaborates on the conflict with death in each quatrain through the use of imagery, figurative language, and structure. These elements not only increase the power of Donne’s message, but also symbolize the meaning of hope of eternal life as the ultimate escape to death.
In sonnet 1, the speaker is talking to God. He tells God that his death is near. He feels that with all of the sins he has committed he is leaning towards hell instead of heaven. Satan has tempted him too much and he doesn't know if he can even go an hour without giving in to Satan's evil ways. The speaker asks God to give him wings so that he may ascend into heaven and prevent Satan from taking him to hell. There is a sense of manipulation in the speaker in the beginning of the sonnet. "Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?'; In other words, "You're making your own creation look bad if you don't help me to become holy again.'; This starts out the sonnet with a bitter tone, a favorable way for Donne to begin. But in the end, the speaker is pleading God to give him wings, ending the sonnet with a sense of desperation. The worried tone of the last few lines is a rather common one in the Holy Sonnets. It exhibits the r...
Milton returned to England about 1641 when the political and religious affairs were very disturbing to many. He started to apply his work in practice for that one great work like Paradise Lost when penning the Sonnets. Not every sonnet is identical but they can be difficult in interpretation, styles, word use, and so forth. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Milton’s Sonnet 8 (ca 1642), “Captain or Colonel.” This will be done by explaining the type of theme and then separating the sonnet into three sections: lines 1-4, 5-8, and 9-14 for a better understanding of how Milton used the development of ongoing events to present problems with a mystical resolution.