Death in Young Gal’s Blues, One Day I Wrote Her Name, and Song on The End of the World
Death is inevitable. It can inspire, it can cause sadness, and it can cause grief. The poets Langston Hughes, Edmund Spenser and Czelsaw Milosz are able to describe death so beautifully that the reader is consumed by each poem and almost forgets the dark nature of each poem, which is death. The poems by these three poets explore different aspects of death and how it makes one feel. Hughes’ “Young Gal’s Blues” (910) is about a young girl contemplating death, and the fact that she would rather die young than grow old, therefore, the idea of death is explored from the perspective of a young girl. This concept may seem odd, but the way it is presented makes the reader feel at peace with the thought. Spenser’s poem, “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand” (985), depicts the way a man feels after losing his loved one and the fact that his love for her is still strong even after her death. In Milosz’s poem, “A Song on The End of the World” (1124-1125), he discusses the end of the world. This concept is also about death, except it deals with the demise of all things through the end of the world. Although all of the poems explore the idea of death, it is easy to see that the three poets come from different cultural backgrounds which make the poems unique and effective in their ability to convey their perspectives and their individual motives for writing each piece of poetry.
First, in Hughes’ poem, “Young Gal’s Blues,” he strikes out on a note that immediately makes the reader think about death, “I’m gonna walk to the graveyard,” (line 1). This beginning for the poem lets the reader know the subject matter, death. Hughes’ poem is ...
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...th or the ending of the world in a peaceful manner. Since all of the writers are from different periods of time and from different cultures, their poetic styles and points of view on death vary. Although all the poems touch on aspects of death that many people should contemplate, and easily relate to, they are unique, which makes them all more striking, because they are all about a similar subject, yet they all have different perspectives.
Works Cited
Hughes, Langston. “Young Gal’s Blues.” Literature. 5th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 910.
Milosz, Czeslaw. “A Song on the End of the World.” Literature. 5th ed. .Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 1124-1125.
Spenser, Edmund. “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand.” Literature. 5th ed. Ed. Robert DiYanni. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. 985.
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Hughes, a.k.a. Langston, a.k.a. The "Harlem". The [1951] Literature. 5th ed.
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