Assignment 12

John Donne: "Death, Be Not Proud" (p. 1060)

This sonnet is an intense and mocking (though not comic) *apostrophe to death. The poet chides Death for his arrogance. Death is not final says the speaker; therefore, Death is neither “mighty” nor “dreadful” nor even competent–“nor yet cant thou kill me” (line 4). Actually, Death is rather pitiful–“poor Death”–and, far being from being terrifying, is really to be welcomed like “rest” and “sleep.” Donne then uses the cliched notion that the good die young to point out that Death is nothing more than a transition to heavenly reward. But at the end of the octave of this mixed-form sonnet, the mood changes. There are other reasons to deprecate Death. In this third quatrain, Death is characterized as a slave to human will and fate who dwells in poison, war, and sickness. The implications are clear–Death is not mighty (it is a slave), and Death is ignoble (keeps bad company). Sedatives are just as effective, even more effective in producing sleep. Why then, Death, do you swell with pride, take yourself so seriously? The concluding couplet tells that death can be transcended. The mode throughout is paradoxical, depending on two different understandings of the word “death.”