Compare and contrast the poetic of death and 'seizing the day.' 'Death the leveller' by James Shirley and 'to the virgins, make much of time' by Robert Herrick.

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‘Compare and contrast the poetic of death and ‘seizing the day.’ ‘Death the leveller’ by James Shirley and ‘to the virgins, make much of time’ by Robert Herrick.

‘Death the leveller’ by James Shirley suggests that death is chasing us all, including peasants, kings and queens but there is joy in life and take advantage of what time you have. I will compare and contrast this poem with another called ‘To the virgins, make much of time’ and explain what similarities and what differences these poems have. ‘Death the leveller’ says death is inevitable and the ‘to the virgins’ says that life is great, ‘Carpe diem,’ ‘seize the day.’

The language in these poems are very similar and use very similar verbs, metaphors and adjectives. These is personification in both poems such as ‘old-time is still a flying’ which suggests that old-time is a person and in the other poem there is ‘Death lays his icy hand on kings’ which suggests that death is a person and will eventually get us all. In ‘death the leveller’ in contrast to the ‘to the virgins’ poem there is a lot more powerful verbs used such as ‘murmuring, crooked, stoop, creep, shadows, mighty, tumble, pale, glories and kill. In the ‘to the virgins’ poem, verbs used are blossom, sweet, reap, spent and boast. So in contrast there are more powerful verbs used in ‘death the leveller.’ There are metaphors in both poems especially in the ‘to the virgins’ poem as on the very first line ‘gather ye rosebuds while ye may,’ the word ‘rosebuds’ is a metaphor and this metaphor is drafted throughout the poem. In contrast death the leveller has metaphors such as ‘there is no armour against fate.’ In both poems there are adjectives used such as whither, actions, sweet and in ‘to the virgins poem there are adjectives such as glorious, higher, still, tarry.’ These words describe the verbs and make them sound more powerful but I think stronger adjectives are used in ‘death the leveller.’

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In these poems there are similar rhyme schemes and patterns. In ‘to the virgins’ the rhyme scheme is ‘a,b,a,b,c,d,c,d,e,f,e,f,g,h,g,h, which is saying every other line rhymes. In contrast, death the leveller has a rhyme scheme of ‘a,b,a,b,c,c,d,d etc. for three paragraphs and is a different rhyme scheme to the one used in the other poem. In ‘death the leveller’ there is a rhyming couplet ‘only the actions of the just, smell sweet and blossom in their dust. This rhyming couplet emphasises the point that death can be prevented only people who are just and fight death. In contrast the ...

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