Donne is saying that if you are a Christian you will believe that life begins after death. This is a religious statement and proves that Donne is a clergyman. This explains his view of death. In the line:
‘Die not, poore death, nor yet thou kill mee’
Donne is being sarcastic and patronising towards death and threats it as an inferior. This again shows how he does not fear death. He is almost challenging death and because of his beliefs he feels that he will defeat death. In line five:
‘From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more will flow’
He is telling death that he will find much pleasure in dying. He is saying that sleeping brings much pleasure and when you die you will obtain a lot more sleep. He is refusing to give in to give to death. In the 7th line of the octave
‘And soonest our best men with thee do goe
Rest of their bones and souls deliver.’
He taunts and teases death and again he shows that death is not what it thinks it is. At the start of the sestet he tells death that it is dependant on mankind in order to survive
‘Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings desperate men’
Death is not self-supporting because it relays on things like Fate, kings, chance and desperate men. It relies on fate because it is everyone’s fate to die. It relays on kings because in Donnes time kings had the power to kill people. It relays on chance because sometimes by chance people die. It also relays on desperate men because these men commit suicide. In the line
‘And dost with poison, warre and sicknesse dwell’
He shows us that death is a scavenger because it feeds of ‘poyson, warre and sickness’. In Donne’s time these always made death a threat because back in his time you had to be careful not to catch an incurable disease. He suggests that death is no better than ‘poppie’ or ‘charmes’ in the line:
‘And poppie’ or charmes can make us sleep as well’
He is showing that all that death can do is put us to sleep and it is no the only thing that can do this because ‘poppie’ and ‘charmes’ can as well. In the 3rd last line Donne uses a rhetorical question
‘Why swellst thou then?’
He does this to attack and humiliate death even more. In the final two lines Donne goes back to his religious background by saying:
‘One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death thou shalt die’
Here Donne is saying that death is the start of eternal life with God, so do not fear it.
The rhyming patter of the poem is ABBACDDCEFFEGH. But this was not very obvious due to the enjambment of lines.
I did not like this poem because I found it very hard to understand due to the language used. But I did like the optimism that the poet had to eternal life because in our society not many people have this kind of optimism. Unlike the poem ‘Death be not proud’ the poem ‘Funeral Blues’ is written in the twentieth century and W.H. Auden has a different view of death to that of John Donne. Funeral Blues is the ninth in a series of twelve songs and it deals with the theme of loss and separation. It is an elegy on the death of a loved one and an intense public expression of grief. The poem was also included in the film ‘Four weddings and a funeral’ making it famous.
The poem begins in a commanding tone with the word ‘stop’. From the line
‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’
We learn that the poet wishes to stop all the sound of everyday life that he would normally hear to be stopped. Throughout stanza one we see that every life has ended for W.H. Auden. The line
‘Silence the pianos and with a muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come’
Suggests that this is no normal day but is a special day.
In stanza two the sense of grief becomes even more overwhelming and begins in a demanding tone with the line:
‘Let aeroplane circles moaning over head
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead’
The poet is demanding public recognition to the loss of a loved one. He feels this is a terrible loss, not only to him but also to the whole universe. He wants aeroplanes to go of route to blaze out the message to how the world this terrible loss. He demands that everyone must feel the way he does.
‘Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves’
It is obviously impossible to put bows round the necks of the public doves but this shows the extent Auden would go to, to show people how he feels. Auden expresses the grief he feels even more by saying:
‘Let the police men wear cotton gloves’
He feels that every day should de different not only for him but for every one else as well.
In stanza three Auden has a more personal tone as he uses the word ‘my’ a lot for example:
‘He was my north, my south my east and west’
Auden is expressing what this man meant to him. He was his whole universe. He was;
‘My working week and my Sunday rest’
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song’
Auden shows that this man meant everything to him. He is suggesting that the man was in every aspect of his life. Auden uses moving metaphors to convey what his love meant to him. The first metaphor is one of place e.g.
‘He was my north, my south my east and my west’
The next is on of rest and play:
‘My working day and my Sunday rest’
The third is a metaphor of sound:
‘My talk, my song’
These lines emphasise that the poem is a moving tribute to a loved one. The last line of this stanza is particularly effective:
‘I thought love would last forever: I was wrong’
The reason for this is the simplicity of this line. It adds to the grief that maybe the only good thing that he believed in was gone for ever. The main reason for this line being effective is because almost all the words only have one syllable.
Stanza four echo’s stanza two because in both stanzas the poet is expressing a universal display of grief. In the line
‘The stars are not wanted now, put out every one’
He demands that the stars that light up the sky should be put out because nothing can be the same and everyone should feel sad from the loss of this man. Again in the second and third lines:
‘Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun’
‘Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood’
He demands that all the elements of life are not needed anymore because these are signs and elements of life and with out his beloved life cannot continue. There is contrast in the simplicity of verbs chosen with the elements for example it is obviously impossible to ‘pack up the moon’ or ‘Pour away the ocean’. This again shows the amount of grief inside the port in the last line:
‘For nothing now can ever come to any good’
This is a continued emphasis on how Auden feels. He feels utter desolation and grief stricken.
The poet uses many literacy devices and one and one of them is assonance, for example ‘nothing now’ and ‘my midnight’ this adds to the musical effect of the poem. The fact that the poem has a rhyming pattern of AABB also adds to the musical effect e.g. ‘telephone/bone’ and ‘Drum and come’ All this suggests a dignified march of a funeral.
Of the two poems I found that this one by Auden was easier to understand. I think this was because of the language as it was written more recently. I found that the poem was very interesting. It reminded me of the death of my granddad and it made me realise I am not the only one that have found death horrifying.
Of the two poems that I have read I found many similarities and differences. The main difference in the poems is the era they are written in. John Donne’s poem is a sonnet from the sixteenth century and W.H. Auden’s poem is a rhyming poem from the twentieth century. In John Donne’s time death was always a threat because of executions, war and diseases. This explains his view of death. Also Donne was a clergy man and was not afraid of death, he believed death was only the start of eternal life, while Auden was an ordinary man form the twentieth century and due to scientific explanations he was not as believing as Donne. Auden’s poetry reflects the spiritual interest of modern man in an increasingly complex society. In the twentieth century our concerns are more with the effect of death to those left behind. A wide industry of dealing with death has grown up in the form of councillors and hospices etc.
As the poems were written in different times this affects the vocabulary. Donne’s poem is written in old English and is very difficult to understand while Auden’s poem is written in a more common vocabulary and is easier to understand. The theme of both poems is of loss and death but there is a huge difference in the attitudes of the poets. Auden appears to give up to the power of death but Donne believes that death is only thinks that it is mighty and dreadful e.g.:
‘Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not soe’
Donne believes that death is not what it seems and that death is the start of eternal life with God.
