"Death Be Not Proud" by John Donne

John Donne

www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173363





















        
    

The poem ‘Death Be Not Proud’ by John Donne is a metaphysical poem written around 1610 and published posthumously around 1633. Metaphysical poetry according to definition, is ‘highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression’, and that’s the reason why I love this poem.

Donne, in this poem, puts forward an argument against the power of death. To do this, he personifies death and tells him that he is not at all as powerful as he thinks. I love the way he refers to death as a person because it’s almost like bringing death to his level before telling him off, in this case humanizing him. Like you compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, he wanted death to be on the same par with him so he could articulately relay to him the misconceptions of his power. Line by line Donne puts death in his place almost assuring us the readers that death is comfortable and that we shouldn’t be scared of him.

In condoning Donne’s argument against the power of death, I will attempt to describe the meaning of his ‘ingenious conceit’ towards death. In the first four lines, he tells death even though that some people say that he is ‘mighty’ and ‘dreadful’ he shouldn’t be proud because he is really not that mighty and dreadful because those who death thinks he has killed are really not dead, and besides if he was that powerful why is he, the poet, still alive. John Donne continues in the next four lines to convince death that he brings pleasure to those he embodies and not pain. He says if rest and sleep, which he refers to as a sort of death, are so pleasurable and satisfying, why should death being a stronger version of these pleasures, be painful instead of more pleasurable than them. He even sarcastically gives death a good attribute by telling him that any time you come around and take a good person, their soul finds peace and they get to rest. I can almost hear Donne tell death to go ahead and embrace us so we can rest eternally. Since there is pleasure in resting he’s almost begging death to come. Immediately after a brief pat on the back, Donne resumes telling death off in the next lines by telling him that he is not that powerful as he is a “slave to fate, Chance, kings and desperate men..” and that there are more powerful ways to die and go to rest other than by death itself, so why does Death act so big. In the last two lines Donne trivializes death to nothing. He’s like what’s the big force about you death? After one short sleep then it’s over for you and then you are no more. Then even you get to die. Now what? The suggestion that death gets to die is sweet because he cannot come again.

After all this, the reason I love the poem the most is the irony of the posthumous publication. Makes me wonder if he wrote the poem on his death bed and also what kind of death he had. Did he die from sickness, war or poison? I absolutely love it.