Thursday, November 3, 2022

Assignment - 1 - Death, be not Proud by John Donne

TOPIC OF THE BLOG:-

This blog is part of an assignment for the paper 101 - Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods, Sem - 1, 2022.


'DEATH, BE NOT PROUD' BY JOHN DONNE

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-

  • Personal Information
  • Assignment Details
  • Abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • John Donne
  • 'Death, be not Proud' 
  • Milton and Donne
  • Relation between John Donne and 'Death'
  • Reflection of 'Death' in Donne's other Poems 
  • Why are his most Poems are on 'Death'?
  • Works Cited

PERSONAL INFORMATION:-

Name:- Pooja Anilbhai Bhuva

Batch:- M.A. Sem 1 (2022-2024)

Enrollment Number:- 4069206420220005

E-mail Address:- poojabhuva2002@gmail.com

Roll Number:- 17

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS:-

Topic:- 'Death, be not Proud' by John Donne 

Paper & subject code:- 101 - Literature of the Elizabethan and Restoration Periods & 22392

Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar 

Date of Submission:- 7th November, 2022

About Assignment:- In this assignment I try to define death according to John Donne with reference to his poem 'Death, be not Proud'.

ABSTRACT:-

John Donne, a name who gave us a totally different meaning and point of view to look at 'Death'. Almost every poem by him has a little reflection or point of 'Death' and he was best in it. He went through so many obstacles in his life. He witnessed so many deaths of his own loved ones. He also challenges 'Death' but believes in fear of it too. He believes in the afterlife and has so much faith in God and thinks that through following his religious rules and thoughts he can run from 'Death'. In his 'Death, be not Proud' he in clear words challenges 'Death' and considers 'Death' like nothing. Milton was also influenced by his thoughts and point of view on 'Death' and his Metaphysical Poems. Not only in this Poem but in his Holy Sonnets which has nineteen Poems in it most of it has a glimpse of 'Death' and some are directly about 'Death'. Through his point of view on 'Death' and it's description in his Poems one can see his belief towards God and Afterlife. His 'Holy Sonnets' have Biblical allusions and references. 'Holy Sonnet: Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt' and 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' described about 'Death' of his beloved and favourite ones. If one can read his Holy Sonnets, one can say that he has some obsession with 'Death'. The word Metaphysical came to be used for Donne's Poetry. Indeed he was and is one of the greatest Metaphysical Poets.

KEYWORDS:-

Death, Proudness, Religion, Sleep, Metaphysics, God 

INTRODUCTION:-

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die." (Donne)

- John Donne

Death, it is a word which was truly defined by John Donne in his time which impacted us in this era also. Death is something that we can't ignore but Donne challenges that 'Death' is nothing to us. In his Holy Sonnets one can find His Love towards God, His nature to challenge Death, Personal emotions and many more elements. 

Holy Sonnets, also called Divine Meditations or Divine Sonnets, series of 19 devotional poems by John Donne that were published posthumously in 1633 in the first edition of Songs and Sonnets. (Britannica) This assignment includes Information and Understanding of The Holy Sonnet 10 and which are other elements, Situation, emotions, and feelings made him write this kind of highly influenced Metaphysical Poems and Sonnets. What his inner self told him can be reflected in his Poems and his life also reflects that why he challenges 'Death' and believes in the afterlife. Not only this poem but in other poems too one can find his belief in 'Death'. 

JOHN DONNE:-

(Skelton)

John Donne was born in 1572, London, England and died on March 31, 1631, London. He was a leading poet of Metaphysical Poets, considered as the preeminent writer of his time, greatest love poet of the English language and cleric in the church of England. He is also noted for his religious verse and treatises. He was in the era of jacobean age. They are many notable works in his name like 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning', 'Anniversaries', 'Batter My Heart' 'Biathanatos', 'Death, Be Not Proud', 'Devotions upon Emergent Occasions', 'Holy Sonnets', 'Paradoxes and Problems', 'Pseudo-Martyr', 'Songs and Sonnets', 'The Canonization', etc. His poetry was re-evaluated by T.S. Eliot and other poets in modern times. He also wrote Prose and this a Collection of Letters, 'Letters to severall persons of Honour' in 1651. 

Donne was born of Roman Catholic parents, and his father was a prosperous London merchant. Donne was the third of six children. Donne was four when his father died, and then he was raised by Dr. John Syminges, his stepfather who was a wealthy widower with three children of his own. Donne was educated privately; however, there is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits. In 1583, at the age of 11, he began studies at Hart Hall now Hartford college, Oxford he studied there for three years and then at the University of Cambridge for another three years but because he was a Roman Catholic, he didn't want to pursue a degree from the protestant queen Elizabeth. (Pinka) 

Donne's work is often preoccupied with Death, both as a personified force of nature and as a transitional moment in the experience of humanity. His famous Holy Sonnet 10 (Death, be not Proud) gives Donne's most complete view of the nature of death in the universe. Death is an instrument of God to move his people from frail earthly existence to glorified eternity with him. Thus, Donne sees Death as having an unwarranted reputation of terror among humans. 

In his Holy Sonnets first twelve poems can be grouped by subject matter into two series—six on the subject of death and judgment and six on God’s love for humankind and the human obligation to love God and others in return. (Britannica)

T.S. Eliot says that; 

"A thought to Donne was an experience, it modified his sensibility."

'DEATH, BE NOT PROUD':-

This poem is also known as Sonnet 10 and published posthumously. This Poem includes fourteen lines in it. 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die. (Donne)

Poet:- John Donne 

Rhyme Scheme:- ABBA ABBA CDDC EE

Written:- 1609

Published:- 1633

Genre:- Religious Poetry 

'Death, be not Proud' in the first line of the poem one can see that he challenges Death and says that 'Death' don't be so proud of yourself, you are nothing, further in the poem he says that though everyone calls you mighty and fears you, but in reality you are not. Those you take with you do not die, poor death, and you cannot kill me too. The sleep we get every night is actually much more pleasurable and peaceful than your sleep after Death. The people whom you take with you, only the body you take, not their soul. Through this line one can find Metaphysical elements in this poem. 'Death' You are slave, slave to Fate, Kings, Poison, War, and Sickness, You don't have any strong reason for taking us with you, you just want a chance. Poppy (opium) or Charms can give us better sleep than you. In the last lines of the poem he says that okay, we sleep for some time but then what? We wake again and transfer to another body, our soul never dies. So, 'Death' you die not our soul, You die.  

In this poem he described 'Death' as a little thing. Death is nothing in front of us and in front of our sleep. He compares opium and Death and describes that the sleep by the opium is better than sleep by the Death.

MILTON AND DONNE:-

Sir Walter Raleigh made sixty years ago remains undisputed, "As for the great dean of St. Paul's, there is no evidence that Milton was touched by him, or, for that matter, that he had read any of his Poems." There is, however, at least one significant link between the poets which has been overlooked: Milton's verses 'On Time' indicate that he read and was 'touched' by Donne's 'Death, be not Proud.' This point of contact is particularly revealing because it illuminates the 'temperamental antagonism' between Milton and Donne which critics have deduced. 

Further in this article, Frederic B. Tromly described that one reason the link between the two poems has escaped notice is that the clearest evidence for it does not appear either in the fair copy of 'On Time' in Milton's notebook or in the text he printed in the Poems of 1645. There is in the Bodleian Library, however, a manuscript containing a version of the poem in which the conclusion differs from that of the Trinity manuscript and the Poems. The last line of the Bodleian text clearly appropriates the final line of 'Death, be not Proud':

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

- Donne 

Where death and Chance, and thou O tyme shall be noe more.

- Bodleian MS (Tromly)

RELATION BETWEEN JOHN DONNE AND 'DEATH':-

In his article ‘I am every dead thing’: John Donne and death by Andrew Dickson he wrote that John Donne’s writings are death-obsessed. Poem after poem is haunted by the theme of mortality and many of his letters and prose works explore the subject. Among the awesome variety of subjects Donne tackled in a tumultuous life, death was one he continually, compulsively returned to. As his famous ‘Nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day’ phrases it, ‘I … am the grave / Of all that’s nothing. 

In this, the tenth of his so-called ‘Holy Sonnets’, Donne boldly appropriates a verse form associated with love poetry and refocusses it on the figure whom Christians are meant to love more passionately than anyone else – God. 

Further in this article Andrew Dickson described 'Death, be not Proud' in a different way than I described. He described that the address in ‘Death be not proud’ is aggressively personal, imagining Death as if it were a real, flesh-and-blood individual. Again, the argument is vigorously pursued, asserting that the narrator’s Christian belief will save him from death and bring him to eternal life, along with everyone else who believes: Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell. (Dickson)

REFLECTION OF 'DEATH' IN DONNE'S OTHER POEMS:-

In Poem 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning' By John Donne in first two lines he described about a person who just died and whispered to their soul to go. Here he directly tells about Death without using any metaphor or paradox. 

As virtuous men pass mildly away,

   And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say

   The breath goes now, and some say, No. (Donne)

In his 'Holy Sonnet: Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt' (Holy Sonnet 17) he told us about his beloved that she paid her last debt means she died and her soul goes to heaven. Through these lines it's clear that he has relation with Death that's true but he also believes in the afterlife and has so many faith in God too. 

Since she whom I lov'd hath paid her last debt

To nature, and to hers, and my good is dead,

And her soul early into heaven ravished,

Wholly in heavenly things my mind is set. (Donne)

WHY ARE HIS MOST POEMS ARE ON 'DEATH'?:- 

In the article, The Concept of Death in John Donne and Sohrab Sepehri:A Comparative Study by Behnam Mirzababazadeh Fomeshi got the point that maybe because of this he was influenced by Death and always tries to write on 'Death'. He wrote that Donne experienced many personal tragedies. He was born into a terror. In 1576 his father died when the son was only four. In 157, his sister Elizabeth died, followed by two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, in 1581. Before the future poet was ten years old he had thus experienced the deaths of four of his immediate family. His brother had died of a fever in prison after harboring a Roman Catholic priest, and an uncle, a Jesuit, washanged, castrated, disemboweled, and quartered. Queen Elizabeth's Government, though by contemporary standards tolerant, still uniformly burdened Catholics with harassment and financial penalties. This fact may be one of the underlying reasons for Donne's "religious doubts''. Five of his twelve children died during birth or infancy. Donne endured his wife Ann's miscarriages, and in 1617 her own death at the age of thirty-three (Greenblatt et al, 2006, p. 1261), just a year after he took his first parish job. In his funeral sermon for her, he preached from Lamentations, "I am the man that hath seen affliction". (Fomeshi)

WORKS CITED:-


Words:- 2,465

Image:- 2


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